Archive for October, 2010
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5 Things You Should Know About Regression, Book One of the Infinion Series.
By Kathy Bell
1. Yes, many of the situations the main character, Adya Jordan, experiences are from my own life.
I’m not sure if I really want to tell you which experiences are based on my reality, but suffice to say that aside from the time travel, the book is fairly autobiographical!
2. Regression is a science fiction novel.
There are aspects of the story that appeal across a broader audience, but all readers should be prepared for some hard science and typical scifi tropes. Just sayin…
3. Regression is part of a trilogy which might spawn a fourth, accompanying novel.
High reader interest in hearing Nicholas Weaver’s story of his eleven lifetimes of apocalypse means I am likely going to make a companion to the series, told from the perspective of the man who discovered time travel.
4. I wrote Regression in the middle of the night, and my husband thought I was having an online affair!
Because I was a little hesitant to tell him I was writing a novel, he thought I was using the fussy baby as an excuse to cruise the net looking for some action. He sighed with relief when I finally revealed I was composing a book.
5. I am Canadian, and Regression opens on November eleventh (Remembrance Day in Canada, Veteran’s Day in the US) in a fictional Canadian town.
Some of the locations I describe are real places, but I chose not to use the names of the towns. I think for future works, I will use the actual names of the settings because it is a way of sharing my pride in where I live.
Canadian author Kathy Bell has called the Georgian Bay and Lake Huron area home for her entire life but has found books a wonderful way to travel through time and around the world. She lives on 60 acres with an amazing view of the Owen Sound city skyline in one direction and the sheer cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment in the other. Writing only became possible after checking off most other things on the to-do list of her life: marry high school sweetheart (check); get an awesome career as a high school science teacher (check); have four wonderful kids (check); build her dream home (check); be a successful entrepreneur (check); breed Canada’s top winning bulldog (check); get a herd of horses (check). With all of these activities providing fodder for her fertile imagination, she began writing with one hand cradling a fussy baby while the other pecked at the keyboard.
Her first novel, Regression, peaked at number seventeen on the Amazon Science Fiction and Fantasy bestseller list as a new release, and remained on the charts for twenty-eight days.
Find out more about Kathy and her Infinion Series at infinionseries.comor at northernsanctum.com.
Join Mark Oetjens, author of the science f iction novel, The Staff of Rahgorra (Conquer Publishing), as he virtually tours the blogosphere November 1 – 26 ‘10 on his first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!
Mark grew up in suburban Chicago. As a child he was diagnosed with Dystonia, a debilitating neuromuscular disorder. Though there is no cure for Dystonia, surgeries and rehabilitation allowed him to walk with only a slight limp by the time he started high school. He received a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Anthropology, both from Northern Illinois University. As an adult a brain tumor, completely unrelated to his Dystonia, threatened to disable him a second time. Thanks to radiation therapy the tumor has disappeared. Mark currently lives in Phoenix, AZ.
You can visit his website at www.conquerpublishing.com.
If you love science fiction, you’ll love The Staff of Rahgorra. The book starts out as the mysterious crime lord Thrull has aspirations beyond controlling the underworld in a single corner of the galaxy. Thrull wants to bring the galaxy under one rule and build a legitimate Galactic Empire. For years he has been training an army of his followers and building his own private Armada. But he knows he must also find the Staff of Rahgorra, a weapon of mythic power. To keep Thrull from finding the Staff the Galactic Security Bureau, peacekeepers of the galaxy, has pressed back into service a banished agent. Chameleon Del Rey was expelled from the GSB for avenging the death of a friend and for practicing the forbidden art of Jai Kin. Now he must train a young apprentice to use Jai Kin and find the Staff of Rahgorra before Thrull does in order to avoid a war that will stretch across the galaxy.
If you’d like to follow along with Mark as he tours the blogosphere in November, visit his official tour page at Pump Up Your Book. Lots of fun in store as you learn more about this gifted author as well as win prizes, too!
Join us for Mark Oetjens’ The Staff of Rahgorra Virtual Book Tour ‘10!
Pump Up Your Book is an innovative public relations agency specializing in virtual book tours. You can visit our website at www.pumpupyourbook.com.
John Knoerle was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1949 and migrated to California with his family in the 1960s. He has worked as a stand-up comic, a voiceover actor and a radio reporter. He wrote the screenplay for “Quiet Fire,” which starred Karen Black and Lawrence Hilton Jacobs, and the stage play “The He-Man Woman Hater’s Club,” an LA Time’s Critics Choice. John also worked as a writer for Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.”
Knoerle’s first novel, Crystal Meth Cowboys, published in 2003, was optioned by Fox TV. His second novel, The Violin Player,won the Mayhaven Award for Fiction. Knoerle is currently at work on The American Spy Trilogy. Book One, A Pure Double Cross, came out in 2008. Book Two, A Despicable Profession, was published in August of 2010.
John Knoerle currently lives in Chicago with his wife, Judie.
You can visit his website at www.bluesteelpress.com.
Q: Thank you for this interview, John. Can you tell us what your latest book, A Despicable Profession, is all about?
John: Happy to. Here a short synopsis:
May, 1946. America is basking in hard-won peace and prosperity. The OSS has been disbanded, CIA does not yet exist. Rumors swirl about the Red Army massing tanks along the Elbe in East Germany.
