Miranda Liasson, Author at Miranda Liasson Romance Author

Fun with the Rubies Today

By Miranda Liasson on Tuesday, Sep 27, 2011 | 0 comments

Are you polishing up your manuscript for the RWA's Golden Heart contest? Pop on over to The Ruby Slippered Sisterhood today to check out the finalists in their First Line contest. The Rubies (who are the 2009 Golden Heart winners) took 100 first-line entries and voted to choose 11 favorites. Those 11 will submit the first [...]

The Book You Wait For

By Miranda Liasson on Monday, Sep 19, 2011 | 0 comments

I knew it was going to be one of those books. The kind that keep you from doing anything you're supposed to be doing, the kind that makes you stay up too late and feel terrible the next day. The kind where you cannot STAND not to turn the page, over and over again. And [...]

The Quirky Things Writers Do

By Miranda Liasson on Monday, Aug 1, 2011 | 3 comments

A few days ago, I finished the first draft of a novel I began writing in April under the tutelage of Lori Wilde in her Novel in Six Months Class at SavvyAuthors. It came in at around 77,000 words. Now mentally exhausted and physically drained, I took the entire weekend off to reboot my weary self. Four romantic [...]

Keeping the Reader in the Story–Advice from Susan Elizabeth Phillips at RWA 2011

By Miranda Liasson on Thursday, Jul 14, 2011 | 0 comments

[Today I thought I'd share with you an article I wrote for the July issue of my local chapter newsletter.] [Wasn't Nationals fun?!]Susan Elizabeth Phillips, bestselling author of contemporary romance, gave a talk to a packed room at RWA Nationals on “Writing the Bestseller: Six Magic Words.” She was highly entertaining and hilarious and packed a [...]

I had to go to France to find an English Garden

By Miranda Liasson on Tuesday, Jun 28, 2011 | 2 comments

I just came back from the family vacation of a lifetime and wanted to share this with you...and then I promise, I will stop talking about gardens!We went to France, even though, alas, I of course wanted to go to England. But with two teens who have taken years of French, France won out. (That's [...]

In the Garden with Jane Austen: Part 2, The Shrubbery

By Miranda Liasson on Monday, Jun 6, 2011 | 1 comment

I promised to take you on a tour of an English shrubbery, as Kim Wilson describes it in her beautiful book In the Garden with Jane Austen. (Please see my last post if you want more information about the book.) The English garden was built to be experienced by walking through it and discovering surprising elements--vistas, benches, [...]

In the Garden with Jane Austen: Privies and Ha-Ha Walls

By Miranda Liasson on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 | 0 comments

At last, spring has hit Northern Ohio. Well, actually, I think we skipped spring and went right into summer. Believe it or not, today the temp here (90-ish) is going to be hotter than Miami, FL! Okay, those were some shots from my garden. I love flowers! I'd like to share some things I learned from [...]

Deep POV Tips from Author Jules Bennett

By Miranda Liasson on Thursday, May 19, 2011 | 0 comments

Harlequin Desire author Jules Bennett gave an awesome workshop about deep point of view (POV) for those of us who attended the Cleveland Rocks Romance Conference this past weekend. Jules gave me permission to post her helpful pointers about writing deep POV and ramping up the emotional stakes in your own work:Before you begin writing, imagine yourself [...]

Living With a Difficult Muse

By Miranda Liasson on Monday, May 9, 2011 | 1 comment

Still consumed with meeting my 1500 words-per-day quota for my Novel in Six Months Class with Lori Wilde at SavvyAuthors, I thought I would share more of my overwhelming frustrations as I continue to learn how to do this!I wrote over 8,000 words last week, all in a state of pure terror. Every morning, I wonder where [...]

Learning to Write Fast

By Miranda Liasson on Monday, May 2, 2011 | 0 comments

I am lucky to be in a course on SavvyAuthors run by Lori Wilde. It is a Fast Track Novel Writing Class that goes for six months. It's wonderful, and Lori is a great teacher. That being said, the agony is that every day, five days a week, each of us has to turn in 1500 [...]