Your Novel Starring...

How about Tom Cruise as...

Before diving into today’s post, I wanted to throw out a book that’s on my to read list.  Since I’m posting about casting your novel (in your imagination, of course), I’d like to suggest a book on screenwriting.  I attended a workshop a few months ago and the author (whose name escapes me) recommended Save The Cat! by  Blake Snyder. 

The workshop focused on developing heroes and villains, and the presenter highly recommended Snyder’s book.  The title Save the Cat! (courtesy of Wikipedia) is a term coined by Snyder and describes the scene where the audience meets the hero of a movie for the first time. The hero does something nice — e.g. saving a cat—that makes the audience like the hero and root for him. According to Snyder, it is a simple scene that helps the audience invest themselves in the character and the story.  There’s your helpful tip for the day! If you’ve already read Save the Cat!,  please share your thoughts!

Alright, now let’s have some fun! We’ve all done this, whether reader or writer—cast a story we love in our imaginations!  I read Gone with the Wind when I was in eighth grade. The movie was already in existence—and perfectly cast.  But I cast a sequel in my head, you know, the one where Scarlett gets Rhett back.  I decided that Linda Carter (Wonder Woman) would play Scarlett (because she looked like Vivien Leigh), and Chad Everett (Medical Center) would re-enact the role of Rhett! To me, he seemed like the only man at the time (am I showing my age here?) suitable to play Clark Gable—I mean Rhett Butler.

Some Vince Flynn (American Assassin) fans think the perfect Mitch Rapp (a black ops operative) would be Gerard Butler.  I don’t believe the role has been cast yet, but the movie is in the works. Recently, I saw the trailer for Janet Evanovich’s One For the Money, starring Katherine Heigl as bounty hunter Stephanie Plum—what a great choice!  I hope Ms. Evanovich is pleased!

Years ago I remember reading how disappointed author Anne Rice was when her novel Interview with the Vampire was cast starring Tom Cruise in the role of the vampire Lestat.  I suppose when movie rights are sold to a novel, the author cuts ties completely and has no control over the future Hollywood incarnation.  But wouldn’t it be nice if writers could sell their novels with the condition that only actors they choose could be cast as the characters they’d created? 

What’s a story that you’ve read or written that you’ve cast in your imagination? Share your story and your dream cast!  Here's mine:

Leonardo Dicaprio

In The Governor’s Sons, I’ve cast Leonardo Dicaprio as the arrogant, charming and self assured  Ash Kroth.  We first meet Ash in 1936 as a young law student.  In the second half of the story, the year is 1965, and Ash is a segregationist governor.

Tatyana Ali

Tatyana Ali would play the alluring college girl Kitty Wilkes, introduced in Part I (1936).  She works as hired help one summer in Ash's family home.  Ash is twenty-three and immediately attracted to Kitty upon first seeing her.  She flirts with him from day one, and soon the two fall in love.

Kyra Sedgwick

Kyra Sedgwick would be Ash's wife, Charlene Stokes Kroth.  Readers don't meet her until Part II (1965).  At this point she has been Ash's wife for over 25 years.  A former beauty queen, Charlene is smart and beautiful, yet insecure.  She knows of a woman from Ash's past, but she doesn't know just who that mysterious woman was, or how that woman forever changed her husband's life.

Thanks for visiting!

The Help in a Box

Aunt Jemima then

Let me open by saying Happy Martin Luther King Day!  Nearly 100 years after the Civil War, Dr. King put our nation on the road to racial reconciliation.  It’s a long road and we’re still on it, but things certainly have improved.

Prior to racial barriers being broken, blacks were relegated to positions of servitude.  Even high achieving blacks in white schools were encouraged by teachers and counselors to seek trades.

If you’ve read Kathryn Stockett’s book The Help, or seen the movie, you get a good feel for what life was like in the South during the early days of the Civil rights era.

With all the talk about The Help, I decided to blog about Aunt Jemima today.  My kids love Aunt Jemima frozen waffles and Aunt Jemima pancake mix.  I grew up eating waffles and pancakes that my mom made from scratch—which is exactly what I did for my kids.  But they prefer the premade frozen and mix (eaten at sleepovers) to my homemade.  Store brand waffles  and pancake mix aren’t as good, according to my boys.  “We want Aunt Jemima!”  (Sorry, Mom)

Aunt Jemima now

Prior to my kids demanding Aunt Jemima, I never bought the products—and seeing the Aunt Jemima label in a black person’s home used to shock me. I realize no ill feelings exist behind the label (Quaker Oats owns Aunt Jemima now), but the origins of the Aunt Jemima character are insensitive, or what's today considered politically incorrect.