Former OSS agent Hal Schroeder gets an offer from Global Commerce LTD to be a trade rep in Berlin. He flies to New York to meet his new boss. Hal’s jaw drops when former OSS Chief Wild Bill Donovan strides in. Schroeder, who survived perilous duty behind German lines, says he is no longer interested in being a spy. General Donovan assures him that’s not part of his job description.
Hal comes to doubt that when he meets his immediate superior in Berlin. It’s Victor Jacobson, the case officer who sent him on repeated suicide missions in WWII.
Q: Can you tell us a little about your main and supporting characters?
John: The book is written in the first person and our narrator is Hal Schroeder, a 25-year-old former OSS agent. His WWII experiences have left him bitter and he is in the process of coming to terms with that. He is both drawn to and repulsed by the world of espionage.
Another character was the very real Major General ‘Wild Bill’ Donovan, head of the wartime OSS. When he died in 1956 President Eisenhower eulogized him as “the last hero.”
Then there is Colonel John Norwood, a fictional head of the Berlin station for Great Britain’s MI6. He’s a verbose, pipe-smoking gent who is postwar Berlin’s unofficial ‘host with the most.’
Q: Do you tend to base your characters on real people or are they totally from your imagination?
John: General Donovan was a real person of course. The rest are imaginary. I’d say Hal was an idealized version of my young self.
Q: Open the book to page 69. What is happening?
John: Hal Schroeder, accompanied by his wingman Ambrose Mooney and Ambrose’s new girlfriend Eva, have just captured Klaus Hilde, a former General in the Abwehr, the Nazi spy agency. Hilde is based on General Gehlen, a former Nazi who went to work for CIA.
Hal is suspicious that the man is an impostor since he fell into their hands quite easily.
Q: Can you give us an excerpt from that page?
John: “If you wanted to reach out to us why didn’t you? You were living in the American Sector,” I said.
“I was under guard. And they promised money for my family,” said Hilde. “I was not a true believer. Hitler was a fool, I knew he would be defeated. It is why I kept my files.”
He told a good story. But my neck itched. High value asset Klaus Hilde had got himself got awful easy. I pondered. An NKVD impostor would’ve been briefed about Karlsruhe. But he wouldn’t know the details.
“Günter had something he wore that he was proud of. What was it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Think about it.”
The man stretched his spine, trying to get comfortable. I looked up. Ambrose and Eva were back at it in the passenger’s seat. Christ.
“A medal,” said the bearded man after a time. “A bronze infantryman’s medal.”
We had our boy.
Q: What began your interest in spy thrillers?
John: I grew up reading Ian Fleming novels. What teen boy doesn’t want to be James Bond? I later graduated to Charles McCarry and John LeCarré, the true masters of the genre.
Q: In your opinion, what is the key ingredient for writing a spy thriller that will keep readers turning page after page and not want to put it down?
John: Suspense is important of course. Well-drawn characters. A keen sense of place. I guess the key thing that keeps me turning pages, spy thriller or no, is good writing.
Q: Finally, I like to ask authors this question. What is your passion? What is it that you’re more passionate about than anything else?
John: The novel. It’s been pronounced dead many times and our increasingly fractured, digitized society may finally do it in. But I sure hope not. I believe the novel is a great way to make sense of the world, to see and experience the perspective of others, and to tell the truth in its proper context.
Q: Thanks for the interview, John. Do you have any final words?
John: Am I about to be executed?!
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5 Things You Should Know About Hilton’s Life Before Love Means Zero
by Daisy JordanLove Means Zero is not the first book featuring Hilton, but you don’t need to have read the others to read and enjoy this one! If this is your first time reading one of my books, here are some details about Hilton’s past to help you catch up!
1. Hilton has always been the relationship expert among her friends. She can gauge people’s unspoken feelings for each other, she can predict breakups, and she has always seemed to have a more natural ability than her girlfriends to understand guys and their actions.
2. She has been with her boyfriend Luke for almost six years. They met freshman year of college. They have been through some rough periods, but they’d always made up, and their love for each other is intense. They plan on eventually getting engaged, but first Luke wants to finish law school and Hilton wants to travel. Traveling is a longtime love of hers, and her eventual career goal is to make travel photography books. Her relationship with Luke is easygoing, fun, and sexy. The two of them, along with their roommates Jill and Todd, are like a family.
3. Jill has been Hilton’s best friend since ninth grade and is the most important person in Hilton’s life. They have been roommates for six years and tell each other absolutely everything. They are always there for each other and would defend each other against any of their other friends. Hilton and Jill have about the best girl friendship possible. They have been through everything together –first loves, heartbreaks, ruined friendships, inside jokes, their best memories, and the biggest secrets of their lives.
4. Hilton believes everything happens for a reason. This belief is rooted in her devastating relationship with her high school boyfriend Landon. Landon broke her heart at the end, but as she picked up the pieces, Hilton was able to realize she’d spent two great years with him, she’d learned some things about guys, and there might be other reasons for their relationship and breakup – reasons that affected Landon – that she would never know. She was able to move on, meet Luke, and be happy again. Hilton is a very happy person in general, and the months after her breakup with Landon were the worst time of her life. But she is also strong and independent, and she got herself completely back together on her own before dating anyone else.
