Month: August 2020

Narration Fears by Paty Jager

~ patyjag ~ 3 Comments

Due to the covid and so many conferences and events I’d planned to attend being cancelled, I am now putting those dollars into getting more books narrated. Which is a good thing, except…. I’ve caught up to the last book written in the Gabriel Hawke series, Fox Goes Hunting.

It’s nice to have the audio book ready close behind the release of the ebook and print, but… this book is set in Iceland. My poor narrator is having to learn how to pronounce a lot of words in Icelandic.

Ragnar, our guide, explaining the living situations of the Viking settlers at pingvellir.

The guide I met on my trip to Iceland has been a HUGE help with my book. He answered questions when I was on my trip and later via email. He also read the book to make sure the way the Icelanders in my books expressed themselves was correct and that I conveyed the spirit and feel of his homeland.

And I have once again reached out to him as this book is beginning to be narrated. I asked if he could give me a pronunciation guide for the Icelandic words. He came through, but said if the narrator needed more detail in the saying, he could do an IPA system but it would take him much longer to do.

Thankfully, my narrator has already reached out to some other narrators for help in the pronunciation of the words. I feel for him. He was excited to do this book, but he will have a lot more work than he usually puts into the Hawke books.

If you would like to listen to one of the first five Gabriel Hawke audio books for free, I have some Author Direct codes you can use to listen to the books.

Here’s to hoping my narrator can channel his inner Icelander.

“Patience, Hummingbird”

~ Missye K. Clarke ~ 1 Comment

Authors of this and other platforms are still writing of the Chinese Virus and its effects now and long term. Stretching finances so hard you’re scared how bad the recoil will sting if you dare let go. How do first-time homeschoolers keep from going bats. An uptick in board game sales (I’d give almost anything to be that monarch butterfly on an overhead wall of the group playing Monopoly, The Cheaters Edition!). A new spin on old leftovers. Staying connected and sane despite isolation–is this really an introvert’s paradise? New hobbies found after streaming service binges become one day of the week into the next. The dozens of notables who’ve passed during this rotten transition into a new normal. Despite their death and we’re all sick of all things COVID to the back teeth, life goes on. But the deaths seem to punch a bigger, nastier, hurting hole into this reality more than any of us are ready for.

So I’m doing a first, hours before this post is due for my 2nd Saturday monthly jam: the patience I need is–
–Woth myself
–With other authors
–With God
–With other mere mortals.
I’m burned out from Monopoly, Uno, Duraq, and Jenga, yet my mind’s too wired to read. My phone’s storage is near tapped in Ooooh-look!-Shiny app downloads, but I’m grouchier with myself, God, my loved ones, my characters. My writing life, upheaval aside and not for lack of trying, is at a standstill. Family members have COVID updated or took their leave of this dimension, I’m now neck-deep in toiletries to open a small supply depot over. And tthe next salon/spa/massage visit feels like it’s twelve light years out waiting for my turn to feel normal again.

A study in my phone’s Bible app talking about this Jumanji event had a line that jumped out at me this past June–

“Don’t expect people to live up to my standards, since I don’t have any clue what those are in these times. This IS a new normal, like it or not. Nobody has a playbook to be guided by, not even you. Be especially patient with others, with God, with the circumstance, and most impotanrly, with myself. Whatever or whomever is perplexing you, just let it go, let it ride, or let it be.”

.

Well, that wrecking ball of straightshootin’ common sense snacked me upside my stubborn head. Aren’t we patient with ourslves in learning a new skill, working with a new hire, or wrestling with a storyline, for whichever unexplicable reason, isn’t coming together as it should?

You sure are. I sure am.

So why contradict this?

While following a streaming yoga workout this week past, during it, the camera guy caught a gorgeous hummingbird outside the instructor’s patio window. I’m a sucker for anything flying on its own power, so my ADHD mind went nuts over this. But his soothing voice and telling the followers to not move a muscle, lest he startle the bird away, was that stroking-a-ferret-to-sleep to my ADHD thoughts, and they soon Zen’ed out. In a balmier frame of mind, the paradox of the hummingbird surfaced. The wings beat blurringly fast, but even this creature knows when to slow or when to move on when it’s time. Fast as it moves, it has to be patient with itself, or die burning itaelf out before its work is finished.

As I work this, Sweet Reader, you may enjoy and be entertained and informed by my nimble fingers feverishly keeping pace with my Road-Runner-on-‘roids thoughts, two scenes are marinating for my projects I’m thisclose to getting down. I’m a monthly subscriber to a writing box company to spur creativity again (and of course, LoM gets first review dibs when I’ve played with the goodies for a stretch). I’m planning a near-year end trip with my husband to New York’s Howe Caverns and the Corning Glass Museum, and to visit a friend whose husband died this past spring in a freak work accident. Trips like these do FAR more for my writing mojo than the traditional and indie industry gatherings do. And I’ll call a spade a spade–who needs a weekend-long pissing contest in the guise of friendly camaraderie with fellow authors over strategies we’ve heard inside out? I don’t.

I sip Harney & Sons Earl Grey as Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” on my TV music channel beckons I harmonize with it as I type. Even with this COVID clusterfuck we’re still untangling from, I’m in a good and bad place with writing. This, too, can use a needed reboot, or that I’m crying for change to supplement this part of the creative craft with something else communally. Whereever I land, what some of you call in a good place after sorting, dusting off, spring-cleaning and the like, untreated ADHDs like me always find a good and not-so-cool place to be in simultaneously. How can we live like this, you’re wondering? ‘Taint easy. But maybe the magic of the hovering hummingbird is a lovely reminder to be patient while moving quickly, but to know when to stay patient as I’m moving, be it slow or fast, or I die before it’s time. And to extend this same allowance to humanity, regardless who they are or if they’re clueless in which next to go as I am, is the “wisdom” in the hummingbird’s work.

