More Napkins, Please

Today my guest is author Katherine Grey. Katherine writes historical romance set primary in the Regency period. Her debut novel was released in August, 2011. In today's blog post she tells us how she learned where her story ideas come from.

Have you ever wondered where writers get their ideas? Or as a writer been asked, “Where do you get your ideas for your books?”

The first time I was asked that I floundered around for an answer like a fish caught on dry land. I didn’t know what to say, my mind jumping from one thing to another and discarding them all for fear of sounding like a person who needed some serious mental health care. Maybe, because at the time, I wasn’t really sure where my ideas came from. They were just there, some fully formed, some not so much.

A few weeks after that embarrassing incident, I was in a local restaurant having dinner with a few family members. A loud voice suddenly said, “What do you think I’m an idiot?” I looked behind me and saw a man and a woman sitting two tables away. He looked angry and had his hand wrapped around the woman’s wrist where it lay on the table. She was just staring at him, not saying a word. I turned back around and my sister asked in a low voice, “Do you think we should get the manager?

The Voices in my Head

Today, I'm turning Terry's Place over to author Sarah Grimm. Hubster and I are off to Cripple Creek for a couple of days, but I know you're in good hands here today.

Sarah Grimm, writes romantic suspense and contemporary romance for The Wild Rose Press. As a young girl, Sarah always had a story to tell. At times they were funny, other times scary, but they were always happily-ever-after. Sarah is here today to tell us a little bit about the voices in her head.

Leave a comment today and Sarah will award one of you an electronic copy of her LASR Best Book of 2010 nominated romantic suspense, NOT WITHOUT RISK.

**Note: Blogger is having trouble accepting comments today--mine included--unless you log in with the name/url option. (The URL is optional). And we'll be accepting comments until Friday, with the winner announced this weekend, so if you're having problems, come back to this post and try again another time.



As an author I get asked all the time how I come up with my stories. This is a great question and applies to all creative people. How do we do what we do? For me, it has to do with the voices in my head. Yes, you read it correctly, the voices in my head. No, these voices don’t tell me to do things like hurt people. If they did, I’d have myself committed.

So what do I mean by the voices in my head? Simply this; at all times, in all situations, there is a character in my head talking to me, or more accurately, talking to another character. Sounds insane, I know, but it’s true.

An Alien Writer in an American World

Today my guest is author LaVerne Clark who's come all the way from New Zealand to Terry's Place. Welcome.

Thanks so much for having me on your blog Terry! I’m thrilled to be here.

I’ve read Romantic Suspense novels for years. Throughout those years, I’ve traveled all around America, discovering hidden pockets of the country through the adventures I’ve read and loved every minute of it.

Now I’m writing for the American market, with my debut novella, Guardian of the Jewel released by The Wild Rose Press late last year, and a whole new world has opened up to me. Seeing Guardian take its place on the virtual shelves alongside more well-known authors was a bit like sending my child off to its first day of school. I was proud and terrified at the same time. Would it be okay? Would it make friends or would it be bullied? How would it get on out there in the big, wide world? And how would people react to an Alien writer on their shelves?

Selling in America was the Holy Grail to me, but I admit to a case of killer nerves wondering how my Kiwi flavor and voice would be received. I desperately hoped the American public would ‘get’ what I had to say and how my characters said it, with the minimum of confusion along the way. I needn’t have worried – you are a smart lot : )

The Right Place

Today my guest is Becky Martinez , a former broadcast journalist who writes romance and romantic suspense under the name Rebecca Grace. Her latest from The Wild Rose Press is Deadly Messages. She’s working on the second part of the series, and that sent her to the Northwest to research and “soak in the ambience” in finding just the right place.

While I’m a big believer in having the right characters for a story and work like crazy to make them real and believable, I also have a big weakness for getting the right setting in my work. To me a genuine setting can make all the difference in whether a story comes across as real or false and I’m always on the look out to find a great setting. It can be anywhere—a great house, a majestic sunrise.

I always love mystery novels where setting is part of the plot, whether the hero or heroine is either hanging out in seedy bars or visiting the realms of the rich and famous. I also enjoy romances where I visit palatial dwellings or sinister mansions on the edge of a cliff. I look for stories to not only keep me entertained but to take me away on a fanciful journey.

That idea comes into play as I write. I’ve always felt that writers have a special set of senses that allows them (or makes them) see things in a different way. It goes beyond the visceral. It is like drinking in the feel for any place or situation and thinking about how you might write about it in a story. It involves using all the senses, hearing the tempo of conversations around you, smelling the various scents, looking for different views.

Haunted Writer Retreat

Tia Dani is a multi-published writing team made up of good friends, Tia Eaton and Dani Petrone. Together they create endearing and realistic characters, humorous dialogue, and unusual settings, and, best of all…they’re having the time of their lives. There's a giveaway, so be sure to keep reading and leave a comment I'll announce the winner on Thursday, so you have plenty of time to pass the word!

