<![CDATA[Heather M. Riccio - My blog]]>

<![CDATA[Heather M. Riccio - My blog]]>Sun, 20 May 2012 05:10:01 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Lucky 7: Peek at a new story ]]>Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:13:12 -0800http://heathermriccio.com/1/post/2012/03/lucky-7-peek-at-a-new-story.html

The Rules:

Go to page 77 of your current MS.
Go to line 7.
Copy down the next 7 lines/sentences, and post them as they’re written. No cheating.
Tag 7 other victims …er, authors.

Thanks to one of my fabulous authors, Kate Avelynn, for tagging me!

I picked SEMI DORK because, not only is it my current WIP, it's a bit of my past. Anna is like me in so many ways. Anna has be talked into going to fat camp over the summer by her so-called conniving friend, Beth. Beth is not who we think she is, but find that out later.

In this scene, Anna finds one of the camp counselors, Chrissy, pill popping. She's afraid she's suicidal:

“Death isn’t the answer,” I said rubbing her back. I knew the lioness could tear me to pieces, but she leaned into me instead. Black smudges stained my white polo shirt.

“Yes, it is,” she said. “People would move on if I was gone, and I would be at peace.”

“You wouldn’t be at peace. Your soul would wander in turmoil,” I said.

“Ok, Dr. Phil,” Chrissy said wiping the snot that was pouring out of her nose.

“It’s true,” I said, “and what you want to do is selfish, not courageous.”

Chrissy looked at me a bit shocked. Her tears temporarily stopped flowing. “You know way too much,” she said.

I rolled my sleeve up to my shoulders, revealing the scars I had left there years ago. “Cutter,” I said. “I wanted to feel the pain. I wanted to know I was still alive. I felt everything. I have those scars as a constant reminder.”

And now I get to pick 7 victims! I’m going to tag:

Nicole Steinhaus
Candace Havens
Jessi Gage
Tori Scott
Paula Altenburg
Cindi Madsen
Jenna Bennett