5. Hilton’s friends Lorylyn, Hillary, and Dirk, about whom there are minor side plots in Love Means Zero, are featured more heavily in other books. The updates given on them in Love Means Zero are meant to update readers who have read the previous books and pique the interest of those who haven’t. J My next book will be about Lorylyn, and it will start on the night of Hillary and Dirk’s wedding, where Love Means Zero ends, with the shocker that is thrown in Lorylyn’s face that night.
Daisy Jordan is an obsessive tennis fan and wrote this book so she could live out her dream-job fantasy through Hilton. Before deciding to write a book about the tennis tour, she wrote six other books, including Everything Happens for a Reason…, the Spin the Bottle series, and All That Sparkles Isn’t Real Sapphire. Even before that, she grew up in Indiana watching tennis all summer every summer on TV, and even attended a few pro tournaments. She now lives in Denver and religiously fills out brackets for every Grand Slam with her brother Josh.
You can visit her website at DaisyJordan.com
The First Page is one of Literarily Speaking’s newest features. Here we get a glimpse into an author’s work and what better place to begin than the first page? Authors share their first pages and answer a few questions about why they started their books off the way they did. Today we welcome Jennie Helderman, author of the nonfiction narrative, As the Sycamore Grows (Summers Bridgewater Press).
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As the Sycamore Grows
Jennie Helderman
The First Page
A noise. Ginger awoke, listened. The hum of a motor, the scrunch of tires creeping along the road outside the cabin. She reached over to her husband’s side of the bed. Empty. Where he was heading in the thin light of dawn, she didn’t know. Mike McNeil didn’t offer explanations for his comings and goings. She knew better than to ask.
She rolled back onto her pillow, wide awake now. She could see the black handle of Mike’s .38 at the edge of the closet shelf. Mike seldom strapped the gun to his belt anymore. He had made his point. She wouldn’t take it again and he knew it.
The light was still too dim to see the photos fastened with thumb tacks to the rough-sawn boards next to the closet. It didn’t matter. She pictured them in her mind. She and Mike had squeezed into the metal kiosk at a truck stop that day and posed fast, before their quarter ran out. Mike had just trimmed his beard. A good memory.
Birds chirped outside.
Time to rise. She rolled out of bed.
Welcome to Literarily Speaking, Jennie. Can you tell us what your book is about?
Imagine Foxfire living while Sleeping with the Enemy in the hills of Tennessee when the enemy totes a Bible and packs a .38. Mike shoved and slapped but isolation and economic abuse were his primary tools. Until he discovered the power of the Lord as another way to control Ginger.
As the Sycamore Grows is a nonfiction narrative about ending the legacy of abuse. Ginger McNeil was brought up to pray and obey, but she escaped the padlocked cabin in the woods where she lived off the land with no electricity or telephone. Today she’s a court advocate in the domestic court system.
Her husband Mike admits the abuse, holds no remorse and would do it all again. God made women to serve, he says. It’s their job.
Both Ginger and Mike speak, as do family, friends, ex-spouses and others. Thus Ginger is revealed as a flawed heroine who in teenage rebellion abandoned her baby. Mike ran away from his father’s fists but years later glimpsed himself in his father’s casket.
From south Texas to Tennessee the couple spiral down into poverty—by Mike’s choice—and abuse enforced by religion and a pistol.
Threading through the story is loss: the alienation of families, a spiritual void from betrayal by their church, and the death of the son Ginger had abandoned. It’s this teenage boy’s suicide, symbolized by a sycamore tree, which becomes the wedge that allows Ginger to break free and ultimately work to bring an end to abuse.
The first page is perhaps one of the most important pages in the whole book. It’s what draws the reader into the story. Why did you choose to begin your book this way?
The reader plunges into the heart of the story at its most critical, pivotal point. I want him to be caught in its tension so that he races away with Ginger later in the chapter.
I wanted the reader to have this information and emotional investment as he learns what leads up to this point and how it is resolved.
In the course of writing your book, how many times would you say that first page changed and for what reasons?
I didn’t count. The page changed several times but only in minor ways of coming to the same place. Each change, though, focused more tightly, going from the sun rising to a noise that awakened Ginger before daylight.
Was there ever a time after the book went to print you wished you had changed something on the first page?
Not something on the front page but the paper itself. I had specified a natural color in paper and somehow it came out stark white.
What advice can you give to aspiring authors to stress how important the first page is?
If the first page doesn’t grab hold of the reader, wave goodbye. He won’t get to page two.
Visit Jennie online at www.jenniehelderman.com.
Join Hana Samek Norton, author of the historical fiction novel, The Sixth Surrender (Penguin/Plume) as she virtually tours the blogosphere in November ‘10 on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!
Hana’s passion for the Middle Ages dates to a childhood exploring the ruins of castles and cloisters in the (now) Czech Republic. She also developed that “lurid taste in fiction,” by reading dog-eared novels full of the drama and melodrama of history. She graduated with an MA from the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, and a Ph. D. (both in history, of course), from the University of New Mexico where she currently resides. She is married to an Englishman, teaches part-time, and works as a historical consultant.
Her latest book is The Sixth Surrender. It’s Anno Domini 1200. King Richard the Lionheart is dead. And in the final years of her own eventful life, queen-duchess Aliénor of Aquitaine launches a deadly dynastic chess game to safeguard the crowns of Normandy and England for John Plantagenet, her only surviving son.