First of all, Terry, thank you for inviting us to Terry’s Place. We’re excited to be here visiting with you and your readers. In appreciation we are giving away a CD of our book, Color of Dreams, to one reader who leaves a comment.

As a writer sometimes you just need to get away and re-charge your brain cells. The best way we light a fire under our dormant muse is to hang out with like-minded friends, brainstorming, eating chocolate and drinking wine. We do this several times a year by going on a weekend retreat at a fun place in our state. And nowhere is more fun to us than staying in a hotel that is supposedly haunted. For us as writers the fun of delving into ghost lore comes from learning the story behind the haunting and then exaggerating it to another level.


One of our favorite places to visit is Jerome, AZ. Jerome is an old mining town set on the side of a mile-high mountain. The timeworn, crumbling buildings are now home to mostly artists who sell their work in the shops lining the main street. Jerome is a wonderful little town to purchase gifts of sparkly jewelry, scented candles, lovely paintings and beautiful handmade clothing. And when you get hungry you must stop in the Haunted Hamburger for lunch, but be sure to save room for dinner. The Asylum, the dining room in the Jerome Grand Hotel features mouth-watering entrees and a great wine list. Besides, you never know who might drop in to say ‘hello’ while you’re dining there. Local legend tells the story of a lady who roams the building looking for her daughter who died at birth.

Seven Things

First – given the ups and downs of Smashwords yesterday, I want to ask you to read yesterday's post about my two stories that I've uploaded there. If you'd rather not read the whole post, just go to my Smashwords page and look at the blurbs for the stories. Words is free, and Coping Mechanisms is only 99 cents, but you can look at a sample before you commit to buying.

As an added incentive to try the Smashwords site, I'll offer a prize of a download of one of my Wild Rose Press short stories. All you have to do is email me (DON'T post it here in the comments!) and tell me the color of Amanda's hair in Coping Mechanisms, and the color of the bed sheets in Words. No purchase necessary to find the answers. Put Smashwords Contest in the Subject line.

I'll choose a winner (or winners, depending on how many entries I get—so send your friends over. The more entries, the more prizes.) Deadline: July 7th.

And now onto the topic of today's post. Roz Morris of Nail Your Novel awarded me The Versatile Blogger award. Thanks, Roz. I'm supposed to tell you seven things about myself. I'm fairly open in this blog, so I'm not sure any of them are surprising, but here goes--and in no particular order:

Counting Down to Nowhere to Hide

What I'm reading: Fantasy in Death, by J.D. Robb


What with the moving, the renovations, and everything else that interrupts routine, I neglected the calendar. I really have to get my white board mounted on my office wall. It's less than a month to the release of my next book, "NOWHERE TO HIDE" from The Wild Rose Press. I have a million things to do. Sorry if this post is interrupted, but I've got to dash for a bit. While I'm gone, maybe you can check out my recipes for Key Lime Pie over at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen. Or poke around the Coming Soon link on my website. I'll be back as soon as I can.

......

Oh, Good. Hi, everyone!

Terry's off running errands and she left her computer on. My name's Colleen McDonald, and I'm going to sneak in for a bit. Don't say anything to her, okay?

Renovating and Revising

Today it's my pleasure to welcome fellow Wild Rose Press author Debra St. John to Terry's Place. In between working full time and renovating her 1920's home, she sometimes finds time to pen romance novels. She is currently working on her fourth novel and making plans to remodel the dining room.

Terry, thanks so much for having me here at Terry’s Place today! As I’ve been following your recent journey of moving and house-hunting, it conjured up memories of the experiences we’ve had with our house over the years.

Not long after we were married, my husband and I purchased what some folks might label a “fixer-upper”. The eighty-plus year old (at the time) home had been a two-flat for the entire time of its existence. Thus, it showed the wear and tear of a succession of families moving in and out over time.

Our grand plan was to convert it into a single-family home. We weren’t total “virgins” coming into this. My husband is a painting contractor, so he has some experience in the rehab milieu. I was considerably a bit more wet behind the ears, but willing to learn.And what a learning experience it has been. Nine years later it’s still a work in progress, and it’s been a journey fraught with blood, sweat, and tears along the way. I vividly remember the day we signed the contract on the house. We’d headed out to a little hot dog place for lunch. As I stood in line waiting for my milkshake, my husband must have seen the tears pooling in my eyes. When he asked what was wrong, I looked over at him. I’m sure my dismay was clearly visible in my eyes as I cried, “I can’t believe we bought that place. What were we thinking?” My vision of a dream home had been lost to images of nasty shag carpet, duct taped windows, and cracked plaster.

Girls and Horses

Today I'm welcoming Jenny Anderson to Terry's Place. Jenny grew up bouncing between city and farm, hating cities yet spending her whole adult life in them. She's been a wife, mother, geologist, mineral museum curator, soda jerk, materials analyst, antique jewelry dealer, and student. Her master's thesis turned into her first published book.

