Month: April 2023

Is April the Cruelest Month? by Karen Shughart

~ kshughart47 ~ 2 Comments

In the poem, The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot writes, “April is the cruelest month….”

The month of April is a time of birth and renewal, and a time of hope. April may bring showers, but we have a reasonable expectation that it will also bring spring flowers. For Eliot, at least when he wrote the poem, nothing was crueler than hope because for him it often led to disappointment. It was safer to hold on tightly to cynicism and pessimism, because then he wouldn’t get hurt.

For most of us, though, April is not cruel at all.  If you live where I do, in the north, April is a time of anticipation, a time when we believe that, as Alexander Pope wrote in An Essay on Man, “hope springs eternal in the human breast.” Hopefulness, despite our challenges and disappointments, continues to renew itself.  Even the holidays observed by various cultures and religions this time of year celebrate the themes of birth, renewal, and hope.

We rejoice when tiny buds start to swell on the trees, when we wake up to birdsong, and daylight lasts longer. We delight in the first sight of bright yellow daffodils and brilliant-colored tulips  as they stretch towards the sun.  And the sun, weak and pale in the winter, shines brightly now, warming our bodies and souls and expanding our hearts to ever so many possibilities.

Photo by Jacek Mleczek on Pexels.com

We know that when the daffodils and tulips finally end their run for the year, we have a reasonable expectation that they’ll be back next year, and other flowers will follow. When we plant our gardens, at some point we will harvest what we sow. Soon, we’ll be seeing baby birds peeping out of nests; ducklings, cygnets and goslings swimming with determination behind their attentive parents; and tiny, newborn animals scurrying about. April, the spring, symbolizes youth, but even those of us who are in the autumn and winter of our lives can feel happy, young, and energized.

In northern climates the weather in April is fickle. It rains, sometimes it snows, and at times it seems as though winter won’t quite lose its icy grip; then there are those intermittent grey, cloudy days. Regardless of what Mother Nature throws our way, I am compelled to put away the heaviest of winter clothes, clean out the closets, and plan menus around seasonal foods with lighter ingredients.  I start to make a list of things I want to do to get ready for summer. I always know the rain will stop, the snow will melt, and the grey, cloudy days will be followed by brilliant sun. If April isn’t quite what I expected, there’s always next year.

Cruel? I think not. After April comes May with more abundance,  even warmer days, and the anticipation of summer.

Karen Shughart is the author of the Edmund DeCleryk cozy mystery series, published by Cozy Cat Press

Guest Blogger~Terri Karsten

~ patyjag

            People often ask where I get my ideas. The answer seems simple—ideas come fromthe people we meet, the things we read, the places we go, the songs we know. But the first kernel of an idea is not enough to create a novel.

So, how does a kernel develop into a book? For me, it starts when an idea won’t let go.  Characters start chattering in my head. Scenes start playing out in my day dreams. I sometimes spend years thinking about an idea before I actually start writing. Then I do a lot of research to learn more about the period. I want my historical fiction to immerse the reader in a world as real and accurate as possible. I want the reader to know what it was like to live ‘back then.’

My historical novel, A Mistake of Consequence, developed in just that way. The first idea came from a college class in American Women’s Studies. We read many primary documents, including one about a young woman who had been indentured in Virginia. She wrote her father, complaining of the horrible conditions there and begging him to send ‘his poor undutiful daughter’ adequate clothing. Her heartfelt letter made me want to learn more.

My curiosity led to major research about indenture, a practice was quite common in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Indenture was a legal contract binding a person to work for a certain number of years in return for some compensation such as passage to America. The indentured person was not free to leave the contract and had limited rights as a servant.

Then I discovered that in addition to the people who indentured themselves or family members, many men, women, and children were snatched from England, Scotland, and Ireland and sold in the colonies. In spite of important differences (indenture theoretically had a termination date) the parallels to African slavery were intriguing,

            As I learned more, the characters emerged. The first I envisioned was Callie Beaton, an impetuous, young Scottish woman. Callie’s temper would lead her to the wrong place, straight into the hands of a ‘spiriter’ who kidnapped her, transported her across the ocean, and sold her. Penniless and bound in a strange place, her goal was to return home.