To that end, Aliénor coerces into matrimony her two pawns: Juliana de Charnais, a plain and pious novice determined to regain her inheritance, and Guérin de Lasalle, a cynical and profligate captain of a band of Richard’s mercenaries, equally resolved to renounce his. But Aliénor wants their marriage to save Jonn’s patrimony from the plots of Philip, the king of France, and her own vassals, the traitorous lords of Lusignan, descendants of the legendary half-serpent Mélusine.
Preferring the company of his routiers, bawds, and barrel houses, Lasalle does not intend to be a husband to the shy young woman, nor to become entangled in John’s own matrimonial mire, but at the heart of Aliénor’s scheme is the mystery of his own past that could cost John his thrones—and Juliana her life.
You can find out more about her book at http://www.thesixthsurrender.com.
If you’d like to follow along with Hana as she tours the blogosphere in November, visit her official tour page at Pump Up Your Book. Lots of fun in store as you learn more about this gifted author as well as win prizes, too!
Join us for Hana Samek Norton’s The Sixth Surrender Virtual Book Tour ‘10!
Pump Up Your Book is an innovative public relations agency specializing in virtual book tours. You can visit our website at www.pumpupyourbook.com.
The First Page is one of Literarily Speaking’s newest features. Here we get a glimpse into an author’s work and what better place to begin than the first page? Authors share their first pages and answer a few questions about why they started their books off the way they did. Today we welcome Robert Seymour, author of the humorous fiction novel, Wig Begone (Matador/Troubadour).
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Wig Begone
The First Page
The Lord Chief Justice’s good eye gave me a stony stare through the one clear lens of his spectacles as I re-entered the room. I searched desperately round for a sympathetic face – surely, there must be one? Not the other judges, who sat by his side, that was for sure.
I felt myself breaking into a cold sweat.
Only an hour beforehand, the disciplinary hearing at Galahad’s Inn having at long last finished, I’d slunk into the anteroom; such a friendless place, adorned with paintings of long dead judges. A marble bust of yet another ancient judicial luminary from the distant past wearing a full-bottomed wig was my only companion.
Outside, a gentle rain fell on the Inn’s venerable buildings which surrounded its fine square with an elegant fountain spouting in the middle. Soon the environs of the Inns of Court with their air of calm authority would be lost to me forever. Charles Courtley, the poor boy from the sticks, who had no previous connections with the law and was so determined to succeed in the competitive world of the Bar, was about to receive his comeuppance.
Of course, there were always other jobs I could do, I reflected gloomily; working in an office as a law clerk (a fate worse than death) was one unappealing option – or becoming a mini-cab driver which, at least, would mean that I remained self-employed.
Welcome to Literarily Speaking, Robert. Can you tell us what your book is about?
It’s a humorous tale of the triumphs and tragedies of the start of a young lawyer’s career at the English Bar – fraught with pitfalls and problems.
The first page is perhaps one of the most important pages in the whole book. It’s what draws the reader into the story. Why did you choose to begin your book this way?
I wanted the reader to feel empathy for the main character, Charles Courtley, by painting him as a rather vulnerable person facing defeat by the system. In that way, I hoped that the reader’s curiosity would be engaged immediately.
In the course of writing your book, how many times would you say that first page changed and for what reasons?
Essentially that not much, as I had already planned the climax of the story before I drafted the first page. However, I did expand the content of the first few pages at a later stage.
Was there ever a time after the book went to print you wished you had changed something on the first page?
Not really – I was happy enough to leave it much as it was.
What advice can you give to aspiring authors to stress how important the first page is?
Very important. After all ,obviously it’s the first one the reader is going to see, but also it should help to keep the writer’s eye on the ball too. My feeling is that the first page should act as a reminder to the writer of how the story should develop and reach a conclusion.
Visit Robert online at http://courtleyprocedures.wordpress.com.
Cheryl Malandrinos is a freelance writer and editor. A regular contributor for Writer2Writer, her articles focus on increasing productivity through time management and organization. A founding member of Musing Our Children, Ms. Malandrinos is also Editor in Chief of the group’s quarterly newsletter, Pages & Pens.
Cheryl is a Tour Coordinator for Pump Up Your Book, a book reviewer, and blogger. Little Shepherd is her first children’s book. Ms. Malandrinos lives in Western Massachusetts with her husband and two young daughters. She also has a son who is married.
You can visit Cheryl online at http://ccmalandrinos.com or the Little Shepherd blog at http://littleshepherdchildrensbook.blogspot.com/.
Q: Thank you for this interview, Cheryl. Can you tell us what your latest book, Little Shepherd, is all about?
Cheryl: Little Shepherd is a retelling of the Christmas story as seen through the eyes of a young shepherd. Obed is in the fields outside Bethlehem when the angels appear. He wants to visit the newborn King, but is afraid to leave his flock unattended. His father convinces him to go and Obed soon discovers what a night of miracles it is.
Q: Everyone loves Christmas stories! Why did you decide to write this particular story?
Cheryl: Well, the funny thing is, Little Shepherd was not originally a children’s book. When God first planted the idea in my heart, it was the story of an adult Obed, who leaves home to find the apostles who are in hiding after the Resurrection of Jesus. He wants to know if this Jesus is the Savior he met when he was just a boy.
When I was talking to my pastor about the book, he asked if it was a children’s story. That’s when the gears in my brain really started moving. Why not tell the beginning of Obed’s story for a younger audience?
Q: Is Christmas your favorite holiday?
Cheryl: I have a feeling you already know the answer to this question, but yes, it is. Halloween is a close second. Both holidays offer a creative person a chance to decorate in a fun way.
