Exercise: The Reluctant I

My Book Lavender Lust, by Cricket Sawyer ISBN1-60601-136-7 from BookStrand available now and the woman who guided my desire to express who I am, a tribute.

I sat there listening to her always with the phrases for everything. A quote, a song title, a bible verse, pulled as if from a small box in her mind. This time it was essential that her directive be avoided (not that it was known then.)

"Brags a good bargain, but hold on is a lot better," she said.

"Then how do you propose a writer will sell his/her work? No one can promote what another has written as well as the author. It's his/her baby, birthed with no fewer labor pains than the birth of a human infant. It seems weird to internalize that phrase and know now that one size, or in this case, one phrase, does not fit all.

Years after her death her phrases pop up as rules of life. Life is not a box of little ticker tape answers to every questions, though a lot of those do strike home with a ring of truth. Following, hanging on her every word helped to raise a lemming, a self-conscious, fearful individual with a couple dozen successes that many have never had, and yet that success feels like an embarrassment. It shouldn't.

Not all her phrases affected life that same way. Expressing the way her grandfather began a story - a phrase she repeated often, began a story created for my only Young Adult Historical novel. Watch For the Raven was born from her phrase, "When Tag was a pup, and turkey's chewed tobaccy."
Her phrases in all fairness did guide and still do.

We stood, the five of us, at her coffin during her wake, the final time we were able to talk with her and reminisced those phrases and funny fax paus she emotionally rendered throughout our growing years. "I'll slap my face against the back of your hand," was meant to be an admonition to my brother for inappropriate actions and words that we no longer remembered. We did remember watching our dad try to repress the laughter lighting up his mahogany eyes, the twitch in his lips that threatened to curve in a smile. Five faces suppressed the laughter only until she caught her mis-spoken words.

Laughter, hearty and long, followed as the tension in the room dissolved in fits of laughter, as it was as we swayed, arm-in-arm, remembering--the good, the bad and the hilarious--

And now alone, I think of perhaps the only wrong phrase, at least for me, that she ever insisted was law. Perhaps, she was right, but never for her daughter, the multi-published, award-winning author who needs to promote herself to sell her books. What would she say knowing about the Erotic Romantic Suspense titles written by me?

Perhaps there is a way to brag without boasting, is that what she meant? Be proud but not too proud? Be verbal, interesting, social, outgoing, be discovered by your talent, not what you say on your own behalf. If only it was possible to ask her for clarification, if only she had lingered as long as her phrases have. If only she had stayed until I had my first book published--then maybe it would have been different. Maybe then she would have said,"You deserve to be proud and brag," perhaps...
(This post sprung from an exercise in the book The 3 A.M. Epiphany. The use of I was permitted but only twice and it had to be a first person narrative.)

~Cricket Sawyer

Silapa’s Amazing Multi-Media Interview with Lee Silver!

I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical when Silapa Jarun, author of Katana Duet suggested we do a multimedia interview. Ya right. I mean, we live like a million miles apart. Well, it was just so sweet of her to offer, how could I say no?

Never underestimate the power of the internet, or for that matter, Silapa

After she gave me a quick lesson on how to use the audio recorder I didn’t have a clue was even on my computer, I sat down to answer her questions. My hubby grudgingly volunteered to do the guy parts from a scene in my new romantic suspense, The Twist with the promise of splitting all the royalties the promo would generate (wink, wink). Fingers crossed, I sent everything off to Silapa so she could work her magic.

I was absolutely amazed when Silapa sent me the final interview! It's fast-paced & fun, weaving a blend of sound tracks and sound bites that would make Barbara Walters blush. The interview was as natural as if we were chatting in the kitchen over a cup of coffee.


Websites, blogs, trailers (yawn). They’re all so…yesterday. Turn up your headphone, ladies, Silapa just raised the bar You can hear Silapa’s interview on my website at http://www.leesilver.org/Page0002.Html

A very sincere thank you to Silapa for doing all the heavy lifting. You can read all about Silapa and her new release, Katana Duet at:

Lee

Lee Silver
"Romance with a Twist"
THE TWIST, BookStrand #1 Bestseller
www.LeeSilver.org

An Idiot's Guide to Book Trailers

Sigh, book trailers, an author's new night mare. You can't live with them and you can't live without them. As a video newbie, I thought I'd share some of the things I learned making my trailer for my new romantic suspense, THE TWIST.



If you are computer challenged like me,making a video is alot easier than building a website. They take a lot of time but they’re kind of fun to do. It’s sort of like making a scrapbook, except instead of choosing the mounts and page color, you pick transitions and background music.

All picture show software seems to work about the same. I downloaded several freebies off the net with some neat effect and transitions, but ended up using Microsoft Movie Maker (MM). The nice thing about MM is it has some audio editing capability. The freebies off the net either didn’t have audio, or it was awkward to add it to the video file. MM comes bundled with Microsoft XP, so you probably have it on your computer and don’t even know it.

Put all of the pictures and audio tracks you plan to use in a common file on a thumb drive before you start. MM creates its own working file but looks to the ORIGINAL location of the source files each time you open a project. If you are switching between computers, it will really cause you problems unless you keep the source files in the same location.

Back up often. I have run MM on two different desktop PC’s and two different laptops. It locks up often, usually at the worst time. Back up often. Did I say to back up often :)

Lay down your basic video track. Keep the text short and simple. It has high impact that way and keeps the viewer guessing. You should shoot for 60-90 seconds so you don’t lose your viewers attention. They tell me text should be displayed for as long as it takes for you to read it out load. Be sure to have a good ten second display of your contact information.

Now comes the fun part; adding music to your video! I strongly recommend that you use registered music. It is more professional than stealing a popular song that everyone knows you don’t have rights to. There are plenty of good inexpensive/free tracks on the net. I like Kevin MacLeod’s work. He only asks for credit and an optional $5 donation. Kevin has hundreds to choose from on his website and the music is arranged by mood with brief description, orchestration and sound bite. Here’s a link to his site: http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/

It starts to get a bit tedious then because you need to play with the video images, effects, transitions and timing so you can synch the video with high points in the audio track. I like to use common subtle transitions at similar breaks in the video and only use shocking transitions where I want to add drama. Use a simple fade unless you have a need for a more dramatic transition. This can take a lot of time. You may need to clip the front or back of the audio to get things to synch up. It will be worth the effort when you see the final video :)

Well, that’s about everything I know. Good Luck & have fun!

Lee

Lee Silver
Romance with a Twist
THE TWIST, Now on Siren-BookStrand's Bestseller's List
http://www.leesilver.org/