Friday, October 21, 2011

Cover Me and writing tasks

Just finished Cover Me by Catherine Mann.  Wow!  Great story, engaging characters and I'm still cold from all of the harsh weather in Alaska (even though it's in the high 80's where I am).  A wonderful example of military romance that I learned about from reading the SOS Aloha Blog when Kim featured this book ( link ), prior to that I had never heard of PJs (pararescue jumpers) outside of something that I steal from my husband to wear to bed!  Ms. Mann has obviously done extensive research and provides mutliple intriguing tidbits (green footprint tattoos in honor of the big green helicopters used initially) to give realistic details in her exciting romances.  Can't wait until the next one, Hot Zone (no, not the disease-laden one) comes out in December 2011, not to mention the next one after that which features a dog trainer!   My Goodreads review link

For those interested in the writing class...it is a blast!  I can't believe how little has been charged because Linnea Sinclair puts a tremendous amount of time and effort into helping us learn to dissect what's important in a novel.  I still feel like a fish out of water amongst all of these published authors but Ms. Sinclair is helping me understand why I am so fond of her own books as well as how to analyze why I am immediately caught up by some novels yet easily disenchanted with others.  Thus far we have analyzed tropes and opening paragraphs (it is startling to realize that many agents/publishers/critics can tell by the first 3 paragraphs whether a work is going to be worth reading!) and are now moving on to telling vs. showing.  Ms. Sinclair has an engaging teaching style and provides pertinent references (there goes the book budget) and concrete examples and I highly recommend her classes to anyone interested in writing or refining their writing skills.  Kudos to her also for the upcoming movie based on her book The Down Home Zombie Blues!

2 comments:

  1. Taking that class sounds like a lot of fun. I thought of taking a class like that at one point a few years ago, but never followed through.

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  2. I highly recommend this class or something else taught by Ms. Sinclair. She really tries to give one skills to use for analyzing writing and improving one's own efforts.

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