The Seeds of Encouragement

By

Sandra Wilkins

            Encouragement.  Don’t we all need that once in a while?  Doesn’t it get tiring trudging along the same old paths or whacking our way through an untamed jungle without something to embolden us?  That boost comes in all forms, like a child telling another to keep trying to catch a ball, or the sympathetic ear of a friend or the support of a group of authors who’ve never met. 

            The cheerleader in my life was my paternal grandmother.  I was a typical dispassionate teenager when I began writing short stories.  I was shy and awkward around other school kids, but in my stories things could turn out the way I wanted.  My grandma was the only person I shared my imaginings with.  As much as I rolled my eyes at her praise and thought she said all those good things only because she had to (she was my grandma after all), I knew I could trust her with my dreams.  It’s been over thirty years and I can still hear her sing-song voice telling me to “keep writin’ those stories”.  She passed away long before my first book was published, but I know she’s grinning down from Heaven and proudly telling all her friends about it. 

            Without my grandma’s urgings when I was young and the enthusiasm of another author in a small writer’s group when I was first dipping my toes into the huge ocean of writing, I don’t know if I would have attempted to find a publisher for my books.  Maybe you don’t have that kind of encouragement close to home.  Maybe it comes from friends or people who share similar interests.  Maybe you don’t feel as if anyone cares.  Well, I do.  And, I want to tell you this; you are capable of following your dreams—whatever they are.  Keep striving.  You can do it. 

            I’m not saying to jump out of an airplane without a parachute or think you’re going to swim across the English Channel if you can’t even dog paddle, but study whatever you want to do.  Learn.  Practice.  Have realistic expectations—like you probably won’t get rich being an author.  But, anything is possible if you work hard enough, don’t give up and stop to smell the flowers along the way.     

            Now, I have a challenge for everyone.  Don’t forget to encourage the loved ones in your life.  You may not see the impact right away, but that planted seed will eventually blossom into something beautiful. 

   Sandra Wilkins is busy writing another series while home educating her two daughters.  Ada’s Heart, Rose’s Hope and Gwen’s Honor are her first three published wholesome historical romances.  Go to http://www.sandrawilkins.com to find out more about her and her books.  

Music and Writing

  

When I first thought about submitting a sweet romance manuscript, I knew the emotions of the characters had to be  felt deeply by the reader. This was the challenge; make the reader feel every emotion we wanted them to feel using only words. 

Love, hate, fear, passion, sadness. I think I can safely say we all have gone through something in life and have felt these basic emotions to some degree to be able to express them in our writing.  But we write about so much more – Revenge, betrayal, terror, unrequited love, abandonment, ecstasy, rapture. How can we experience these at the time we need to write about them?

Enter music.

Music is an easily overlooked, yet incredibly important tool to help us write.  Music is so fundamental to us we often don’t even consciously acknowledge how much it actually affects us.  Music is sticky.  From a simple, but catchy jingle to a brilliant musical movie score, music surrounds us and gets locked in our minds to be recalled over and over again.

Would JAWS be as scary without the tension created by the theme song that signaled impending doom?  Do you immediately picture Indiana Jones running through cobwebs holding the crystal skull in his hand when you hear the theme song from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK?  Do you feel the pain when Lancelot seals his fate and Guinevere’s when he sings If Ever I would Leave You  in CAMELOT?

Yes to all of the above.  Because of the music.

Using music, we can experience emotion almost on an as-needed basis.
Music is a powerful medium to express and experience emotion. It recreates aspects of lives that are recognizable and can be experience to some degree just by listening. By recreating patterns associated with human emotion, it recreates the emotion. Then listening, we are able to grasp the emotional content, and react emotionally to it. As an embodiment of the emotion, we are able to perceive it directly.
 
For instance, a piece of music may be quick moving, expressing energy, purposefulness, or excitement. When we listen to a piece like that, more often than not, we can feel it.  When we feel the emotion, we are more able to put it down on paper in a way that can be felt and experienced bu our readers  through our writing.