When I was a growing up, my mother never allowed Aunt Jemima’s broad, smiling face to darken our pantry shelf (yes, pun intended).  Why did Mom despise this seemingly  innocuous,  jolly woman?  Well it all goes back to southern slave history.

Back in slavery days, very young white children called much older slaves aunt and uncle.  Apparently the practice of calling any black person  aunt or uncle, carried over into post slavery times.

My mother grew up in 1930’s South Carolina, and when white salesmen would come to the door and address my feisty grandmother as Auntie (pronounced “Ainie” in the southern vernacular), she’d say, “My mother never gave birth to anything that looked like you!” before slamming the door.

So, Mom never purchased Aunt Jemima because addressing a black woman as aunt or auntie (instead of Miss, Mrs. or ma'am) was a disrespectful practice.  However, she never had a problem with Uncle Ben, perhaps because he didn’t appear as a buffoonish caricature.  For years Aunt Jemima was portrayed as the stereotypical black mammy of the plantation south. Old Aunt Jemima was a minstrel song written in 1875 and the Aunt Jemima character was a fixture in minstrel shows during the late 19th century.

The idea of this pre-mixed product being represented by a slave woman was inspired by the marketing aspect of bringing back “the good old days” when slaves did all the work.  In the book Slave in a Box, Maurice Manning shows how “advertising entrepreneur James Webb Young, aided by celebrated illustrator N.C. Wyeth, skillfully tapped into nostalgic 1920s perceptions of the South as a culture of white leisure and black labor. Aunt Jemima's ready-mixed products offered middle-class housewives the next best thing to a black servant: a ‘slave in a box’ that conjured up romantic images of not only the food but also the social hierarchy of the plantation South.” (From the Slave in a Box Amazon page).

When I was a kid, my mom said, “if they’d just take that kerchief off her head and call the product Jemima, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.”  Aunt Jemima’s appearance has changed throughout the years.  She’s no longer buffoonish looking and doesn’t resemble a mammy.  She’s been slimmed down, her kerchief evolved into a hair band before finally disappearing, and she now sports a 1980s hairdo.  The only thing that hasn’t changed, and will forever prevent my mom from buying any Aunt Jemima product is the “Aunt” in front of her name. 

Most African Americans of later generations don’t know about the derogatory past of Aunt Jemima.  But there are probably plenty  in my mom’s age group that don’t buy Aunt Jemima because of its hurtful past.

I’ll end things on a lighter note.  I won’t put you on the spot and ask whether or not you buy Aunt Jemima!  But I will ask this instead, do you prefer pancakes from mix or from scratch?

Now let me take a moment to shamelessly plug my book! If you have read The Help, readers have found The Governor’s Sons a good follow-up.  It provides a different glimpse of “the help” by showing what happens when a wealthy young man falls in love with his family’s African American maid. 

Thanks for visiting!

An SEO Experiment

Last time I promised a post using an example of SEO, search engine optimization.  Kim Kardashian isn't someone I'd usually blog about, but I certainly don't think she'll mind me using her name for today's SEO experiment!

To refresh your memory (courtesy of Wikipedia), search engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.  In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users.

If that went over your head, here's the naked truth about SEX, oops, I mean SEO, in a nutshell:  It enables you  to get your website noticed as much as you want it to.  So by planting strategic words in your website, you'll "herd" viewers to it. In today's post, my strategic words are in bold italics. To learn about a free tool to help you effectively use SEO, click here. 

Kim Kardashian is hot right now and the topic of interracial dating (known in some circles as jungle fever) is provocative.  I'm interested in writing novels about interracial/multicultural relationships, so today I'm posting some of Kim Kardashian's opinions.

Kim Kardashian's father is Armenian, and her mother is of Irish and German descent.  Kim Kardashian herself has dated white, black and Hispanic men, so she's knowledgeable on this subject.

