Travel - Anticipation and Anxiety

by Karen McCullough

Image in public domain, from Wickimedia Commons

Summer is about to officially begin and that means travel time!

I love traveling.

I hate traveling.

I love going to new and different places, collecting new experiences, and seeing things I’ve long dreamed about visiting.

I hate all the hassles of getting to those places.

I love the excitement of airports, with the anticipation of travel to exotic (or even more mundane, but different) places. I like window-shopping in fancy stores, picking up a few last-minute things, and watching the planes land and take off.

I hate the anxiety of getting to the airport on time, getting through long security lines and pat-downs. I always seem to trigger a pat-down, though I have to be the least threatening looking person in the entire airport. I hate worrying about getting to my gate on time, the crush of people all trying to board as quickly as possible, and settling into a seat area that’s impossibly tight even for someone who is 5’1” and 130 pounds. I hate the inevitable delays and worry about making connections, especially for international flights.

I love relaxing into my seat, getting into a book or movie, having someone bring drinks and food to me.

I hate being confined in a small space for hours on end, having to climb over people to get around, using an airplane lav, the bland tastelessness of most of the food, and my own complete inability to sleep on a plane.

I love landing in a new place, finally getting off the blasted plane and stretching my legs, anticipating the adventure ahead.

I hate lines at passport control, the crush of luggage retrieval, and the search for the taxi stand. Especially in a country where I don’t speak the local language, I worry about communicating with the taxi driver, getting ripped off, and making it to the right hotel or Airbnb. Or if I’m renting a car, I worry about the hassles of that process and then finding my way to my destination, hoping the GPS on my phone works in this place or the maps I’ve studied were correct.

I love settling into new quarters, starting out to explore the new terrain, finding new delights and surprises around every corner. I relish trying new food at local cafes and eateries, making notes about interesting details as research for a possible future story setting, and even watching the people. Soaking in the atmosphere of a new place, talking to local people, shopping for souvenirs, taking in as many interesting sites as possible all feed my soul. Large dramatic sites, like the Colosseum in Rome or Stonehenge (or as I hope this summer, the Acropolis), move me in odd and profound ways. The beauty of small objects in museum also touches me. I feel the history of a place as almost a living thing when in direct visual contact with the creations of people throughout history. They speak to me through the stone or glass or clay. I could spend days in art and archaeology museums, or at least hours – until my brain starts to complain about overload.

I hate that occasionally my stomach rebels at all the new foods and different waters, though it doesn’t happen often, thank goodness, and there are medicines that help. I wish I didn’t have to be careful about what I eat because I’m allergic to nuts and they’re hidden in a lot of things. And I sometimes wish my feet could handle more miles, though I wear good shoes for walking and in fact, can do a lot of it. I’m not good at packing the right things, although that’s mixed because it can give me a good excuse to pick up something I wouldn’t otherwise have bought.

I love the way travel expands my mind and my imagination.

I hate the way it empties my pocketbook and bank account. But I count every penny worth the expense.

Involuntary Research

by Janis Susan May/Janis Patterson

There’s something unsettling about hospital waiting rooms. The very air is saturated with thick and not always pleasant emotions. I’m here while a dear elderly friend has a fairly minor day surgery, waiting to take her home, but some of my waiting room companions are not so lucky. There are several clumps of people waiting with me, but there is no friendly interaction between us. I’m sure that’s not from any sense of dislike or snobbishness; on the contrary, I think it is a manifestation of focusing on what is important to them - their loved one, some of whom are having not-so-minor day surgeries.

And that’s the way it should be. Everyone’s attention and energy should be on their loved ones. There are other times for chatting with strangers, or caring/praying for others who have problems, but when it is your loved one whose flesh is under the scalpel, some familial selfishness is understandable.

I’m here alone, for my elderly friend has no local relations, and we have been close for decades, so to help the time pass I am shamelessly eavesdropping. Not that I couldn’t even if I didn’t want to; the waiting room is small, and it can’t be helped.