I know you all have a particular song that makes you cry, or gets you to remember certain periods in your life. Take those songs and stash them in the USB drive in your mind. When necessary, hit the play button and use them next time you get stuck in a scene that is flat and lacking the emotional response you need to get the reader to turns those pages.

I’ve listed a few of my favorite songs that help get me from blank page to emotional genius. Well, maybe not genius; maybe just not one dimensional.

Here goes –
Abandonment - ­I Who Have Nothing by Tom Jones
Loving someone from afar – Invisible by Clay Aiken
Pain of Loss – Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton
Love – Let Me Love You –Tim McGraw
Passion – Keep Coming Back - Richard Marx
Intense Attraction – Touch of Heaven – Richard Marx
Despair – Unbreak my Heart – Toni Braxton
Lost Love - Even Now - – Barry Manilow
Questioning your Heart – Measure of a Man – Clay Aiken
Losing a Love – Somewhere Down The Road – Barry Manilow
The First Time – Somewhere in the Night – Barry Manilow
Unrequited Love - – Melody for a Memory – Hall and Oates
Hopelessness – What About Now – Daughtry (Chris Daughtry)
Regret – I Go Crazy – Paul Davis

All oldies, but all I need sometimes to remind me what one of my characters need to feel.

When you have time, take one of your favorite songs and listen for the emotion. Tag it, bag it, and save it for an emergency. You’ll be glad you did.

Kathye Quick has been writing since the sister’s of St. Casmir’s School in Shenandoah, PA gave her a #2 pencil, ruled paper and taught her what vowels and consonants were.   Now she is the author of fifteen books with a lot more stories still stuck inside her head.

Visit her at www.kathrynquick.com .

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

Food and Shelter in the Land of the Piggly Wiggly and the Palmetto Bug

There are several major events that take place in one’s life: losing your first tooth, marriage, child birth, sending your first born off to college. (We shall refer to this latter unpleasant event as the Event Which Shall Not Be Named or the EWSNBN.) At this very minute, I’m on the road looking at a college that is in a galaxy far, far away. It’s sort of like that other life event when you put your child on the school bus for the first time… ONLY ABOUT A GAZILLION TIMES WORSE!

Okay, I can deal with distance. This is the south (U.S.) and I love southern fiction, so what's not to love about sending my child off to Georgia? So long as I know she has food and safe shelter, it'll be fine, right?

I knew I was not in Kansas any more, (er, Virginia), when in the first housing option, we encountered our first Palmetto bug. I believe the phrase, “sweet cheese and pickles, look at the size of that roach!” might have passed my lips. The realtor tried to brush away my concerns. “No, that’s not a roach. That’s a Palmetto bug.” For anyone who has never seen a Palmetto bug, let me give you a little visual aid to clarify.

Yeah. “HUGE” doesn’t begin to describe it. But according to Orkin.com, a palmetto bug IS a roach. A big, monster, twice-the-size-of-anything-I’ve-ever-seen-before cockroach. I’m still not quite clear on this, so if someone can put my fears to rest, please leave a comment. I’m contemplating sending my first-born to live in a house possibly inhabited by the I’m-not-really-a-cockroach Palmetto bug. It would be nice to know if I need to send her out for fumigation before she comes back into our home at Christmas time.

Okay, so shelter is unresolved. So on to the next question: how will the child feed herself? Why, the Piggly Wiggly, of course. For those of you not familiar with this fine southern institution, it’s a grocery store chain. For real! We don’t have Piggly Wigglys at home, so when I heard the chain referenced in the movie, DRIVING MISS DAISY, I thought it was a made-up grocery store. But nope. It’s for real – and very nice, I should add – considering I’ve prefaced this with talk of the Palmetto bug. I’m not sure why the existence of the Piggly Wiggly as a real place rather than make-believe has taken me off-guard. Maybe it struck me as surreal, because this whole EWSNBN seems pretty surreal. But you have to admit, it’s a pretty funny name for a grocery store chain.

(Creative Commons, Wikimedia.org)

I know, I know, it’s only 9 hours away. The kid will be fine. She knows how to get to the nearest Piggly Wiggly, and she won’t be lonely. She’ll have the Palmetto bug to keep her company. (Seriously, she could put this thing on a leash and keep it as a pet.) And I have a good Classic and Cozy novel to take my mind off of this latest life event, the EWSNBN. (Thank you, Christine Bush. Your latest novel, CINDY'S PRINCE is yummy!)