Callie’s story portrays one path indenture could take, but I wanted to show a broader picture. Two other characters gradually took shape, one indentured by choice, and one by circumstances beyond her control. Though both are secondary characters, their lives become entwined with Callie’s.

With these three women in mind, I still needed a plot. I always want to know how the story will end before I can start writing. For this novel, I needed a love interest, a murder victim, and at least one villain to drive the action and influence the outcome. That meant more characters taking up space in my day dreams.

My goal in writing historical fiction is to portray ordinary people living in circumstances very different from our own, but sharing the same joys, fears, and concerns about their families. I want to show that strong, resilient women had important roles in all eras. History, especially women’s history, can help people today learn from the challenges of the past.

            Gradually all these ideas coalesced in A Mistake of Consequence, a rollicking adventure in Colonial America, told from a unique perspective, that of a woman bound by custom and law, but with the courage to choose her own path.

Mistake of Consequence


It is 1754 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Callie Beaton is nearly twenty,
single, and determined not to marry anyone her grandfather deems worthy.
But after her impulsive flight from yet another unwanted suitor leads
her to the pier one rainy evening, Callie is mistaken for someone else
and dragged aboard a ship. Trapped in a dark hold and at the mercy of
strangers, Callie has no idea the ship is headed for a bustling port
city across the ocean in America.

Wracked with seasickness, unable to convince the ship’s captain she is
not who he thinks she is, and with only one scraggly dress to her name,
Callie somehow survives the horrid journey. She arrives in colonial
Philadelphia penniless, nameless, and alone in a strange place. Two men
offer her help: Ethan Asher, a handsome gentleman with a hidden past,
and Davy McRae, a charming ship captain with a dangerous secret. Neither
seems trustworthy, but when tragedy strikes, Callie is caught in the
middle and must choose one of the men to help her if she is to save
herself and her newfound friends from disaster.

In this historical romantic adventure, a Scottish lass who finds herself
in the wrong place at the wrong time unwittingly embarks on a journey
across the ocean to a new beginning where she searches for love,
belonging, and ultimately her true destiny.

Buy link:
https://wagonbridge-publishing.square.site/product/a-mistake-of-consequence/1?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=3

or

http://www.terrikarsten.com/a-mistake-of-consequence.html

An avid fan of all things historical, Terri Karsten lives in a hundred
year old house near the upper Mississippi River. After retiring from
teaching high school English, she divides her free time between writing
books, playing with grandkids, and chasing the outdoor life. Karsten
writes both fiction and non-fiction, and has publication credits in a
variety of magazines, newspapers and encyclopedias, including Highlights
for Children, The Winona Daily News and An Encyclopedia of Women’s
History. Her novels focus on historical fiction with strong women as
protagonists (A Mistake of Consequence, When Luck Runs Out). For more
information, visit her website: www.terrikarsten.com

Social Media links:
https://www.facebook.com/terri.karsten

https://www.linkedin.com/in/terri-karsten-7a272330/

Even More Adventures in Self-Publishing

~ janispattersonmysteries ~ 4 Comments


by Janis Patterson

As promised (threatened?) last month, today I’m going to talk about the traditional Vanity Press and the less well-known and more ambiguous hybrid ‘Assisted Publishing Organizations’, both denizens of the swamp known as publishing and which writers – especially newbies – need to know.


We all know – or we should! – about the traditional vanity press – they have been advertising in writers’ magazines for what seems like forever with lead lines like ‘Manuscripts Wanted – Let Us Publish Your Book’ or some such nonsense. Remember, it seems everyone wants to have written a book and is determined to get it published, swamping legitimate publishers in their attempts. No legitimate or reputable publisher has to advertise for submissions! Most of them don’t even accept unsolicited/unagented books. Many of them are using literary agents as an unpaid first reader, which makes it harder to get a decent agent.


So does that make the traditional vanity press useless? Not if you want it for the right purpose. The traditional vanity press is usually very upfront about what they offer – for a certain amount of money (usually quite a bit) they will produce a decent (most of them, at least) product. They will edit, design the interior, create a cover and print a pre-approved agreed upon number of copies, which they will deliver to your house. The books are your responsibility from there on.