Everyone here has a story; one group’s uncle is having a hernia repaired; another’s sister is having benign cyst removed; another’s mother is having a badly ingrown toenail attended to; one patient is a child having her tonsils out; my friend is having a cataract removed. None of them are life threatening, or even very scary procedures, nothing like what is seen in emergency rooms and major surgical suites every day, but still... the idea of a human body - a beloved human body - being invaded with scalpel or laser or Heaven only knows what is still terrifying.

I know that a viable story could be generated from every story in this waiting room. Human experience is the genesis of all stories, but sometimes they come too close to your particular bone. It’s one thing to make up fanciful or grittily realistic tales about what happens to someone and another to think about what is happening to a loved one at the moment. Later, perhaps, when all is happily resolved, the emotional memory can be taken out and reshaped to make a story, but most definitely later. Not now, when the stomach is clenched and the mind full of possible horrors.

Someone said of writers that everything is all research to us, and that’s true. Most things that happen to us will sooner or later turn up in some form in a story. There’s no rule, however, that this involuntary research has to be pleasant.

Research Ain’t What it Used to Be

I wrote my first complete novel sometime around 1982 or 1983 and saw my first one published by Avalon Books (since swallowed up by Amazon) in 1990. A lot has changed in the publishing industry since then, some things for the better, some not so much.

One thing that has changed a lot and mostly for the better is doing research.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s when I had to check out information for a book, I started by consulting my own carefully accumulated research library, which included encyclopedias, dictionaries, histories, and a wide variety of other reference materials. Sometimes visitors to my home would look at my books, especially the books about poisons and crime, the firearms manuals, the abnormal psychology tomes, and I’d see them give me a sideways look and back slowly away.

I used those books, but they didn’t always give me all the answers I needed. Usually that meant a trip to the library to look up things I didn’t know. The reference librarians at the time knew me well and were good at finding answers for me. Sometimes, I had to pick up the phone and try to find an expert in a certain area to help me out.  It was often fun, but it also took up a lot of time.

Earlier this year I signed a contract for a new romance novel that is part of a series set in New York City, specifically Manhattan. I start with some advantage in this because I grew up in a suburb of New York City and made enough trips into Manhattan to be familiar with the streets, the people, and the atmosphere. My disadvantage is that, although I've visited occasionally, I haven’t actually lived there in more than 40 years.

I considered making a quick scouting trip to the city, but time, budget, and circumstances precluded it. I’ve done this in the past, visiting cities that would form the settings for my books. I want the big picture layout, but I also always try to find the telling details, the small bits of scenery, characters, objects, landmarks, etc. that convey the atmosphere or feel of a place.

I had some of that for New York after growing up there, but a lot changes in even ten years, and I hadn’t lived there for much longer than that. I turned to the Internet for help and it’s amazing what you can get.

I knew, more or less, where I want both my heroine and hero to live, and I didn’t want to be very specific about it, but I needed to be sure the general locations were feasible, so I turned to Google. I started with the maps but then did the satellite thing and zoomed in to get a better look. Finally I got right down to the street level to check out buildings. I picked out addresses for my characters though I don’t give actual numbers in the story.

Then there were the places they visited in the course of the story. They took a bike trip along the Shore Park Bike trail in Brooklyn. I’ve never been on it but it was an important event in the story so I wanted to get the details right. Googling brought up maps, pictures, and even a couple of YouTube videos. One video, done by a rider with a GoPro camera through a long section of the parkway, gave me a good idea of the pavement, the surroundings, the crowds, the sounds, the obstacles and who was using the path. Similarly when my characters took a walk on the High Line, a park that didn’t even exist when I lived there, I found an abundance of pictures and videos of people walking the park.

When my characters visited the Metropolitan Museum, I went online and got a map of the museum, pictures of various exhibits, information about hours and so on.

There are tons of other details I looked up to check my memories or just to try to get something right. I rarely take any one article or video at face value and usually attempt to find at least one and hopefully many others to support.

I sometimes miss the interaction with the reference librarians who were always so helpful, but the time I’m not spending driving back and forth to the library can be time spent writing.