To read and laugh along with a fictious series of life events, (and a yummy May-December romance), you also may want to check out the antics of Felicity Quinn in KEEPING UP WITH MR. JONES. Now, that woman's life is a mess!
Super mom, Felicity Quinn, has built a dream life in a gated community, with manicured lawns, all the amenities, soaring home values... skyrocketing HOA fees and Draconian restrictions.
Unfortunately, everything she thought she wanted is unraveling at the seams. Her oldest child is a pot head, her teenage daughter dresses like a hooker and her youngest has a penchant for killing small animals. When her husband calls home to announce that he is leaving her for his office assistant, Felicity thinks things can not get much worse...
...Until she bumps into her eccentric neighbor, Mr. Jones... with her car. Out of a sense of responsibility, Felicity takes it upon herself to care for Mr. Jones during his recovery. But what woman half his age could expect to keep up with Mr. Jones?

Reading again and again--Elisabeth Rose

Do you have favourite books, one's you can't bear to toss out when the big shelf clearing is on? I bet everyone does.

I'm a real sucker for those classic English writers like Evelyn Waugh, Somerset Maugham, John Galsworthy etc who wrote in the early part of the twentieth century. The between the wars periods is a fascinating time in English history with the tossing off of Victorian and Edwardian prudishness and the rise of the women's movements.

My all time favourite in this vein is the twelve novel series A Dance To the Music Of Time by Anthony Powell. It spans the period from about 1920 when the narrator Nicholas Jenkins is at boarding school and continues through to the 1960's. The books are an extraordinary depiction of English culture and society through those changing times and took over twenty years to write.

I'm now in my third reading of the lot and I'm just finishing the fourth book and loving them all over again. I bought my copies secondhand and had my son and husband on the lookout for various titles. I had a list in my bag and crossed them off as I acquired them. This has resulted in a variety of editions but it doesn't matter and just shoes how popular the books are to be reprinted time and time again. The BBC did four part miniseries several years ago. The actors are astonishingly perfect in their roles but many events have been telescoped by necessity.

They intricacies of the family relationships, marriages and friendships are staggering as Nicholas moved through his life meeting and remeeting people as he goes. Powell has created a vast world of completely believable and enthralling characters. His note taking must have been prodigious to keep track of everything and everyone. Remember he would have been writing on a typewriter at best.

I have trouble keeping track of my handful of characters and their little time lines!     

Plots and Ideas

by Janis Susan May

When they find out I am a writer one of the first things most people ask is ‘Where do you get all those ideas?’ All too often the second thing they say is ‘I have a great idea for a book – I’ll give it to you, and you can write it and we’ll split the money.’ Just a note – if you ever feel tempted to say this to me, for your own safety please make sure there are no sharp implements within reach.

What most people – non-writers – do not realize is that it takes not one but dozens of ideas to form a coherent story, and to get those which work you might have to go through hundreds. Luckily ideas fill the world to brimming. Any writer worth her salt should have fifty to a hundred ideas every day. Not all of them will be good, and few of those left will be useful, but they are there. Ideas are everywhere!

For example, my modern Gothic INHERITANCE OF SHADOWS (Carina Press) was sparked when a dear friend of mine insisted I read a book dear to her heart. I did, and while it wasn’t as much my cup of tea as hers, I could appreciate the skill and imagination that went into this convoluted, semi-religious fantasy. More than that, it set ideas sparking off in my brain.

What if a man who wrote novels of other worlds and creatures wrote so well that some people believed his work to be true? What if he died under mysterious circumstances that could be construed to fit in with his fantasy world? What if his widow became a strict religious fanatic and raised their infant daughter with no knowledge of him? What if she grew up and found out her heritage and, while searching for knowledge among those who had known him, she sees things that make it appear his fantasy world was not totally imaginary?