]]><![CDATA[25 things you may not know about me, but now you do! ]]>Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:08:38 -0800http://heathermriccio.com/1/post/2011/12/25-things-you-may-not-know-about-me-but-now-you-do.html1. I'm a native Palm Springs baby. There aren't many of us.
2. I spent most of my summers in NY. People thought I was spoiled because I went to NY so often, but if their families had have been from Washington or Mississippi, my summers would have been spent there instead. My dad was from the Bronx, Riverdale area, and my mom from Blasdell, NY. It's a small town right outside of Buffalo, NY.
3. My Great-Uncle Tony (aka Sonny) owned Martonis in Hollywood in the late 60s and early 70s. Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin were also seen in there. My great-uncle even denied the late Sonny Bono entrance into his restaurant because he wasn't dressed properly. It's rumored that Sonny retaliated by writing the song "Laugh at me." It's ironic that I work for the PS film festival sometimes since that was Sonny Bono's baby.
4. My grandpa was part of NYPD's finest. He was part of the Times Square police force for almost 15 years. I tried bringing up the Mafia and Black Panthers a couple of times, but he changed the subject. I learned to leave it alone.
5. My great-uncle opened up Riccio's in Palm Springs after he realized all the celebrities were retreating to PS. Frank Sinatra still frequented his new restaurant. My grandpa moved everyone out to Palm Springs to help out.
6. In college I was part of Sigma Kappa. I love those girls and will love them for life. They taught me it's ok to be me. I like me. No, scratch that, I love me.
7. In college I also joined the school newspaper, the Highlander. I was the assistant news editor and also the Features Editor. They entered me into a contest.
8. That contest opened up so many doors. It was to be part of Teen People's news team member team. Out of thousands of applicants only 20 were chosen. I was one of those 20. I was the eyes and ears of Teen People for over two years. I was also published in that magazine.
9. At Teen People, I met a girl from Florida named Scarlett and I helped her start Beautiful Girl magazine. In a year we managed to get it into Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Borders and Books a Million. Not bad for two girls still in college. :) There is a video of the startup magazine on my videos page.
10. Through that I met Hilary Rowland, an amazing model and business mogul. I started working for her on and off helping her with www.urbanette.com and www.newfaces.com. I love learning from her. I still help her out to this day with another company, www.projectmigration.org, a fashion accessories company with a charitable initiative.
11. I started out as a drama major in college, but realized I was too shy so I switched to bio. That lasted a year. I hate math, but my roommate from college stuck with it and she is a fantastic biology professors at Fordham University now.
12. I spent the next year searching for what I loved. I realized I loved reading and writing so I majored in literature. I minored in creative writing. I also realized I loved anthropology so I double majored.
13. I love monkeys and I love studying other cultures. I still use my anthro background to this day in my writing.
14. I'm a spa baby. I don't think there are too many procedures I haven't tried.
15. My freshman english teacher, Mr. Pascualini said I would never make it as a writer and to quit while I was ahead. I took offense to it and showed him. I moved into AP English and Dr. Linn kicked my butt. I will always love her for that.
16. I'm an extreme sports junkie. No really I am. I've been skydiving, Zorbing, paragliding and ziplining. I want to shark cage dive and bungee jump still. I wrote an article for one of Hilary's websites once about this, www.urbanette.com.
17. I will be forever grateful to my professors in college who constantly push me. Tod, Mary, Susan, Gayle and Stephanie. Thank you!!! I will repay you someday.
18. I love to travel. I have been to Australia, Costa Rica, England, France, and throughout most of the US and parts of Canada. I have made travelling every four years around the presidential election a tradition of mine. I vote and then take a long vacation...just in case. Haha.
19. Thanks to my mom living in Blasdell when she was younger, I have been to Niagara Falls many, many times. I have been on every tour of Niagara Falls imaginable at least twice. It's alright though. I lvoe Niagara on the Lake. Fabulous shopping there.
20. I have learned great discipline and patience by working for the famliy business.
21. GQ once did a photo shoot with Benjamin Bratt right after Ocean's Eleven came out at the restaurant. Also, I love movies. I cry at the thought of one of my books eventually being turned into a movie. I hope to write a successful screenplay someday too. It's part of my bucket list, but that's for another list, and on another day.
22. Many celebrities have frequented Riccio's including all of the girls from Friends, Brad Pitt, Mariah Carey, Sidney Sheldon, Mr. Sharp (he owns all of the Four Seasons hotels), and some of our former presidents. Oh and lots of music people. I'm almost never star struck thanks to my family. Hell I hung out with Kevin Rahm from Desperate Housewives during the film fest and loved it. They are no different than everyone else, and would like to be treated as such most of the time.
23. My Uncle Bob used to work for Sony music when he was a little younger than me as a promotions assistant. He became friends with Tommy Shaw from Styx. My uncle made work his life. It's also what killed him so young.
24. Tommy Shaw used to see me a lot when I was younger and then saw me again when I was 21. He asked my Uncle Bob, "That isn't Heather is it?" My uncle paused, looked at him, and sarcastically said," No, that's not Heather." Then he laughed and said, "Of course it's her." I think I made him feel old. :( He's a nice guy though.
25. I met Ellen Hopkins at an SCBWI event a couple years ago and was in awe. I also met Robin Benway at another event a couple months ago. I strive to be just like them. Sucessful enough to do what they love and write like there is no tomorrow. I wanted to be just like Susan Straight and Gayle Brandeis as soon as I started working with them, both of them successful writers.

]]><![CDATA[My December 2011 YA Stands post on revising and rewriting ]]>Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:27:42 -0800http://heathermriccio.com/1/post/2011/12/my-december-2011-ya-stands-post-on-revising-and-rewriting.htmlRejection hurts. Body aches and head spins around and around trying to figure out if we did anything wrong as writers. Is what we wrote not good enough? Did we not think everything out? Was the idea already out there and we just didn’t know it? Or was it because we sent the piece out prematurely? Often times, it’s the latter. Agents see an increase in submissions after Nanowrimo or National Writing Month that takes place throughout the whole month of November. More often than not those pieces shouldn’t have been sent to the agents that fast. Why you might ask? Because we need to revise and revise again. The first day of class in my MFA program we were all told two things: one, writing isn’t instantaneous and two, if you’re not into rewriting, get out now. Writing is all about rewriting. No one, not even Edgar Allen Poe, wrote a great first draft, but they might have written a killer second, third, or fourth draft. This is something we need to keep in mind. In one of my classes I was given a revision checklist, which has helped me over the years and it’s something I think can help us all.

So here’s what I was told and it makes total sense. The first draft is for you and the finished draft is for them. The first draft, or the creation of the novel, was our gift to ourselves. Now, through revision, it’s our contribution to others. There are seven steps for a successful revision.

1. Read it out loud. –If something sounds bad, cut it out or change it. I used to be afraid to cut whole paragraphs out and now I can cut whole pages out no problem because I know whatever I come up with to replace it sounds a hundred times better.
2. Always back up your work. –You can completely decapitate your work, but always come back to the original living body of your work.
3. Revise at least two times.—Strip your work down to its bare bones and then build it back up piece by piece.
4. Go through amazing open doors. –Sometimes in the revision process our characters might reveal something to us we didn’t know was possible in the first draft. Go through that new open door in your revision stage and see what the outcome is.
5. Chop the last sentence and last paragraph out—The truth is sometimes by the end we run out of steam and sometimes the novel or short story might be stronger cutting the last paragraph out. Try it and see what happens.
6. Cut EVERY other sentence of dialogue. ---Dialogue slows down the narrative and the truth is most of us aren’t that long winded and even if we are, people tend to tune us out half way so cut, cut, and cut some more through the dialogue and you’ll be surprised at how much stronger that piece of work will be.
7. Make the last sentence the first or the first sentence the last. It’s weird how this works, but just trust me when I say it does.