By the way, the book I’ve been researching is called No Time for Surprises. It’s part of the No Brides Club series from Sweet Promise Press. My books is the last in the series and due to release February 8th. The entire set is available for pre-order now.

All Things Bright & Shiny Tell a Story

The Very, Very Basics of Writing Anything*

There are three fundamental elements of every piece of written work—including film, non-fiction and grocery lists.

These three elements must be present or there is no point in proceeding.

In non-fiction, the three elements forming the basics of a book are:

1. Idea – the Topic
2. Reason – Information or Add Information
3. Goal – to Educate or Refute Previous Thinking

Before my publisher, Honno, agreed to consider Parachutes & Petticoats, which I edited with the renown feminist historian, Deirdre Beddoe, we had to convince the board of directors that 1) the Topic, Welsh women’s experiences during World War II, was worth the effort; 2) we could find enough material to make a full volume of women’s autobiographical memoirs; 3) the information we gathered, written by the women themselves, was of sufficient interest and relevance to warrant the expenditure, effort, and examination required to bring a collection of essays by unknown women to fruition.

The resulting request for autobiographical essays brought in hundreds of submissions from women in Wales whose experiences had never been heard. The book was published in 1992, reprinted in 1994 and 2003, with a fourth reprint in a smaller format with minor editorial additions appeared in 2010. The essays that we couldn’t include in the volume were submitted to the National Library of Wales (Llyfrgell Genedleithol Cymru) to become a part of the national archive. Next year, 2017, will mark Parachutes & Petticoats’ 25^th anniversary. Though neither edition is still in print, the book is still available at bookstores and online book retailers.

For fiction (of any kind, in any genre, in any medium) they are:

1. Protagonist – the Hero
2. Antagonist – the Villain
3. Purpose – the Goal

For example, in my most recent published novel, Nights Before: The Novel (originally published as a novel in six installments), the above structure works like this:

1. Protagonist – Jocelyn Tavers
2. Antagonist – Jason, her ex-boyfriend
3. Jocelyn’s Goal – to find a replacement boyfriend before the end of the year

Those three elements will not, in themselves, make a full sized story, let alone a full length novel but without them, there’s no beginning, middle or end. Jason also needs a goal to combat Jocelyn’s efforts to reach her goal. And Jocelyn needs a lot more than a boyfriend to make the essentially girl-meets-boy, girl-loses-boy, girl-finds-new-boy story something more than just that.

Though Nights Before is a romantic comedy, there had to be some depth to the story and that called for a secondary goal. This is usually something hidden, even from the protagonist—a long buried pain that has left a wound that will not heal without more pain. Enter an absent parent or two, conflicting potential new boyfriends, torn stockings and a lobster feast, a demanding employer, a car accident and abandonment issues.

With my upcoming American historical novel, Pavane for Miss Marcher, the three elements are shared between the Hero and Heroine, both of whom have Goals and Antagonists out to get them:

1. Protagonists: Cathryn Marcher / Rupert Smith
2. Antagonists: Susan Miller / Jericho Colson
3. Goals/Conflicts: Staying in Maine / Moving to Wyoming

Both Cathryn and Rupert have Deuteragonist supporters who get in the way for the best reasons and enemies who get in the way for the worst reasons.

The story is set in Maine five years after the end of the American Civil War and I am currently researching and reading on both sides of this terrible conflict in our history. Keeping faith with our nation’s past has complicated the process, especially with such an emotive background that plays an enormous part in our lives 151 years after the conflict came to an end.

With family members from the southern states and a strong New England heritage complicates the story on a personal level as well but I believe a writer’s duty is to write the story that comes from their own heart, regardless of possible consequences. As my mother always said, "Be true to yourself."

Pavane for Miss Marcher is scheduled for publication in 2017. 

*These insights were first presented on Everwriting.WordPress.com

The Secret Universe of Names

by Gina Ardito

What's in a name?