Q: A little birdie told me you have quite a few Christmas trees in your house during the holidays. How many do you have and would you like to share a picture with us?
Cheryl: Just a few, lol. Let’s see, last year we had 5 small trees outside and 7 trees of various sizes indoors. We also have 2 fiber optic trees and a ceramic one. You can see a video I put together for some of my friends who ask about our trees by going to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZu70ouJnn0 Not all of them are in the video, but you’ll get the gist of it.
You’ll have to pardon the extra mess around the house. This was after Christmas and I hadn’t picked up from the chaos yet. Christmas dinner is at our place every year.
Q: Are you a member of any children’s writing groups or organizations?
Cheryl: I am a founding member of Musing Our Children, a group dedicated to encouraging a love of reading and writing in young people. We visit schools and offer writing workshops to students of all ages. We have a quarterly newsletter titled, Pages & Pens that is a free download from our website.
Q: In your opinion, what is the key ingredient for writing children’s books?
Cheryl: I don’t think writing for children is very different than writing for adults. You still have to create a good story with a solid plot and characters that readers want to spend time getting to know. You have to create characters that young readers will relate to and put them in situations readers will understand, and you have to be careful to never talk down to your readers.
Q: Finally, I like to ask authors this question. What is your passion? What is it that you’re more passionate about than anything else?
Cheryl: I’m passionate about sharing the Good News with others, but especially children. In this crazy world when things can go so wrong, it’s comforting to know that Jesus loves us; that He came into this world so long ago and gave up His life and rose again so that one day we may enter heaven. Everyone needs to hear this message, but especially kids. If children can learn to depend upon God for their needs; know they are never alone; know that God is there to guide their steps; and that He loves them no matter what they do, imagine how much more intimate their spiritual journey will be as they reach adulthood. While I knew of Christ, I can’t say I really knew Christ until after I was an adult. I wish I had invited Him into my life sooner.
Q: Thanks for the interview, Cheryl. Do you have any final words?
Cheryl: Thanks for hosting me today. I enjoyed answering these questions. I hope your readers will consider purchasing Little Shepherd for their children. They can follow my tour during the months of October, November, and December by visiting www.pumpupyourbook.com I’ll also be blogging during my tour at http://littleshepherdchildrensbook.blogspot.com/ I hope everyone has a blessed Christmas.
The First Page is one of Literarily Speaking’s newest features. Here we get a glimpse into an author’s work and what better place to begin than the first page? Authors share their first pages and answer a few questions about why they started their books off the way they did. Today we welcome Laura Vosika, author of the historical fiction novel, Blue Bells of Scotland (Gabriel’s Horn Publishing).
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Blue Bells of Scotland
by Laura Vosika
The First Page
“Shawn means self and Kleiner means centered!” His girlfriend, an English major, flung it at him as an insult. Shawn plucked it from midair, polished it off, and, grinning, wore it as a badge of honor.
But Shawn surpassed mere self-centeredness. He strove also for selfishness, self-importance, and self-satisfaction. He was the center of his own existence and, the problem was, of many others’, too.
His audition for second trombone, a month before completing his music degree, was legend.
He swaggered into the reception room and leaned over the secretary’s desk, smiling his infectious smile and complimenting her eyes. In minutes, he had a date with her. She called her fiance to cancel dinner with his parents. Postponed it indefinitely. He drew a rose from the vase on her desk, brushed it across her lips, and took it, and her longing gaze, with him.
Strutting into the warm-up area, he sized up forty-five world-class trombonists. His eyes fell on the lone woman. He trailed the rose along her cheek and flipped his card up between two fingers. “Call me,” he mouthed. Her eyes melted.
When he pulled out his trombone, seventeen musicians stopped playing to stare. Shawn had that affect. He stood six feet, strongly built. Dark chestnut hair brushed his shoulders. Deep amber eyes sparkled with confidence as he leisurely scanned his competition.
Satisfied, he drew in a deep breath. Thirteen more stopped playing. He blew one long, golden note, and fourteen more lowered their instruments. He dipped warning eyebrows at the lone holdout still prattling off scales. The man dropped his instrument and looked away.
Now it was only Shawn.
He warmed up with the triplet section of Blue Bells of Scotland. He played it twice as fast as anyone ever had, skipping over the hardest parts like a mountain stream bubbling downhill. His Russian Easter thundered out every gravitas Rimsky-Korsakov had intended. A little bluesy Body and Soul just for fun, at which an older gentlemen in the back of the room wiped the corner of his eye.
Welcome to The First Page feature of Literarily Speaking, Laura. Can you tell us what your book is about?
Blue Bells of Scotland is a time travel and historic adventure, about two men, polar opposites but for their looks and love of music, who are mistaken for one another. Shawn is a modern musical phenomenon, who wears accusations of self-centeredness like a badge of honor. Niall is a devout medieval Highland warrior, the epitome of responsibility. The fate of Scotland rests on his shoulders. When they both spend the night at the top of the same castle tower, they wake up in the wrong centuries, caught in one another’s lives.
The first page is perhaps one of the most important pages in the whole book. It’s what draws the reader into the story. Why did you choose to begin your book this way?