That is, if you are dealing with a decent vanity press – and there are some – but there are many more who are not. As you go down the dependability scale books aren’t given any quality edits – or any edits at all! The design and formatting are strictly word-processing basic. Covers are either totally plain or… well, I don’t use that kind of language.
So why would anyone use a vanity press? Actually there are some appropriate uses for vanity press – a GOOD vanity press. You want to print out your mother’s recipes as a gift for your family and friends. Or your Great-Uncle Fred’s family history that he has spent years writing. Or a collection of poems written by the congregation for a church fundraiser – that sort of thing – intimate, personal and with a limited and basically non-commercial distribution. In the vast majority of – if not all – cases, fiction and most of non-fiction do not belong with a vanity press.


The secret to selling a book (and not having a couple of hundred permanently stacked in your garage) is distribution. In these days distribution of ebooks can be easy – just upload for customers to download and publicize. Paperbacks done through distributors (and this is truly so very easy) like Amazon and Draft2Digital can be done electronically. If you’re willing to learn the basics and do a little work you really don’t need a vanity press at all. See last month’s post on WriterYou and PublisherYou.


One of the newer and more invidious wrinkles on this vanity scheme is the monthly contract. I heard of a poor woman who, so anxious to get her (probably unpublishable) book into the hands of readers, signed a contract with a ‘publishing company’ (and no, I don’t know its name or I would publish it as a public service) where they would deliver X number of books (either 25 or 50, I think) to her every month – at a somewhat discounted price. However, the cover price was horrendously high, which the poor writer was told was quite flattering, as people will happily pay for first quality. (Poor writer? Stupid writer!)


The first month or two she sold a few, but then she ran out of friends and relatives and the books kept coming… along with the bill. Every month. Her garage filled up with books. Her house filled up with books. Her bank accounts all emptied. The only advice she could be given was to consult a lawyer, as she had been told if she didn’t accept and pay for the books the company would sue her for a huge amount for being in breach of contract. I don’t see how any of them could sleep at night – the ‘publishing company’ for being so dishonest and dishonorable and the writer for being so stupidly gullible and not doing her due diligence. What is worst of all is that unfortunately this is not a singular example.


‘Assisted Publishing Organizations’ are at heart the same as a vanity press, though some do offer publicity services. Apparently for those writers who do not value control they provide a partnership arrangement where the writer pays them to do what a traditional publisher would, albeit apparently on an a-la-carte basis.
I am hesitant to talk much about Assisted Publishing Organizations because I am not interested in one and therefore have done no research in depth. I can only beg anyone who is considering using one of these services to do your due diligence and then some. Know exactly what you are getting yourself in to.


Some APOs are honest and deliver what they say they will; some are not. Some are little more than smoke and mirrors. And just because they bear the name or are an offshoot of a well-known big-name publishing house is no guarantee of their honesty or their ability. I heard of one APO which promised the writer a best-seller for a mere $50,000! My personal belief is that anyone stupid enough to spend $50,000 to basically self-publish a book deserves to be taken. First of all, no one, no organization, no company can guarantee a best-seller, unless they control the list and that would make the list meaningless.


So if there is a lesson to be learned from this somewhat bad-tempered little screed of mine, it is to be careful. Investigate everything, then do it again more deeply. Talk to other writers. Join a writing group, preferably one with a long-standing respectable and professional track record like RWA, MWA, Authors Guild, and ask there; the Upper Indian Creek Poetry and Prose Literary Society probably won’t be able to cut it. Every writer needs a little bit of PublisherYou in their make-up, even if they never self-publish a word.


Remember : Money should always flow to the writer, not away from the writer but if you are willing to pay to be sure your book is published you do deserve the best service you can get for your money, and your duty is to make sure the company you choose can deliver it to you.

Beating Fear with Knowledge

~ patyjag ~ 2 Comments

I think most writers are worriers. Will the readers like the story? Did I have typos/mistakes? Does the plot make sense? Am I not offending the culture of the people I write about? Am I doing justice to the cause? Am I entertaining as well as educating?

Yes, all of these things go through my head as I write a book. I feel bad I can’t get to every book by every author in my genre- mystery/suspense/crime fiction. But I spend most of my time reading books to help me better understand my characters. Because I write Native American characters and I am not Indigenous myself, I feel I must read and learn all I can about the culture and dynamics of the tribe and people I write about.