More than titles, or what comes next in the plot, what most authors agonize over is choosing the perfect names for their characters. A name is so much more than a rose that smells sweet (my apologies to Shakespeare.) Each name helps us create a personality, a past, flaws and foibles, and even a time period.

We all have our share of baby name books, lists of most popular names for any given year, astrological charts, and assorted psychological profiles we've accumulated to create those characters that will resonate with our readers.

I have another method. I use...(what else?)...a book.

THE SECRET UNIVERSE OF NAMES by Roy Feinson is a treasure trove of information on personalities, based on the syllables on any given name. The descriptions include what each personality would be like as a child, as an adult, in love, in career, and as a parent. There's also a famous person linked to each set of syllables who embodies the aspects described. 

For example, in my current WIP, my hero's name is Wyatt, or as the book calls him "The Laughing WT." He's warm, multi-talented and driven, but also impatient, stubborn, and judgmental. He's a born leader, with unlimited potential, particularly in creative fields. As a mate, he's loyal, with a wicked sense of humor, and a down-to-earth parent dedicated to his children's well-being. The famous WT? Walt Disney! Makes sense, doesn't it?

My heroine is Leah, "The Demonstrative LH," nurturing and understanding, but apprehensive around strangers and a homebody at heart. She's feminine and loves to cuddle. Considering my Leah runs the local animal shelter, I think I've made the right choice.

Whether you're a writer, a parent-to-be, or someone just fascinated with the science behind names and personalities, this is a great book to add to your collection. 

Six Ways to Find New and Exciting Plot Ideas for Mystery Novels

Novel ideas come to writers in many different ways—by what they’ve personally seen or experienced, through an interesting event they’ve heard about, or because of something read about in a nonfiction book.

As an author, sometimes ideas just come to you, other times you have to dig for them.  Here are a few places to look for plot ideas.

1. Read the Newspaper

The newspaper is a good place to find mystery plots or those involving intrigue and scandal.  Murders and other crimes, the details stranger than fiction, are planned and executed daily by real criminals.  Who would believe that a man could get away with keeping women hostage in his house for decades without being apprehended?  Celebrities are always getting into mischief.  Husbands and wives sometimes commit murder for unknown reasons.  How many books have been spin-offs of the Scott Peterson case?  If you get ideas from a news source, it is best not to use real names and to change the events and the settings for legal reasons and so your book will not be just a re-hash of the news.

2. Search the Internet

There’s also a wealth of information in the Internet about true crimes, forensics, and other aspects of murder.  By “googling” certain keywords such as “murder”, “crime” or “forensics” a list of good sites to browse will likely appear.

Crime Library (http://www.crimelibrary.com/index.html) has a huge listing of serial killers, gangsters, and spies.  The Writer’s Forensic Blog (D. P. Lyle, MD) (http://writersforensicsblog.wordpress.com/)  also has quite a few good links for crime and mystery writers.

3. Watch True Crime TV Shows

TV documentaries such as the Forensic Files (on Netflix) can provide valuable information on the details of crime scene investigation.  Taking notes while watching these types of true crime programs can add realism to fictional crime scenes.

4. Read Books on Crime and Forensics, and History

There are many good books on true crime and forensics where a reader can find ideas.  Author Jay Robert Nash has about ten books on murders and disappearances in the United States.  Two books that are good for starters are: Murder, America and Homicide in the United States from the Revolution to the Present.

History books also can provide good ideas for stories that might happen in a certain time era.  Loretta and I often read books on the Old West and travelogues of certain areas to get background and ideas.  When traveling, it is a good idea to visit the book rack of tourist attractions for stories about unusual crimes, ghost sightings, and other bits of history related to a certain area.

5. Visit Museums

A trip to a museum can often be rewarding when it comes to finding an idea for a story.  My sister and I have found several in that way.  Sometimes a display or one of the stories below an exhibit will spark the imagination.  We were going through a museum when we came upon an old class photograph.  Under one name someone had written in pencil, NEVER GRADUATED.  This gave us an idea for our Jeff McQuede mystery, Murder in Black and White, where a young man goes missing just before graduation.