Little girls love horses. Well, most little girls love horses. Why? Let's not even go there. Freud weighed in on this subject...enough said. I don't care if there's some deep sexual meaning to the love of horses, don't care if it's mastery of a big, powerful creature, don't care if it's power or speed or learning responsibility or an arena where girls can outdo boys. I just love horses and always have.

When I sat on a horse for the first time, at the age of three, I'd never been so high off the ground. Doc was a huge old plow horse, about forty hands high if my memory is correct. Being led around the barn yard on this fiery steed–magic. The blurry little black and white photo of the event has long since been lost but I'll never forget the moment.

For years after that, in my imagination I rode the range on cowponies attuned to my every need and desire, and in reality plodded around the fields and farm roads on bored plow horses. Note: plow horses are not receptive to learning to jump fences.

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I read every book on horses that ever made it into print. Margaret Cabell Self, Lavinia Davis, and Walter Farley, Marguerite Henry's ponies of Chincoteague and Holling's Book of Cowboys fed my dreams.

I dreamed of my own horse. I lusted after my own horse. Eventually my parents gave in and supplied—not a horse, but riding lessons. Cool! I should have been devastated that the instructor did not feel I was the most talented rider ever to grace his class. It didn’t matter. I was riding!

Eventually we left the constraints of Chicago and moved WEST. New Mexico! Land not covered with houses! Mesas! Sagebrush! I still didn't get a horse, but I did get to ride. Plow horses were replaced by rental horses, borrowed horses, and yes, even a stuffed horse [just once, honest].

And then it happened. I was sixteen. I was employable. I got a job and they paid me real money. Real money that went into a savings account until there was enough to....BUY A HORSE!

I did it. I answered ads. I looked at teeth and pretended I knew what I saw. I test drove broken-down bays and aged chestnuts and a rough-gaited paint. Finally there was Lucky. It was love at first sight. For me. Ill-tempered, palomino, and in no way returning my adoration, Lucky soaked up my time and my allowance and I loved him. He reciprocated by not throwing me more than once a week. Mostly.

Lucky had a Mexican brand, so I decided he'd been a cowpony in his younger days. To live up to him, I would learn to rope. I bought a rope. I practiced. I roped the patio chairs. I roped the dog. I roped my mother. [Once.] Finally I was ready.

I saddled Lucky and headed for a field with a long, straight line of fence. Lucky sighed and loped along. I shook out a loop. I twirled. I aimed. I fired. And watched with satisfaction as the loop settled over the wily fence post.

True to his training, Lucky slammed on the brakes. I didn't. When the stars cleared, I looked up at my dear, devoted horse and my dream had come true. After years of yearning for magical, two-minds-in-tune communication, I knew exactly what he was thinking: disgust. Absolute, utter disgust.

Oh well. One must accept reality. My reality today is borrowed horses and writing about horses. . This is The General, whose owner is amused by the Jen & Gen thing and is always willing to lend her when I need a horse fix.

All those years of loving horses and reading and dreaming about them have proved to be far more useful than my puzzled parents could ever have imagined.

Only one horse in Loving Luke stands out as a character, but he sprang from those golden days with Lucky.

I guess some girls never grow up. I still love horses.

Jenny's website is www.jennysfiction.com, and people can email her at jenny@jennysfiction.com. She loves to correspond with readers! Her book, Loving Luke, is available from The Wild Rose Press.

Does the Date Matter?

It's almost Valentine's Day. What will we do? Probably not go out to a special romantic dinner. Restaurants are overbooked, many choose a "special" (translation—limited) menu, and service is likely to be under par. Normally, if we're going to celebrate with a restaurant meal, we'll go out the day after.

Does the day itself matter? We'll acknowledge the holiday with cards and hubby might provide some chocolate (unlike the year he gave me an electronic tire pressure gauge), but we feel no obligation to celebrate on the 14th. Maybe this got started early on, when his travels almost always had him out of town on my birthday, so we'd choose another day to celebrate. (And to my reckoning, since I only count birthdays when he was home to celebrate on the official day, I'm at least 10-15 years younger than my passport says.)

Between workshop presentations and conferences, my schedule would be full enough without including packing and moving, much less adding holiday celebrations. Hubby and I are thinking we ought to find time to choose at least one special thing and have one special dinner. We can consider it a 'going-away' dinner and have the official Valentine's Day and birthday dinner another time, when things are less crazy and stressful.

September Giveaway and more Point of View

What I'm reading: Eternal Pleasure, by Nina Bangs

First, thanks to Lorena for her post on Point of View -- and for triggering the idea for this month's "contest."

It's not a contest at all, but a giveaway. My first sale was a short-short story called, "Words" which began as an exercise in Point of View. Actually, it began as what was supposed to be a light-hearted story based on an experience I had with hubby while eating at our local Chinese restaurant. We always order hot and sour soup, and this time it was spicier than usual, and my eyes were watering. I asked hubby if my mascara was running. He said (believe it or not), "You're wearing mascara?" My response was, "Are we out of the house?" Now, at the time, we'd been married over 30 years, and had shared a bathroom for much of that.