So, without further ado, here are some of Kim Kardashian's thoughts on interracial dating:

• Whoever you fall in love with, you can't help that.
• [If a man] is good to you and you love him and he loves you, that's all that matters and your family will understand.
• You have to take chances and you have to take risks...as long as [a relationship] is not harmful to [you], you need to really follow your heart.

To hear Kim's complete thoughts, click here.

Short post, a few strategic words, not sure if I'll get more hits than usual, but we'll see!

Do you use SEO?

Thanks for visiting!

7 UP: Seven Online Marketing Resources for Self Publishing

For an independent author, online marketing is the most challenging part of the publishing process. I took the plunge into Indie publishing a little over two months ago, and I've since learned that writing the book was the easiest part! Formatting and uploading to Smashwords, Amazon's Kindle Publishing and Barnes and Noble Pubit was a somewhat manageable endeavor (even though I'm technically impaired). But online marketing is a totally different animal!

I'm still learning the ropes of online marketing, and lucky for me, my husband, a small business owner, thrives on it. Today I'd like to share a few things I've stumbled upon on my own, as well as information my husband has provided.

Let's just take a quick look at the basics. If you're serious about independently publishing and getting your author platform in place, establish a website and or blog. When I first explored developing an author platform, I created a blog here on Blogger for free. I've since turned my blog into a website, since I can create pages in Blogger. Another great site for creating your own free blog/website is Wordpress.   

In addition to creating author pages on Amazon, Facebook and Goodreads, and joining Twitter, Shelfari and Library Thing, there are numerous blogs out there to help Indie authors promote their work by offering boatloads of free advice. Several books are available too, that are reasonably priced and well worth the cost in helping you build your career. Although not technically online resources, the books I've included help you develop your online marketing techniques.  If you haven't already, visit the links below, and up your marketing knowledge by utilizing these seven resources!

BLOGS

1. The Creative Penn - Joanna Penn provides great information to help you write, publish and sell your book.  She is an author, blogger, speaker and business consultant. This site is aimed at people who are interested in writing, publishing of all different kinds and Internet marketing/promotion for their books (in print/ebook or audio format).


2. Book Cover Cafe - Anthony Puttee is a book marketing professional who works with writers and authors. Having worked in the publishing industry for over 6 years alongside other professionals in the industry such as publishers, editors, book  cover designers and marketing experts, you’ll see that he's passionate about crafting quality books and marketing strategies that work.

3. Marketing Tips - Tony Eldridge is the author of the Twitter tools marketing book, Conducting Effective Twitter Contests which helps people find targeted Twitter followers. He also shares his book marketing tips with fellow authors through his blog and through his free video marketing tips for authors.

4. Guerrilla Marketing - Jay Conrad Levinson offers great advice to market any business. His mission is for businesses to achieve conventional goals using unconventional methods by leveraging energy instead of money. For example, buzz marketing (word of mouth) and social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

BOOKS

5. How I Sold a Million eBooks in Five Months - Entrepreneur John Locke reveals the marketing system he created to sell more than 1,100,000 eBooks in five months.  Well worth the Kindle price of $2.99!

6. Dollars and Sense: The Definitive Guide to Self Publishing Success - A step-by-step guide to increasing royalties for beginners and professionals. Divided into three sections; Producing a Sales-Friendly, Professional eBook, Leveraging Your Social Media Platform, and Selling Smarter, Not Harder, Dollars & Sense walks authors through the process of writing and selling their eBooks. A steal on Amazon Kindle at $.99!  I recommend that you read this before you self publish.

SEO

7. Using SEO, Search Engine Optimization, will draw people to your site.  According to Wikipedia, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users.

The more people that visit your site, the greater your visibility. Downloading an SEO tool, such as Wordtracker SEO Blogger (free) will help you better understand what SEO is and how to use it effectively.

In the next post, I'll use an example of SEO.

Best of luck in your self publishing endeavors! Are you an Indie? If so, please share any helpful information you've discovered as an Indie author!

Thanks for visiting!


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Doris Day: Success Despite Tears



 Doris Day is releasing a new album this week entitled My Heart!   This is exciting news for all Doris Day fans because she's been out of the public eye for 17 years. 