6. Take a Course or Talk to Locals about the Area’s History

If there is a local university or place where you can take a course, this is also a good way to find a plot for a mystery.  In the local area, there are some archaeological digs that my sister and I plan to sign up for.  While living in Wyoming, I took a few classes in forensics and Wyoming history.  The tale of the Pedro Mummy, who had been found in the 1930s by miners near Shirley basin, began to spark my interest.  The tiny mummy was examined by scientists at the time, then disappeared.  This led to our writing Whispers of the Stones, where this curious artifact appears to have resurfaced--along with collectors who might kill to own it.

Vickie Britton and Loretta Jackson are authors of the Jeff McQuede High Country Mystery Series: Murder in Black and White, Whispers of the Stones, Stealer of Horses, and The Executioner’s Hood.  To read more about the Pedro Mummy visit  Vickie Britton and Loretta Jackson's Writing Tips and Fiction. 

Vickie Britton andLoretta Jackson’s Writing Tips and Fiction.

Seven Ways Writers Lives Have Changed

by Victoria M. Johnson

While attempting to declutter my office--to make room for more necessary things--I came across a box of cassette tapes of workshops given by some of my favorite authors.  There was a time when I did not get in my car unless I had a cassette to listen to while driving.  Times have certainly changed for me because now I get in my car for silence.  The beautiful, though temporary, silence.  That box of cassettes got me thinking about what else has changed for me as a writer.  I began writing in the early nineties--not that long ago, I know--but I work so very differently now.  See if you can relate to any of these obsolete activities.

1. I knew librarians not only at my branch but other branches, too.  I often asked for help locating material for a topic I was researching.  (Well, I still know my local librarian's names but they don't point me in the same direction they once did).  Back then, the source for research usually started with one of the big sets of encyclopedias.  Now libraries don't carry these bulky sets.

2. I typed on a typewriter that had ribbons that needed to be replaced when the ink ran dry.  We were poor (which is why I had an old typewriter) so I always rewound the ribbon and gave it a second, sometimes third, life before I replaced it.  Read fellow author Sheila Claydon's experience about typing her first manuscript.

3. I befriended the copy store staff.  I even had an account because I made so many copies they gave me a discount.  Don't forget we didn't have multifunction printers in our homes.  Copies of chapters for critique groups, contest entries, and manuscripts had to be made at a copy store.

4. I befriended post office staff.  In those days manuscripts had to be mailed along with an SASE (self-addressed-stamped-envelope).  The post office staff always inquired on what I was writing and mailing out, and I put one or two of them in my stories.

5. Another thing I did was wait for the telephone to ring.  Email wasn't invented yet so writers either got a rejection letter by mail or an offer by telephone.  This hopeful writer waited by the telephone, not the mailbox. 

6. I never had to think about book promotion.  This is a state I miss most about the early days of my writing career.  I just focused on writing.  What a novel concept.  

7. I had a drink.  If a rejection letter did arrive I would have a cocktail such as a frothy, salt-rimmed margarita and I called a dear friend for moral support and to commiserate with.  Oh, wait. I still do that.

Popular romance author Leigh Michaels shares the nostalgia of her first home office (clickhere).  How about you?  What has changed in your writing life since you first started writing?  Share in the comments below.

Victoria M. Johnson knew by the time she was ten that she wanted to be a writer.  She loves telling stories and she's happiest when creating new characters and new plots.  She is also the writer and director of four short films and two micro documentaries.  Avalon Books and Montlake Romance published Victoria's fiction debut, The Doctor’s Dilemma, (A 2012 Bookseller’s Best double finalist).  Her other fiction book is a collection of romance short stories titled, The Substitute Bride.  Visit Victoria's website at http://VictoriaMJohnson.com for inspiration and tips and find her Amazon author page at http://amzn.com/e/B0046CG6PQ or connect with her on Pinterest at: http://www.pinterest.com/ByVictoriaJ and Twitter at: http://twitter.com/ByVictoriaJ