Now knowing all of this, I want you to revise and revise some more. Don’t send your work out prematurely and remember that persistence is the key to everything! ]]><![CDATA[Why I encourage other writers to join societies like SCBWI and AWP]]>Wed, 07 Sep 2011 09:31:29 -0800http://heathermriccio.com/1/post/2011/09/why-i-encourage-other-writers-to-join-societies-like-scbwi-and-awp.htmlI joined SCBWI in 2008 and it’s been the best decision I ever made. I’ve been to many speaking engagements before I joined SCBWI, through the MFA program, but many YA speakers forget to mention SCBWI. I don’t fault them for it. They have a lot to usually get through, but I do think it’s a society everyone should join if they are even remotely interested in publishing in the YA, middle-grade, or picture book categories. It’s not exclusively for writers either. It’s also for illustrators.

If writing for teens and children isn’t up your alley, I encourage you to join a writing society. There are so many out there and almost all of them offer their own membership benefits and have conferences throughout the year. This includes AWP, the Mystery Writers of America, Horror Writers Association, Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers of America, and many, many more. Personally, I love writing picture books, MG, and YA books so SCBWI feels like its tailor made for me.

The first person to turn me onto SCBWI was my professor, Juan Felipe Herrera, for children and YA writing course. A children’s book author himself he knew the importance of joining a society like SCBWI. Through SCBWI one is able to make valuable connections with other authors, editors, and agents that you wouldn’t normally be able to talk to except through e-mail (if you’re lucky). SCBWI started back in 1971 and has since then grown to over 22,000 members worldwide with over 70 regional chapters that range from board books to YA (Young Adult) novels. It’s the largest children’s writing organization in the world.

I’m glad he did encourage me. I’ve also had other professors recommend I join SCBWI as well. Since I first joined, I’ve been to several spring conferences in Temecula, CA; and am attending my first ever Working Writers Retreat this weekend. At every event I’ve attended, I’ve made valuable contacts and more importantly, I’ve built up a network of like-minded writers who are all in the same boat. We all want to be published and we are all there to help each other out.

I’ll let you know how the event goes! Even after obtaining my MFA and attending other conferences, I still get nervous reading my own work out loud. I think because I'm reading a little part of me. Even if it's a small part.

In the meantime, happy writing!

Heather

]]><![CDATA[Why I went back for my MFA]]>Mon, 05 Sep 2011 09:42:36 -0800http://heathermriccio.com/1/post/2011/09/why-i-went-back-for-my-mfa.htmlAt eighteen, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. Most people don’t and those who actually do know are few and far between. I entered UC Riverside as an acting major; Never mind, that I hadn’t taken any acting classes in my life, but had done some modeling in high school. The UC system allowed me to change my major right away and I had always loved science so I decided to become a science major my first year. That didn’t last past my freshman year because I hated math. Still do, but it allowed me to do something amazing. This confusion about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life gave me the freedom to explore as many majors as I wanted.

My sophomore year in university I became a liberal studies major with an emphasis in English and a minor in Creative Writing. I loved to analyze everything so this was perfect. That same year I also fell in love with anthropology so I decided to double major my junior year. Anthropology allowed me to get inside heads of people and cultures. It gave me the courage to think bigger. Something I hadn’t done till college. I wanted to do something meaningful with my life.

I loved writing and anthropology so much that I ended up taking several years to decide which one I wanted to go back and get my masters in. I loved studying cultures. The stories my professors would come back with amazed me. They’d talk about smoking peyote with the locals or smuggling people to freedom. They’d speak about bringing supplies back to countries where people couldn’t get basic medical care, a proper education or even a roof over their heads. They’d talk about women who had to sell themselves to put food on the table. They wanted to be a part of the solution. They’d help these women start their own businesses, even though the businesses were small, it was enough to put food on the table without having to subject themselves to the degradation they had in the past. I wanted to help so much. I even considered sending letters out to work with Dr. Weil (And get my masters at University of Arizona where he was teaching at the time).