Voila! A book was born – a book which had no resemblance to the story my friend insisted I read that had sparked the original idea. Anyone reading both stories would be hard pressed to find the slightest resemblance.

Another example would by my 1963-set Gothic called ECHOES IN THE DARK (Vinspire Publishing). The idea germ that became that book sprang into being one very pleasant autumn day when I was having lunch with my late mother in an elegant old resort hotel in Arkansas. The tale of its restoration from near-dereliction was detailed on the back of the menu. The descriptions of the old abandoned building took hold of my imagination and from that single idea grew a book. Of course, there were other  ideas – an ex-husband and his new fiancee, a slightly criminal professor and his henchman, a couple of archaeology students, a swoon-worthy Southern gentleman, lost Confederate gold and – oh, yes – a ghost. But it all started with a single idea, an idea out of the blue to which I was receptive.

Okay, you say; that might have worked for me then, but no one can depend on such haphazard inspiration. I say, yes I can, and do, and most other writers can as well. Maybe they won’t be as clearly defined as those examples, but believe me, the ideas are there, just waiting to be picked up. A scrap of conversation, out of context, you once heard while standing in the grocery check-out line might morph into a deliciously entertaining murder plot. A small news item tucked at the end of a newspaper’s back page might expand into an idea for a family saga. That’s the lovely thing about ideas – they are everywhere! All you have to do is look at them, then pick and choose the ones you want – an unending intellectual buffet.

The Husband has become used to this phenomenon. No matter where we are, or what we are doing, or who we are with, I will (according to him) suddenly get this blank, faraway look on my face and apparently go away to someplace else for a moment or two. When being asked by companions if I have been taken ill, he will simply shake his head and say, “No. She’s just plotting. Again.”

Take a look around you today. If you don’t get at least twenty flickers of ideas, you aren’t trying. Open your eyes, open your ears, open your mind – the ideas are out there. All you have to do is pick them.

Loving the Story.. With Your Eyes or Your Ears?

Lately, my life has been amazingly busy, and that has drastically cut down on my “reading for enjoyment” time.  My TBR pile had been hovering in skyscraper proportions.
Sometimes it takes desperation for me to make changes in my life.  Feeling withdrawal from the joy of reading good stories, I finally investigated the world of audio books.  What a thrill!  Maybe this is not new news to you, but it was a new discovery for me.  While I love the feel of a book (or my Kindle) in my hands, audio books has become a great alternative in those busy days.

                                                           

I can listen to a story while on the stationary bike at the gym. I can enjoy a chapter while sorting the bottomless basket of granddaughters’ socks, or folding towels, or scrubbing pots.  The time flies by while sitting in the car pickup line at school.  In truth, I love the feel of a book (or my Kindle) in my hands. But when time is an issue, it is a great multi tasking solution to these mundane tasks, and I love it.

But I am discovering two things. First of all, many of my favorite authors do not yet have books available in an audio format. I hope that changes.  I am also exploring issuing some of my own stories as audio books. 

Secondly, I’m finding that the narrator/ reader of a book is key to my enjoyment.  Some are male, some are female, some young, some old.  It’s hard for me to decipher what exactly makes the book work. What do you think?  I’d love to hear your opinion of audio books.  Do you prefer a male or female voice? Or multi voices? In a series, is it important that the voice be the same in all of the books?  Do you have a favorite reader?  Does this format work better for you in some genres vs. others? 

Audio books? What do you think?       

Christine Bush is the award winning author of many books and novellas of sweet romance and light mystery. She also writes Middle Grade Fiction. When she isn’t writing, she can be found working with clients as a Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice, or teaching Psychology at a local college.  She lives with her family and two crazy cats in northeastern Pennsylvania, and loves to hear from readers and aspiring writers.

Her latest book “Cindy’s Prince” can be found at 

 http://www.amazon.com/Cindys-Prince-Christine-Bush-ebook/dp/B00IFSRVJ2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1393781746&sr=1-1&keywords=christine+bush+cindy%27s+prince

www.ChristineBush.com

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Christine-Bush-Author/213919128638762

http://www.amazon.com/Christine-Bush/e/B001KHSLRG/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1392688497&sr=1-2-ent