However, when I started writing the scene, the character took over and it emerged as a much more 'literary' piece. It was very short—under 1000 words, and I thought I'd see if I liked it better from "her" point of view. It evolved into a he-says, she-says sort of piece, and the Wild Rose Press, which was just starting up at the time, offered a contract. Several years later, their format no longer accepts stories that short, and it's no longer available.

So, to commemorate that sale, I will offer a download of "Words" to anyone who buys any two of my short stories from The Wild Rose Press. Details are on my website, where you can look at each, and get a "Behind the Scenes" look at the story behind the story.

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Point of View is near and dear to me, as it was my very first writing lesson after I tried my hand at a piece of fan fiction. Although I'd been an avid reader, I'd never paid a whole lot of attention beyond the obvious – 1st vs. 3rd. But my mentor soon pointed out some of the basics of what it means to stay in the head of a character, and I've been sensitive to it, both in my work and in the work of others since then. Shoddy POV now is a definite read-stopper for me. If I like the characters I'll stick with it. If the story's compelling enough, I'll stay with it. But I might not return to that author.

Yet, I'll bet most of the non-writer readers out there are as oblivious as I was to the mechanics. Still, how many times have you read a book that you just couldn't get into? It's quite likely the author didn't handle POV in a way that kept you in the characters' heads.

I've caught up with my 'non-wip' writing. I sent a copy of an older manuscript to my new editor, and will be looking forward to finalizing the contract details and seeing her take on my updates.

Also, I managed to get another manuscript plus synopsis put together so that it fell within the combined word count required for a contest. It's like going back to my pre-published days, but with a wrinkle. Normally, an agent or editor will ask for X number of pages or chapters, and a synopsis which may or may not have a page limit. My standard synopsis for my agent's guidelines for submission was about three single-spaced pages. But with a total word count, that long of a synopsis would mean severely limiting how many manuscript pages I could submit.

It became a balancing act, finding a page-turning point in the manuscript that came early enough to allow for a synopsis that still would meet all the judging criteria set forth in the score sheet. (At least I found the score sheet before I had to submit the entry!) And, since my writing style does not include thrusting hero and heroine together on page 1 (or even page 20), in order for the romance elements to be clear, I definitely needed more than a one-page synopsis. I'm satisfied that I did the best I could do. Now it's a waiting game.

Meanwhile, hubby and I drove up to St. Augustine Beach. He's got a 3-day meeting, the room is paid for, and I thought a change of scenery might rev up the writing engine, so I'm not home at my desk. I figure I can hole up in the hotel room and work out some of the back story I find I need now that I know who my villain is. I'm utilizing a charting technique that combines things I've gleaned from workshops given by Rhonda Pollero and Barbara Parker, where I can make sure I've got motives for a number of characters, thus keeping the mystery from being too obvious.

My next obstacle to overcome is how my bad guy will find and threaten the other characters, and how the cop will discover the critical clue that will have him charging to the rescue. Or will my other characters manage to get themselves out of the hot water I'll put them in?

The weather, typically Floridian, is conducive to staying indoors and working. Plus, this hotel has something I haven't seen in any other hotels—a lap desk. Not only that, but there's an electrical outlet right beside the bed. Now, if I can just avoid spending too many hours with the US Open, which is on one of the channels the hotel provides.

The hotel also has free wireless Internet, which means I can continue to post to the blog this week, so please keep coming back. I'll let you know how my writing escape is going. And Detective Hussey's post for Friday is already in the hopper.

Family

Today I welcome author Bess McBride to Terry's Place.

Write what you know they say. The problem is I know a little about a lot but hardly a lot about almost anything…or so it seems when I put on my “write what you know cap” when I’m brainstorming a new story. I’m suddenly beset with a case of “Wait, I don’t know anything about anything.” Could be a confidence problem, could be reality… Who can say?


I recently decided to return to work full time, accepted a fairly well-paying job and moved to a state I’ve only visited before. But that visit was the reason I found myself able to apply for employment in a strange town. Last fall…on our way down to our winter grazing grounds on the fabulous Gulf Coast.

I made the trip that many of us often long to do…at least once in our lives…a genealogical journey through the towns, cities and final resting places of my grandparents, their parents and their parents before them. In my case, these particular grandparents had come to roost in Eastern Nebraska and Western Iowa as they followed the railroad.

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With the help of a third cousin whom I met online, I found everyone I was looking for, although they were all deceased. Still, I found my family…their homes, their towns, their cemeteries, their tombstones. And I was compelled to start a book. Write what you know they say. As an amateur genealogist, did I know enough to write a book around the subject? As a newcomer to the Midwest, did I know enough about the area to write a book set here? As a child born to traveling parents who never met her extended family, did I know enough about family to write about their lives?