I'm a fan, and Ms. Day is one of my favorite actresses.  She's an inspiration because her story is one of trials and perseverance.  She's also from my hometown, beautiful, historic Cincinnati! 

I'll thank you not to "dis" Cincinnati, please.  I've heard it all before...home of the Cincinnati Bungals, the Big Dead Machine, and Over The Rhine--once rated the worst neighborhood in the United States!

However, Cincinnati is home to several Hollywood legends.  Director Steven Spielberg was born there and actress Sarah Jessica Parker grew up in Cincinnati.  Dancer Vera-Ellen, singer Rosemary Clooney, and super star George Clooney all hail from the Cincinnati area.

But today, the spotlight is on Doris Day, actress, singer, dancer, super star! She could do it all, and as an actress, she could play dramatic roles, just as easily as comedic ones.  Add to that her pretty looks, svelte figure, magnificent legs, and presto--you have box office dynamite!

Despite her sunny, perky disposition, Ms. Day's road to stardom was filled with heartache and tragedy.  As a young teen, she had hopes of dancing professionally, and even won $500 in a contest with her amateur dance partner, Jerry Doherty.  But her dream to become a pro came to an end in 1937, when her leg was shattered in an automobile accident.  The car she was riding in was hit by a train.  However, while recovering, she started singing along with songs on the radio, and discovered a talent she didn't know she had.  Her mother paid for voice lessons from teacher Grace Raine, who said Doris had "tremendous potential."

Doris eventually sang on a local radio program, at a restaurant, and then went on to perform in the band of Cincinnati bandleader Barney Rapp (whose daughter Bonnie was my kindergarten teacher).  It was while performing in Rapp's band that she met trombonist Al Jorden.  She originally thought him a creep, but later fell in love and married him at the age of 17--he was 24.

Jorden abused Doris physically, cheated on her, and even insisted that she have an abortion when she became pregnant.  She kept the baby and later left Jorden.  Ironically, Doris's main ambition was to become a full time a wife and mother, not a super star.

As a single mom, she recorded "Sentimental Journey" in 1944, and that song made her a star.  A second marriage followed to saxophonist George Wiedler.  That marriage ended after less than eight months.  By this time Hollywood had noticed Doris, and Wiedler (not fond of her son, and already cheating on her) didn't want to be known as Mr. Doris Day.

By 1951, Doris was on her way to super stardom and had married her third husband, Marty Melcher.  But 17 years later, Melcher and his business partner squandered her $24 million dollar fortune.  Melcher died leaving Doris $400,000 in debt. He'd also contracted her to do a television sitcom, which she had no desire to do. But she did it anyway, and gave it her all.  The TV show saved her, and she was later awarded a court settlement after suing Melcher's business partner. 

The Doris Day Show was a success and ran from 1968 through 1973, which is how I first became acquainted with Doris Day when I was a kid.  Back then I had no idea of her tremendous talent.

Doris Day is the number one female box office star of all time, and she's the only one who was number one four years in a row! Her extensive body of work includes 39 films and 29 albums.  Today, she works as an animal rights activist.

 "Que Sera Sera" is known as her signature song, and she is a true example of that mantra, "whatever will be will be."  She has experienced numerous hardships in her career and personal life.  But she has endured and maintained a positive outlook.  "...I just feel so fortunate and so blessed to have been able to entertain people in the theatres and on record, it’s just an amazing life that I’ve experienced." – Doris Day

My favorite Doris Day film is Calamity Jane.  In it she sings the song "Secret Love," which won the Academy Award for best original song of 1953.  Last year I learned that Doris Day had had a real "secret love" when I read that she'd had an affair with Maury Wills.

Wills is the famous L.A. Dodger base stealer, and one of the first, post-Jackie Robinson African American integration baseball players.  According to Wills and a Day biographer, the affair took place in the early ‘60s.

I had known about another interracial relationship in Doris's life, but it involved her father. In her autobiography, Doris Day: Her Own Story, she talked about her father's dislike of blacks, yet, later in life, he married a black woman!

Interracial relationships are becoming more commonplace now, but black and white couples still tend to turn a few heads. These relationships no longer need to be kept secret, however, that was a different story not so long ago.  I've written about a secret love in The Governor's Sons. I hope you'll read it, then be thankful that times have changed, and then enjoy a Doris Day movie!

Thanks for stopping by!