Blue Bells of Scotland can be enjoyed on several levels: historical fiction, adventure, time travel, a little bit of romance, a story of switching places, fish out of water, or mistaken identity. At its deepest level, it is the story of character, metamorphosis, and redemption. Read on this level, the first page not only explains how Shawn, the modern-day musician, is able to get away with the things he does, but ties directly to the very last sentence in the book. The book starts and ends with the issue of Shawn’s character.
In the course of writing your book, how many times would you say that first page changed and for what reasons?
Surprisingly little. Several times, I tried the current advice of jumping into the story at the moment of crisis. That would be when Shawn and Niall make the switch in the castle. However, something kept drawing me back to starting with Shawn’s defining characteristics: arrogance and selfishness. I felt Shawn and Niall needed to be better established as individuals before the switch happened: who they are, and how they differ, how they impacted the lives of those around them. Ultimately, I think I kept coming back to this opening, defining Shawn, because it really is the crux of the story on the emotional level: metamorphosis and redemption.
What advice can you give to aspiring authors to stress how important the first page is?
The importance of the first page cannot be overemphasized. When a reader walks into a bookstore, they typically look for a cover that catches their eye, read the blurb, and turn to the first page. If it doesn’t interest them, they’ll put it back on the shelf. The first page(s) are so important that there is an entire book written called The First Five Pages, by Noah Lukeman.
The Ice Cream Theory is ice-cream guru Steff Deschenes’s charming exploration of the parallels between human personalities and ice-cream flavors, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the variety inherent in a well-lived life.
The Theory was hatched when Deschenes was trying to make sense of her first heartbreak. In the midst of that grief, she realized that, in the same way humans have ice-cream preferences, humans have people preferences. Like ice cream flavors, social preferences shift based on age, experience, even mood. There are exotic flavors that one craves when feeling daring, comforting flavors to fall back on, flavors long-enjoyed that eventually wear out their welcome, and those unique flavors that require an acquired taste. Like people, no ice cream flavor is perfect every single time . . . and it is in this realization that the crux of Deschenes’s theory lies.
Deschenes neatly brings together anecdotes from her own adventures with broader-reaching social commentary to help others recognize the wisdom and joy inherent in a beloved dessert.
With its cheeky self-help slant, The Ice Cream Theory is an endearing and light-hearted addition to any bookshelf. It’s a must read for anyone bruised by life’s tough lessons and in need of a cheerful pick me up!
This is the exciting premise of Steff Deschenes’ new book, The Ice Cream Theory . We had a chance to interview Steff about her book. Enjoy!
Q: Thank you for this interview, Steff. Can you tell us what your latest book, The Ice Cream Theory, is all about?
Steff: The Ice Cream Theory is a tongue-in-cheek exploration of the parallels between human personalities and ice cream flavors. In the same way people have ice cream preferences, people also have people preferences. Like ice cream flavors, social preferences shift based on age, experience, even mood. There are exotic flavors that one craves when feeling daring, comforting flavors to fall back on, flavors long-enjoyed that eventually wear out their welcome, and those unique flavors that require an acquired taste. Like people, no ice cream flavor is perfect every single time!
Q: So you’re saying there’s an obvious relation between our personalities and the ice cream we love? Can you give us an example? Take me for example. I love vanilla ice cream. What does that say about me? *grin*
Steff: The idea is that the people in our world are comparable to ice cream flavors. It’s a very personal analogy, because there are so many variables. For example how my boyfriend views me is going to be dramatically different than how my mom or an employer views me. And how I feel about a certain flavor isn’t going to be how you feel about a certain flavor. That’s the beauty of it! The Ice Cream Theory is easily adaptable to everyone’s own life.
Personally, I don’t like vanilla. I think vanilla ice cream is extremely boring and unimpressive. So, the people in my world who I would characterize as Vanilla would be those who are very mainstream: they don’t think outside the box; they’re very black-and-white, cut-and-dry, and play-it-by-the-book kind of people. For others, I know that vanilla represents stability, commonality, or even a blank-canvas full of possibilities. I just don’t!
Q: So what if I liked tutti frutti? What would that say about me?
Steff: People frequently use tutti frutti as a flavor to try and trip me up (but you forget, I come from Maine where we actually have a Lobster Ice Cream with chunks of frozen lobster and butter! Very little throws me!). Tutti frutti is actually Italian for “all fruits.” So, generally, tutti frutti ice cream is comprised of a variety of fruit flavors. And, depending on where you are in the world, that combination of flavors change.
Tutti frutti people, then, are interesting characters that aren’t defined by a solitary word – they are the kind of people who, while sweet and bubbly, are scattered in thought and action, needing help to stay focused. They are the kind of people you are both love and hate to be around, because while they might have a characteristic you like, they’ll also have one you can’t stand. And tutti fruitti folks aren’t necessarily the kind of people you take seriously!
Q: Do you ever go around asking people what their ice cream preference is?
Steff: People generally volunteer what flavor they like and then ask me to tell them what that might mean. Or, they ask me to tell them what flavor I think they are, which is impossible! I’m not a psychic! If I’ve just met someone for the first time it would be impossible without getting to know one another, what their personality is like and thus what flavor that might represent to me. But, so far, I’ve been pretty good at shooting from the hip when people ask. I think I’m an excellent judge of character; but still!, that’s alot of pressure to put on a girl!
Q: I’m still on the ice cream thing, lol…what if…I liked vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. Would that mean I had multiple personalities?