Trying to Combine Two Stories Into One by Heather Haven

~ Heather Haven

When I began writing Casting Call for a Corpse, my latest cozy mystery revolving around the Alvarez Family, I wanted to combine the ongoing characters from the series with a few characters from a play I penned some time ago. I also wanted to add a Scottish character in honor of my heart sister, who was adopted at birth and recently found her Scottish birth family. An homage, doncha know.

Frankly, I wasn’t sure if I could make it work. Some nights I lost sleep over whether or not I could pull this into anything readable. However, I really loved the characters from the play, in particular the internationally acclaimed actress, her loyal assistant, the Hispanic housekeeper, and a has-been writer who burned bright in his youth but had done little since. Putting Lee Alvarez, the protagonist of the Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries, and the actress together was easy. Close in age, I found making them friends from way-back-when in New York City added reality and depth to my tale. Also lots of humor! The other characters were a little tougher to place but ultimately, I managed to do it.

As for the storyline, itself, that was different. I was never too sure if ‘this’ was too much or ‘that’ was enough. So I took the throw-all-the-spaghetti-on-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach. Not quite my style. I usually know the first chapter, where I want to go, and how I want the story to end. This time I had no idea of any of it. I was a panster to the nth degree.

Surprisingly, while writing the novel this method was freeing. If I had a thought, it was in. I’d deal with the validity of it later. I wound up with some not-so-nice Russian businessmen, a trendy restaurant, threatening letters, jewel thieves, secret tunnels, and even a Christmas tree farm. I mean, why not? Then I added an inside take on life backstage in the theater, which was a large part of my existence in my salad days. I still had sleepless nights, but at least I had written pages to show for them.

Months later, when I finished the final draft, I went back in and took out extraneous plots, substories, and innuendos that didn’t work or were confusing. By that time, I actually had a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Hallelujah! When I handed the book off to my editors and Beta readers, I waited with the proverbial bated breath to see if the novel worked. It did. In fact, my content editor, one tough cookie, said it was the tightest of all the Alvarez books. Did that mean if I knew a storyline may not work from the very first word on the page to the very last, it made me a better novelist?

I’m thinking no. Each story is unique and different. When I start a new novel it’s almost like writing the first one. So far I’ve written thirteen novels, numerous novellas, and dozens of short stories. Not one of them has been easy or formulaic. True, I’ve developed a few tricks along the way. I believe I know what doesn’t work. But what definitively works? You got me.

In a way, I love that part. It never gets boring, this writing stuff.

Guest Blogger – Diana Rubino

~ patyjag ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been a mystery book buff since age 12 when I started reading the Trixie Belden series (similar to Nancy Drew). As my reading preferences matured, I graduated to murder mysteries. I always wanted to write one, but didn’t believe I had the ability to weave an entire plot around a murder, plant clever clues, red herrings, and surprise the reader with ‘whodunit.’ So I began writing murder mystery subplots in my historical novels, starting with FROM HERE TO FOURTEENTH STREET.

When I wrote my biographical novel about Eliza Jumel Burr, Aaron Burr’s last wife, my agent told me it needed a bit of ‘punching up.’ I pondered how to do this, then thought, ‘what would be more punched up than a few murder mysteries?’ So I wrote two subplots involving true-life murders that occurred during the time of the story. In one of them, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton defended the accused, Levi Weeks, after his fiancée Elma Sands was found drowned in a well once owned by Aaron. In real life, Levi was acquitted, but public opinion maintained this was due to Levi’s high-priced ‘dream team.’ In my story, I involved Eliza in the lives of Levi and Elma, and Levi eventually confesses to her. As for all murder mystery authors, knowing the killer makes writing a mystery less daunting. I began writing mystery subplots in my books that followed: DARK BREW, FOR THE LOVE OF HAWTHORNE, and the biographical novel I just finished, about Edith (Mrs. Theodore) Roosevelt, who helps the New York City Police, of which her husband is Commissioner, find a serial killer.

I stay as close as possible to the historical record, but in writing novels, I must ‘take license’ and weave fiction in with the true life events. I’m careful to give readers lush descriptions of the settings, to send them on a journey back to that time, without rambling on, to avoid giving a history lesson. That, as well as writing murder mysteries, became easier with practice.

 ELIZA JUMEL BURR, VICE QUEEN OF THE UNITED STATES

Abandoned and left to survive on the streets of Providence, Betsy Bowen dreams of being reunited with her father – none other than George Washington. During her ninety-one years, she begs, sells her body, marries a rich man, marries a poor man, solves a murder, meets her father in secret and becomes Eliza Jumel, the wealthiest woman in New York City. She actually could have been George Washington’s daughter, according to the historical record–he visited Providence nine months before she was born.

A story of desperation, ambition, heartache and betrayal, borne with humor and refusal to compromise with what the heart asks first.

Purchase ELIZA JUMEL BURR: http://getBook.at/ElizaJumel 

Diana writes about folks through history who shook things up. Her passion for history and travel has taken her to every locale of her books, set in Medieval and Renaissance England, Egypt, the Mediterranean, colonial Virginia, New England, and New York. Her urban fantasy romance, FAKIN’ IT, won a Top Pick award from Romantic Times. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Richard III Society, and the Aaron Burr Association. When not writing, she owns CostPro, Inc., an engineering business, with her husband Chris. In her spare time, Diana bicycles, golfs, does yoga, plays her piano, devours books, and lives the dream on her beloved Cape Cod.
Visit Diana at

www.dianarubino.com

www.DianaRubinoAuthor.blogspot.com https://www.facebook.com/DianaRubinoAuthor

and on Twitter @DianaLRubino.