None of that seems to matter. One thing we all know about is the power of love…even if it is the love of a granddaughter for grandparents she never knew, or a great-granddaughter for the great-grandparents who would never know her. The power of love gives me the inspiration to forge ahead with my next story of love…set among the cemeteries in the wonderful windy loess hills along the Missouri River between Nebraska and Iowa.

For a gal who has a glaring absence of family, I seem to have accumulated lots and lots of cousins through my interest in genealogy. Two of those cousins (second cousins who are 15-20 years older than me) happened to be attending a family reunion on their grandmother’s side of the family (our connection is through our grandfathers who were brothers) this weekend, only an hour away. I drove up to the big city, and we met, shared historical letters and photographs and traveled on to a nearby town to see our mutual great-grandparents’ graves while they shared memories of their grandparents and even my grandparents whom I never had the chance to meet.

The sense of continuity is strong when I am with my living cousins, and I feel connected to this place where my ancestors lived out their lives. I have many more cousins within a day’s drive whom I have not yet met, descendents of our mutual great-great grandparents. I look forward to finding more family and sharing stories and connections…and writing about what I thought I would never know about…Family.

Bess McBride writes sweet to sensual romance novels for The Wild Rose Press. Her next release, On a Warm Sea of Love, will be available from The Wild Rose Press on September 29, 2009. She is currently at work on a story set in Western Iowa. She welcomes visitors to her web site at www.bessmcbride.com.

Being Published - What Do You Want?

This week, my guest is EPPIE award winning author Liana Laverentz. Her topic: Why (or How) Do You Want to Be Published? She's got a special prize for one lucky commenter, so be sure to read on. Welcome, Liana

We all know why we write. We write because we can’t not write, or because we have a deep-rooted need to express ourselves in some way, and have for most of our lives. We have these stories running through our head and just won’t go away until we put them on paper—or at least into our computers. We have people who talk to us day and night until we give them a voice. But why do we want to be published?

The answer is a lot more complicated than you’d think. I’ve been writing for over twenty years, and have judged a lot of contests and critiqued a lot of chapters. Some were awful, some technically correct, but had no zing, and some…some were brilliant. You might think all writers want to get published. Not so. One that stands out in my memory was a woman who wrote beautifully, brilliantly…but had no interest in being published. Her husband was in the military and deployed for long periods of time, and she wrote to keep herself company while he was gone. When he came home, the writing was forgotten.

I’ve never been able to figure out whether being able to put her writing away like that was a blessing or a curse.


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Others want to be published so that they can see their name on a book and say—sometimes to a family of doubters and naysayers—“See? I did it!” Or they just want be able to call themselves a published author. They don’t care if they sell many copies, as long as they have enough for their family and circle of friends. Others want to be published just to see if they can do it. Once the challenge is met, they have no interest in publishing again. On to the next life goal on their list.

Does that mean that any of these writers stop writing? Not at all. But the lure of fame and fortune is not there for all of us. Some writers write in their spare time, their primary focus on home and hearth, seeing to the needs of their families. They’re perfectly happy publishing a book or short story here and there, adding to their collection of credentials.

Some writers publish with small presses just to be able to see their words in print. They have no desire to go the traditional publishing route. One reason I hear a lot is they want to write what they want to write. Maybe mix genres and find their own audiences. Others see small presses as stepping stones to being published traditionally, and find their successes smaller publishers give them hope and encouragement. Others are happy being ebook authors and don’t care if they ever get into print.

We’re all different. We’re all special. I attended a writer’s conference in January where Bestselling author Christina Dodd spoke about The Sidewalk of Success. We’re all on it. We can step away from it at any time, and many of us do. Some of us come back and some of us don’t. Some of us step off and on again regularly, needing to take a break when Life interferes. But the sidewalk is always there for us, and success means something different to every person on that sidewalk. Sometimes success is, finishing that first chapter, maybe finishing a synopsis and three chapters. Sometimes it’s entering a contest, just letting someone else see your work, much less winning that contest—but oh, what validation it is when you do!

Some writers enter contests and strive to win accolades that way, but never submit to publishers. Sometimes success is defined as sending out a query letter, or three, or ten. Sometimes it’s landing an agent. Sometimes the epitome of success is being offered a publishing contract. I have seen writers back away once the contract is offered, deciding they don’t want someone else reading their most personal thoughts after all.

Others step off the sidewalk once the book is released, and they realize how much promotion is involved. A lot of authors are introverts. We spend a lot of time alone, writing. We’re not comfortable promoting our books. We’re extremely uncomfortable at booksignings. At least I am. Others revel in it. We don’t believe in our books any less if we don’t want to do booksignings and workshops and lectures. They’re a lot of work. Some authors would rather spend the time writing their next book. The writing is what’s important, not the selling. Others live for the thrill of the day we can sit behind that table and sign our books for friends, family, and strangers alike. Others simply want to be able to attend a writer’s conference and wear that special “Published Author” designation, be it on their name badge or in the form of a ribbon or a pin.