I had letters of recommendation for both an anthropology masters and for MFA programs. I almost applied for the anthropology masters, but writing tugged at my heart and soul more. In the end, it won. It was in a Masters program that I really learned to hone my writing and to think about feelings and emotions. I could write analytical papers no problem. Give me a 20 page paper on Egyptian women and their households and I could turn that around quickly. Understand that evidence on Egyptian women was often burned so this took awhile to figure out, and yet I could do this faster than delving into a character’s emotion or mind. It took a master’s program to force that out of me. I had to imagine myself in their shoes. I found myself getting upset at the murder of a father or sad at the desperation in a character who just wanted to find out who she really was. It opened up a side of me I never knew I had. It’s that reason that I highly recommend going back to get an MFA.

In the process, I also found a happy medium when it comes to helping others. I work pro-bono as the Director of Partnerships for Project Migration, a fashion accessory company with a charitable initiative. Proceeds from the sales go back to help single mothers and their children in Africa. No matter what happens during the day I always write. If I’m angry, I let that emotion come out because sometimes my character’s best emotions come from the pain I’m feeling. Allowing them speak, allows me to heal. Something I couldn’t have done if I didn’t learn how to write everything out.

]]><![CDATA[Why I became a writer]]>Fri, 02 Sep 2011 08:08:25 -0800http://heathermriccio.com/1/post/2011/09/why-i-became-a-writer.htmlI could have taken the easy way out. My family has owned successful Italian restaurants for over thirty years. When I was younger, I used to sit in our oversized dark red booths and hear about how my great uncle and Grandpa were good friends with Frank Sinatra. I remember my dad telling me that he worked out in Hollywood with my great uncle one summer at the restaurant my Uncle Sonny used to manage for years called Martonis, and at the end of the summer his reward was a trip on Frank Sinatra’s plane that was flying to Vegas where my dad would hear Elvis in concert. I would hear about how when my Aunt Tisha was a little girl sat on Cary Grant’s lap. I would hear stories about Styx and Damn Yankees from my Uncle Bob, may he rest in peace. He used to do promotions for them ages ago.

And, recently one of my uncles, who was in the Vietnam War and had married a German woman named Bonita, told me that his ex-wife had a grandpa who was a Nazi. She was poisoned into thinking that everyone was inferior to the German race. She would often tell him in arguments, “You cannot help that you are the way that you are. You’re an American and of Italian decent. You’re not German and Germans are the perfect race.” They used to argue often over that and when she wanted him to stay in Germany with her and wouldn’t let him see his family, his answer to her was a no-brainer; they divorced.

Most people would think it's a no-brainer, why not just fall into the family business. Everything is set up, but if I did that I would be miserable. Now granted working for family has allowed me time to write my YA novel, but would I never run a restaurant. It's not my passion. Writing is.

Writing doesn't pay well most of the time, but I don't care. It's what I love. I live and breathe for my writing. That's how my uncles feel about the restaurant business. When we had to sell one of the restaurants you could see the devastation in their eyes. Now that's passion and love for what you do. If someone told me to just stop writing, they better have a damn good justification for it. Even then I wouldn't listen.

I often come across people in the restaurant who are eager to read my book and ask when it will come out. What they don't understand is that writing is also about rewriting. It's about rewriting some more. It's about sending it out to an agent and hoping they love it. It's hoping an editor will love it enough to sign you on as a client and it's hoping you have a fan base that will continue to grow. Otherwise you're just writing for yourself. In any event, even if it takes years, I'm not giving up. It's a persistence game. You don't tell a MLB player to stop playing baseball or a ballet dancer to give up because her feet are too big or her stance is too wide. They wouldn't give up, they'd work harder. That's what I do. Work harder to follow my passion because that is what life is about. Having something to live for and the courage to go after it!

Happy writing!

Heather

]]><![CDATA[My facebook link]]>Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:22:14 -0800http://heathermriccio.com/1/post/2011/08/my-facebook-link.htmlTo contact me through facebook, you can find me here: http://www.facebook.com/HeatherRiccio. ]]><![CDATA[First Post!]]>Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:42:45 -0800http://heathermriccio.com/1/post/2011/08/first-post.htmlEveryone else has a web site these days, so I figured, why not me, too?

I'll mainly use this site to post my writing. My crazy and weird, yet oh so imaginative mind.

I am currently working on a YA novel, The Sense Keeper. Told from a fifteen, going on sixteen year old girl's point of view, this book is going to top the charts in the next couple of years. I promise you that.

Nothing is going right in her life. Her dad has died. No one believes her when she thinks it was a homicide and she's moved into her grandparent's house in Elm, NY, the smallest town she has ever seen. It's up to Abigail to figure everything out before it's too late. Before she's one of them.

Keep checking the blog on my site for updated information on that book and other short stories of mine. My other writing collection that I am working on is a short story collection told from different women around the world. It explores the sheer fascination and utter horror of being a woman in a different culture. There is strength inside us all and that's what I explore..]]>