I have some tribal members who respond to my questions, but I’ve yet to find someone to openly allow me into their world. Which makes me worry, I’m not portraying them as well as I should be. Every time I think about that, I get a knot in my stomach. I want to show them for the inventive, resilient, good-natured people that they are. I also want to show the dynamics that have made them who they are.

An author friend, Carmen Peone, who helped me with my Shandra Higheagle mystery series, that is partially set on the Colville Reservation where she lives, told me about a Choctaw woman author who has a workshop to help Native and non-Native writers better understand their characters. I spent all last week watching, listening, and taking notes. Then I picked up a book I purchased a month ago about a woman who grew up in the area near where my series, takes place and am learning more about the culture and family bonds within the culture I write about.

I have the two closest powwows written into my calendar to attend. I have attended both of them once before, years apart. This summer I will attend both and try to do what Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer suggested for attending a powwow. She had a lot of good insights even though her tribe is in Oklahoma, and I write about Oregon tribes.

One of the series that I work so hard to perfect the cultural dynamics is my Spotted Pony Casino mysteries set on the Umatilla Reservation outside of Pendleton, Oregon. Book 4 in the series released this month.

Lies, deceit, blackmail.

Murder ends it all.

Or does it?

When an employee at the Spotted Pony Casino is caught leaving early, Dela Alvaro, head of security confronts the woman. The lies the woman tells only piques Dela’s curiosity. After witnessing the employee threatening a man, she is found murdered in her car parked in the driveway of her home.

Upon learning the woman used her job at the casino to blackmail men, Dela feels compelled to solve the woman’s murder and teams up with Tribal Officer Heath Seaver. Not only does the duo have a death to solve, but there is also a mystery behind Dela’s dead father. Not to mention, her mom just announced she’s marrying a man Dela has never met.

https://books2read.com/u/4X0WY9

I’ll leave you with something one of my readers sent me in an email. It made my day!

“Your characters are so full of life and personality, I find myself thinking they’re real folk! The sign of a great writer! I just finished the Squeeze. Loved it, love Dela! And when I get up your way, I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee. You are an inspiration for other NW authors and a marvelous advocate for our indigenous peoples. Please keep bringing up the issue of missing people…it needs to be kept alive or nothing will change. Thank you for all you and your posse do to make Oregon a better place. You have my support, 100%. And I’ll await your next book, whoever you choose to write about. I already know I’ll love it.”

Writing, Housework and Cat Hair

~ Janet Dawson ~ 4 Comments

I hate doing laundry. It ranks high on my list of onerous household tasks. But needs must, as the Brits will say.

When household tasks loom, I think of a quote from French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir:

“Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day. The housewife wears herself out marking time: she makes nothing, simply perpetuates the present … Eating, sleeping, cleaning – the years no longer rise up towards heaven, they lie spread out ahead, grey and identical. The battle against dust and dirt is never won.”

At my house, the battle against clutter and cat hair is never won. One pass with the vacuum cleaner and I have enough cat hair to build a new cat.

What, you ask, does this have to do with writing? To me, writing is a bit like housework. It never ends. I wrote a blog post last month and here it is, time for another one. Same with the newsletter. I spent two years writing The Things We Keep, the Jeri Howard book that was published in March. Now I’m back to work, on a new book.

It’s starting all over again, that perpetual cycle for the writer. Having released my polished progeny into the wild, to be purchased by avid mystery readers, I am once again struggling to whack the next novel out of the brush, wielding brain and keyboard instead of a machete. The book is tangled with plot threads that must be woven together, somehow. And full of characters that I envision inhabiting the book. Plus some that I didn’t imagine—who showed up anyway.

The next months will be spent wrestling with the new book, making the idea come together, persuading the people in my head to behave the way I want them too. Or in some cases, going along with them in the direction they lead me.

And doing research. This is a historical novel and it’s easy to jump down the rabbit hole, wondering what my protagonist wears, how she travels from place to place, and what she fixes for dinner. The novel is also based on actual historical events and features real people in supporting roles. So the timeline of my plot must account for that. In other words, I don’t want my protagonist talking to a historical figure when that person was out of town that week.

No wonder I’m talking to myself, and my characters.

Ah, well, I finish the novel, then I start a new one, and the process goes on and on. While the battle with dust, dirt and cat hair is never really won, at least when I’m finished writing a book, the end result is out there, available to readers.