Others aim for a publishing contract with a big house and seek to sell millions of books. Others aim for the national bestseller lists. Not once, not twice, but over and over again. Some are happy being at the top of the bestselling list at their publishing house—or just making the list.

There are as many levels to being published as there are to writing. You can be published in your own way, on your own terms, as in self-publishing, you can be published by a small house or in ebooks, you can be published by a small house but in hardback, or a big house and be happy as a midlist author, or you may need to go for the brass ring of national bestseller-dom to be happy.

All are equally valid measures of success, depending on your personality and goals. Which is it for you?

Liana Laverentz is the author of three contemporary romances, Eppie and NJRW Golden Leaf award-winner Thin Ice, Golden Leaf winner Jake’s Return, and Ashton’s Secret, a murder mystery romance now available on Amazon and due to be released by The Wild Rose Press on June 26. For more information, go to www.lianalaverentz.com. For a chance to win a free critique of your first 15 pages, leave a comment here telling us your goals! Liana will select a winner to be announced here Thursday morning, so be sure to check to see if you're the lucky one.

Spring Cleaning, Sales, and Free Stuff

What I'm reading: Exposed, by Julie Elizabeth Leto

Hubby has been on half-time for a week now, and I don't know if that was the trigger, but all of a sudden he's moving forward with the plans to get the house on the market. Curb appeal. Repair. De-clutter. And after 20 years in this house, there's a lot of clutter, especially in his office.

What stays? What moves? Garage sale, recycling, trash, or donate? Anyone need a fish shaped squirt gun?


Or a trophy from a 1986 cricket racing championship?


What about a door—son's summer project when he was in high school?


And if you pay by the pound to move it, is it worth schlepping stuff you haven't touched in 10 years 'just in case it might come in handy?' I don't think so. But I love fresh starts. I think hubby prefers everything stay the same.

How do you deal with moving your life across the country?

Other news, none of which should add to any clutter at your house:

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Wild Rose Press has put all its "Rosettes" (short-short) stories on sale for Spring. Two of mine, Second Chance Rose and Out of Sight are now available for 99 cents. That's less than a cup of coffee. I hope you'll take advantage of the pricing.

And Cerridwen Press has started a "Free Reads" program for short stories. What could be better than free? I've got a free read released this week, "Coping Mechanisms." It's another peek into the lives of Randy and Sarah.

Randy may have his cop partner, but Sarah is his new life partner, and she's aware that any new relationship has its little hiccups. Randy builds walls around his emotions. It's what makes him a good cop. But what works with a fellow cop isn't going to cut it with Sarah. Determined to dismantle his fortress, brick by brick if she has to, she confronts him after a difficult case has him retreating.

Here's a tidbit to get you started:

Sarah smiled at the sound of the front door opening. She placed the last slice of cheese on a water cracker, wiped her hands on a dish towel, and gave a quick finger-comb to her new hairdo before rushing out of the kitchen to greet her husband. Would he notice the gold highlights scattered though the otherwise dull brown? After all, he was a detective.

His night shifts had ended, and they could finally share a dinner followed by… Her grin widened as she thought of the night ahead. It had been awhile since both were awake enough to enjoy each other’s company. Kind of tough on newlyweds, but the special meal she’d planned should start making up for lost time.

Her smile faded as she saw Randy’s expression. “My God, what’s wrong?”

He pushed past her to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a Jameson. He downed half in one gulp and stared at some distant point. His lips were clenched, his brow furrowed like a freshly plowed field. Being a cop was a high-stress job, but it wasn’t like Randy to turn to whiskey. Her disapproval must have shown on her face. He glowered, and she felt the heat of rising tears behind her eyes.

“Not yet,” he growled. He pivoted and stalked to the spare room. Sarah heard the door close behind him.

I hope you'll take a few minutes to download and read it. You do have to go through the normal bookstore at the website, but since there's no payment involved, it's not that complicated. (My personal disclaimer—all these free stories share a single cover, so this is definitely a 'don't judge a book by its cover' situation.)

Tomorrow, join Mary Louise Wells here at Terry's Place. She's going to talk about having what it takes to make it in the world of writing—after you've written the book.

Eating at Granny's House

Today my guest is Wild Rose Press author Jennifer Johnson telling us how food and food memories help bring a story to life.

Eating at Granny's House

My granny used to make these fried pies with a chocolate filling. There was nothing better than one of those pies fresh out of her iron skillet. My cousins and I would wrap napkins around them because they were too hot for our little fingers.

We’d nibble on the
edge of the crust trying not to burn our lips in the process.

Another specialty of hers was “Cat Head” biscuits. They weren’t made from cat parts. I think the name comes from the size of the biscuit. Sometimes we ate the biscuits with red eyed gravy, a disturbing name for gravy. I never asked why it was called this. Perhaps because I was afraid of the answer. But, oh, boy, were those cat head biscuits good for sopping up the gravy. When I think of all of these bad-for-you delectable foods, it’s no wonder so many members of my family have heart disease.