Steff: You know, while I was writing The Ice Cream Theory my friends use to joke with me about this very thing! I don’t think it means that you have multiple personalities (after all, when you get a carton of Neapolitan ice cream, you aren’t getting three different brands of ice cream in one box, you’re getting one brand’s version of three different ice creams). I think that Neapolitan people are those that on the outside appear to have several very, very strong defining characteristics. But have you seen what happens when you let vanilla-chocolate-strawberry melt? What color’s left? Only the brown from the chocolate – this is the most defining characteristic of that person, and although it might not be apparent to onlookers or life’s passers-by, it is very clear to those people who stay in our lives for a spell and get to know us intimately.
Q: Okay, one more. Let’s say my boyfriend loves chocolate and I love vanilla. Is this relationship doomed?
Steff: As mentioned above, when chocolate and vanilla melt, usually the only color that remains is dark brown. And if you were to dip your finger in the melted ice cream, I bet you would only taste chocolate. So, I don’t necessarily think that the relationship is doomed, but I absolutely think that the personality that’s the strongest – which is clearly chocolate in this scenario – would end up ruling/dictating that relationship. And does that sound like a healthy relationship between two people?
Q: What has been the reaction of others when you told them you had written this book?
Steff: “YOU wrote this?! But, you’re like fifteen!” I’ve heard this one at every single book signing I’ve done so far. I’m a very small, very young looking woman and as a result people are always baffled that I not only wrote a self-help book, but that I wrote an award-winning self-help book.
Q: What has been the most rewarding experience of your book journey since your book has come out?
Steff: The Ice Cream Theory has won 12 awards. Twelve awards! That’s huge! I know without a doubt that there’s something very special about The Ice Cream Theory and it’s being recognized and appreciated by people from all different walks of life.
Q: If you had one tip to give to everyone that is related to the message you are trying to get across with this book, what would it be?
Steff: Life is beautiful in its imperfection. If we obsess over the next best thing or over what might happen tomorrow, then we miss out on everything we have right now in this present moment, which is the only thing that’s real. We need to be a culture that truly feels their way through all the good and bad emotions life is made up of. Yes, life could be better (the weather could be better, our health could be better, anything, really, could be better than it is), but it’s more than good enough!
Q: Thank you so much for this interview, Steff. Do you have any final words?
Steff: I continue to be so humbled and inspired by this book tour; I’m thankful that you wanted to be a part of it! By doing these tour stops, I’ve been reminded of just how enamored I really am with the act of writing!
The Ice Cream Theory is available for purchase through Amazon.com, and it even has a Facebook Fan Page. I’m trying to reach 1,000 fans, and once it does I’m giving away ten free copies of the book!
You can visit Steff’s website at www.steffdeschenes.com. You can also visit her at www.theicecreamtheory.com.
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The story behind the creation of Shedrow is a somewhat improbable one, in that the fictional thriller ultimately published by a small independent press was actually born as an alternative to a non-fiction proposal that had the interest of one of the mainstream academic presses. At the time, there had been a book recently published by Dr. Arthur Perry—a consumer guide to plastic surgery—and I had proposed a similar work focusing on my primary profession of oral surgery and dentistry.
I had written and published a fair amount in my profession, but I had never written anything for the lay press. So I began taking courses designed for physicians and attorneys, on non-fiction as well as fiction writing. I kept finding myself drawn more and more towards the fiction side—the fiction seemed like fun while the non-fiction project seemed more like work. I had not written any serious fiction since college, though I had always been an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction. Along the way, I was influenced by several mentors—two physicians and one attorney, all of them turned best-selling novelists.
So I came up with the “what if” concept for a work of fiction, one that drew on my medical background as well as a longstanding interest in thoroughbred racing. The “what if” concept behind Shedrow was this: what if a multimillion dollar stallion dies under very mysterious conditions on a supposedly secure farm near Lexington, KY? From that starting point comes a compelling story of “murder, sabotage, infidelity, and a whole lot more,” as one recent reviewer commented.
As for how I got the work published, I began by querying only six agents. Three of those responded and requested the full work—I suppose that meant that, if nothing else, I could at least write a good query letter. That’s a skill worth refining, I believe. Two of those agents ultimately passed, and a third wanted to try to sell the novel to a mainstream publisher. Then came the hard realization. Assuming the agent could sell the work—and of course there can never be a guarantee of that—I would be looking at a minimum of another 18 months before I would see the work in print. Add to that the realization that, as a debut novelist, the burden of promotion and publicity would likely fall on my shoulders regardless of the publisher ultimately chosen. If you are a blockbuster author, your marketing budget may be substantial. For first timers, we really have to expect to spend some of our own funds on publicity and promotion, no matter where we ultimately land on the publishing landscape. So in my case, I elected to go the indie route.
Thus, from non-fiction to fiction and from mainstream academic press to small, independent press, Shedrow is a thriller with lots of unexpected twists and turns—born from some equally unanticipated changes in course throughout the trip from initial book concept to final publication.
Dr. Dean DeLuke is a graduate of St. Michael’s College, Columbia University (DMD) and Union Graduate College (MBA). He completed residency training at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and also participated in a fellowship in maxillofacial surgery at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, England.
He currently divides his time between the practice of oral and maxillofacial surgery and a variety of business consulting activities with Millennium Business Communications, LLC, a boutique marketing, communications and business consulting firm. An active volunteer, he has served on the Boards of the St. Clare’s Hospital Foundation, the Kidney Foundation of Northeast New York, and the Albany Academy for Girls. He has also performed medical missionary work with Health Volunteers Overseas.
