#AuthorLove for Mia Jo Celeste

Let’s give some #AuthorLove to Mia Jo Celeste and her #romance Other Than.

And visit Mia’s blog for a sneak peek at Perfectly Skeptical, a Perfectly Series novella in the Tropical Tryst Boxed Set. It’s HERE

Meet the author ~ Mia Jo Celeste comes from a family of writers and English teachers, so it was no surprise when she chose to pursue both careers. She grew up watching horror movies and reading romances. To her, the two genres go together like salty and sweet in kettle corn.

Mia’s tip for writers ~

Even good writers get stuck sometimes. If that happens to you, I’ve got a quick cure. One that I first read about in Elizabeth’s Lyon’s Manuscript Makeover—riff writing. What’s riff writing? It’s where you take a problem spot in your writing and just like a jazz musician you give yourself permission to depart from the scripted notes or text and create something new. You go off in a spontaneous solo. By that, I mean you brainstorm as you write for ten minutes or so. What you put on paper, may work with your scene-in-progress, lead to another idea or possibly simply be tossed out.

When I write these riffs, I give myself permission to produce junk. If you’ve read A. Lamott’s Bird By Bird, you’ll know what I mean. What you produce is similar to her mistake-filled/ rotten first draft. My writing might be really bad—it might even stink, but that’s okay. It’s the solution-spark or beginning of an idea I’m looking for.

And speaking of solutions, I like to follow a piece of advice taken from one of Shirley Jump’s online classes. She says that your first idea may not be as creative as your third or fourth idea. So, when you get to those spots where you’re not sure what should or could happen next, consider brainstorming three or more possibilities and then writing a riff, an experimental five or ten-minute word exercise for each possibility. Chances are one of your riffs will outshine the others.

When I was writing Other Than I used riffs to nail the Maiden’s voice. The Maiden is the central villain and she’s able to speak telepathically to any of the undead on Lowell Island, which is the setting. She’s in the heroine’s head throughout the story and I wanted her voice to be compelling, convincing and as creepy as possible. Hopefully, you’ll see what I mean. Check out an excerpt HERE