If you can’t fry it, it ain’t worth eating. My favorite vegetable? Okra, of course. Chop it, bread it, and fry it. I could make a meal out of it. Now, some people like it boiled. Not me. When you boil okra, it’s disgustingly slimy in a snot sort of way. So, I eat mine fried or not at all.

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Granny was also very gifted in frying chicken. I’m a big fan of fried chicken. I’m pretty sure this is because of an incident between me and a young rooster when I was about five. Apparently, I got too close to him and his feathered friends. When he started chasing me, I couldn’t outrun him, and he spurred me from the back of my neck down to my heels as I screamed and cried my way down the dirt road to Granny’s house. My mom claims no one could say the word “rooster” around me for weeks without me bursting into tears, but fried chicken never tasted so good. I guess in my young brain, every time I ate fried chicken, I was enacting revenge on that mean rooster.

For many of us food is more than just food. A taste of home-fried chicken can propel me back to Billingsley, Alabama and my girlhood. In books as well I have found a great medium of creating atmosphere with food. In The Jinx, Ellen makes a chicken casserole for Rick, her love interest. Why chicken casserole? Well, it travels well, and it is a very domestic-type of dish. Though Ellen doesn’t realize it, she’s letting Rick know she’s ready to set up house with him!

So, do you have a certain dish that is more than just food to you?

Jennifer Johnson’s book The Jinx is available now from The Wild Rose Press. Her second book, The Clergy Affair, will be available in July of this year. Come visit her website at http://booksbyjenniferjohnson.com or her blog at http://jennfrancesca.blogspot.com/

Hold That Thought!

Welcome Judy Nickles who shares her writing fear, and how she overcomes it.

What is the bane of any writer’s existence? A blank piece of paper/empty computer screen. . .the words just won’t come. Probably no writer anywhere can say honestly that this hasn’t happened to her at least once. Let’s face it---when there’s nothing to say, there’s just nothing to say!


When I was busy raising children, taking care of elderly parents, and earning a living in the classroom, I never lacked for ideas, only the time to write them down and develop them. Retired now, with a cozy empty nest, I have no excuse.

So where do the ideas come from? Every writer has her unique source. I write vintage pieces, so having a master’s in history and a lifelong fascination with the days of the Great Depression and World War II doesn’t hurt. I spend a lot of time doing research to make sure the facts fit and some horrible anachronism doesn’t destroy the characters’ credibility.

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Words of old songs, snatches of dialogue, faded pictures, a stop on a historic tour. . .all these things have triggered ideas for short stories and novels. Keeping a notebook at hand to jot down ideas is an old but totally relevant suggestion.

I often blog about recent news article and throw in a little history just for background. Memories. . .at my age, they crowd in, and sometimes they spark a story. Thirty-odd years of genealogical research have turned up some interesting tidbits, too:

• Who knew the truth of the wild ride down the old wagon road and the blood-stained floors left behind? • What made a man, with thirteen children of his own, fetch his wife’s two orphaned sisters from the place they were living and bring them home?


• Was the handsome young man in the high collar and puff tie just a picture in an old album or a lost love?

• They had five daughters and wanted a son---but why did they keep moving to hide his identity?

• What did she leave behind in Alabama, only to lose more in Texas?



• Why was the young mother buried in an unmarked grave—unwept, unhonored, and unsung?


• What inner strength did the orphan boy possess that kept him going through ninety-six years, despite the harsh blows he endured?

• What felled this family so soon after the trip across Texas in a covered wagon, and who inscribed the hand-hewn tombstones that mark their final resting places?

• The bordellos operated in plain sight, so why, three generations later, do people refuse to acknowledge the women who worked there?

• What spurred a man to withdraw from a group of local vigilantes, sell his land, and move his family out of the state?

• Is it a coincidence that the small grave fell in the very summer that hospital records went missing?

These and so many other questions may forever remain unanswered in real life. In stories, however, they are destined to take on a new life all their own. I’ll never stop searching for the truth, but while I’m at it, I’ll keep writing about what I’d like for the truth to be.

Visit Judy at her website and blog to learn more about her numerous short story series. In addition, she's looking forward to her novel set in the thirties, Where is Papa's Shining Star? from The Wild Rose Press.

Release Day - Hurricane Breeze

Taking a day to celebrate.

Hurricane Breeze is available now.

Carter Worthington the fourth is the kind of man whose schedule is laid out in fifteen minute increments, while Tiffany wouldn't know what to do with a day planner if she owned one.

Carter thinks he's happy, tucked away in a quiet Florida neighborhood, where nobody knows his alter ego is novelist Grant Gardner, and he's content to keep it that way. But when a hurricane blows Tiffany Breeze into his sheltered universe, he must deal with his past, overcome his fears and decide if he's spent his life existing instead of living. Is he willing to leave the emotional safety of his orderly existence to experience the highs, knowing he'll also have to face the lows?

Read more here

There's a Civilian Police Academy Alumnae meeting tonight. Our scheduled speaker is a long-time patrol officer. Good chance for more information.

Hurricane Breeze and the Male POV in romance

What I'm reading: Being Randy by Ashlyn Chase; If Not for You by J.L. Wilson

Quick post -- I'm still in Colorado Springs. I had some 'grownup' talk time with two fellow authors this morning - Lise Fuller who writes for Cerridwen Press, and Beth Groundwater who writes for Five Star. A little shop talk was inspirational, and to keep things moving in the writing direction, I got a release date of February 20th for my Wild Rose Press short story, Hurricane Breeze.

Hurricane Breeze started as a 'palate cleanser' after finishing my Dalton & Miri book, the spin-off of When Danger Calls. WDC was still far too fresh to edit objectively, but after a few days the writing itch was back. Being relatively lazy, my first search was through old files to see if there was any inspiration.

As I've mentioned before, I used to hang at iVillage, where a short story group had weekly writing prompts. One was to use the word "curmudgeon" in a short story.

For the story to have a chance with The Wild Rose Press, however, it had to be a romance. Since my exercise featured a reclusive, up-tight novelist dealing with his elderly neighbor (the curmudgeon of the story), there wasn't much of that.

Still, it was worth thinking about how to work a woman into the story. Since I had the framework of my male protagonist, I needed an acceptable (meaning totally opposite) female character.

With the help of my crit group, we brainstormed the 'what if's that make a story. By the time we finished, I had the major plot points worked out. In a short story, there aren't that many of them! The surprise for me as I went back and started writing was that the male protagonist insisted on being the sole POV character in the story. While Tiffany was a catalyst, she never insisted on taking center stage.

Counting Down To South Africa T minus 8

Yesterday was surprisingly calm. Since I'd sent Hidden Fire to my Cerridwen editor, I closed the door on that one, and crossed it off the list (well, I would have, if I'd actually written my list yet). Late yesterday (which was early today for her, because she's in Australia), she said she was backlogged and wouldn't get to it for at least two weeks. So -- no worries, as she would say. It's in her hands, and I won't even think about it (much) until I get back.

I didn't hear from my Five Star editor about the first 22 chapters of When Danger Calls. I had some questions for her, and didn't want to keep going until I heard from her. Being a weekend, I don't know if she works or not, so I put that project on hold as well. Which left me time for some much-needed food shopping.

Couldn't do anything about clarifying if we actually should get the yellow fever shots or not because all the medical places are closed on the weekend. I'd rather not if it's not needed, but it's not worth being stranded somewhere because I don't have the requisite slip of paper some official decides I need to get back into the country.

I worked on my Point of View handouts for Tuesday night (anyone in central Florida -- come see me at the Barnes & Noble in the Altamonte Mall), did some critique work and watched a little television. Almost caught up with what I taped last week.

Now I can start making the silly little decisions -- what do I pack, how much, or would it be easier to buy it there? Money. Our travel documents hit us with some minor surprises, like airport fees required to get out of the country -- $60 US in cash, exact change, per person. Yikes. And our side-trip to Victoria Falls has a whole different set of currency rules. No credit cards, and a whole page of how things work in that country. I'm so geographically challenged, I didn't even begin to think it was another country when my husband added the side trip.

I only hope my Wild Rose Press editor gets my galleys for Hurricane Breeze to me in time to give them a fair read.

Editing is writing, too

What I'm reading: Dead Heat by Dick Francis and Felix Francis

What I'm writing: Chapter 24, edits for Hurricane Breeze

I had the pleasure of having lunch with Rhonda Penders, publisher of The Wild Rose Press yesterday. One of the side-perks of living in central Florida is that just about everyone passes through eventually thanks to our surfeit of theme parks. Another of her authors, Dara Edmondson, was there. Apart from the noise level in the restaurant, we had a great time discussing the amazing skyrocketing success of The Wild Rose Press (for which I take absolutely no credit, but I do like to remember that I was their first outside contracted author, and I'm delighted to see their success). Especially since that first contract was for a short-short, Words, that had been contracted previously by a magazine that went out of business almost as soon as I signed the papers. It had also been contracted by an internet audio book site, which folded as well. Third time's the charm, I guess!

I'm feeling 'writerly' today, having received my next (and last, I think) round of edits for Hurricane Breeze. Now that the story issues have been resolved, and thank goodness they were minor--primarily clarification, not plot--it's time to print it out and read it for all those little typos that sneak in when you turn off your computer.

And, I heard from the Five Star Publishing editor I'll be working with on When Danger Calls as well. She's given me her timeframe, and it's going to be a challenge not to try to scramble through it before I leave on my trip in November. However, she doesn't need it turned around as quickly as the Cerridwen Press editors do, so it seems like a luxury to be able to take more time.

Oh yeah -- and then there's the 'real life' job ---the one I get paid for, the one that's paying for that November trip which is part business--which will be getting crazy.