He has a long history of involvement with thoroughbred horses—from farm hand on the Assunta Louis Farm in the 1970s to partner with Dogwood Stable at present.
His latest book is Shedrow, a medical thriller with a unique twist.
You can visit his website at www.shedrow1.com or connect with him at Facebook at www.facebook.com/deandeluke.
Join Dina Kucera, author of the memoir, Everything I Never Wanted to Be (Dream of Things) as she virtually tours the blogosphere in November ‘10 on her first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!
Dina Kucera was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After completing a project to collect and identify fifty insects, she graduated from the ninth grade and left school for good. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Her first job was a paper route, and she has worked as a maid, bartender, waitress, and grocery store checker. Dina has also been a stand-up comic for twenty years, for which she receives payment ranging from a small amount of money to a very, very small amount of money. When it comes to awards and recognition, she was once nominated for a Girl Scout sugar cookie award, but she never actually received the award because her father decided to stop at a bar instead of going to the award ceremony. Dina waited on the curb outside the bar, repeatedly saying to panhandlers, “Sorry. I don’t have any money. I’m seven.” Dina is married with three daughters, one stepson, and one grandson. She currently lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
Everything I Never Wanted to Be is the true story of a family’s battle with alcoholism and drug addiction. Dina’s grandfather and father were alcoholics. Her grandmother was a pill addict. Dina is an alcoholic and pill addict, and all three of her daughters struggle with alcohol and drug addiction—including her youngest daughter, who started using heroin at age fourteen. Dina’s household also includes her husband and his unemployed identical twin, her mother who has Parkinson’s Disease, and her grandson who has cerebral palsy. On top of all that, Dina is trying to make it as a stand-up comic and author so she can quit her crummy job as a grocery store clerk. Through it all, Dina does her best to hold her family together, keep her faith, and maintain her sense of humor.
Everything I Never Wanted to Be includes a number of horrific events. But in the end, it is an uplifting story with valuable lessons for parents and teens alike, and a strong message about the need to address the epidemic of teen drug addiction in our nation.
It’s a book that can change behavior and save lives—and make you laugh along the way.
You can find out more about her book at www.everythinginever.com or visit her personal website at www.dinakucera.com.
If you’d like to follow along with Dina as she tours the blogosphere in November, visit her official tour page at Pump Up Your Book. Lots of fun in store as you learn more about this gifted author as well as win prizes, too!
Join us for Dina Kucera’s Everything I Never Wanted to Be Virtual Book Tour ‘10!
Pump Up Your Book is an innovative public relations agency specializing in virtual book tours. You can visit our website at www.pumpupyourbook.com.
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Many years ago, really only as a hobby, I wrote a children’s book – scribbling away whilst I waited for my cases to be heard in court. At the time, I was a young criminal trial attorney in England.
After that, I took up a writing correspondence course (long before the advent of the internet or e-mail) and wrote a number of short stories; two of which were produced for radio in the 1980s.
More recently still, I actually wrote a memoir of my early experiences in the law but when I realized that so much humor underlay them (often at my own expense), I decided to use the material instead to provide the basis for a light-hearted novel.
So Wig Begone by Charles Courtley was conceived and born.
Writing it though, meant much more than just churning out another piece of fiction. It became a cathartic process too as, in many ways, those years had been very hard indeed. At one stage, I came quite close to a breakdown as the result of the emotional pressure of the work I was doing, and only the support of my long-suffering wife saved the day.
By the same token – and hoping I don’t too sound pompous in saying this – I felt, by writing the book, that I had given permanence to a small passage of a human being’s time on this earth, by describing it in words.
Even if one person only in 50 years time, were to read a copy of my book,long discarded but now rediscovered in somebody’s attic, I would be rewarded enough.
As I had faith in my work and not wanting to delay the process, I decided to self-publish from the start. There’s one distinct disadvantage though – you have to fight the prejudice that the industry holds against those of us who have chosen to go it alone.
This isn’t insuperable however, if you have a reputable self-publisher (my own, Matador/Troubador were excellent), and are prepared to work hard in publicizing the book yourself.
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Robert Seymour, (under the pseudonym of Charles Courtley) is a retired judge who lives on the English coast with his wife, Jane, of 38 years, and a small dog called Phoebe.
He is the author of Wig Begone, a tale of a young barrister’s triumphs and tragedies. As well as adapting his novel into a screenplay and writing a sequel, he contributes to legal newsletters and blogs.
Find him online at http://courtleyprocedures.wordpress.com.
We have a special guest today! Jennie Helderman, author of As the Sycamore Grows (Summers Bridgewater Press), is here to talk about what most people keep a secret – abuse. Visit Jennie on the web at www.jenniehelderman.com.
The Bruises That Don’t Show
by Jennie Miller Helderman
The TV producer wanted bruises, something that would show. Ginger had none, not that day. She’d had nothing purple to show the preacher who told her to go back home. No red marks to show the policeman who, without visible evidence, couldn’t make an arrest.
Abuse, to some people, means black eyes, broken teeth, bald patches. But abuse takes many forms. Abuse is about control and some means of control are subtle. Who goes through the mail? Who makes money decisions? Who keeps the money? Intimidation, isolation, verbal abuse—these leave no telltale signs but their pain can be just as damaging as physical abuse and take longer to heal.
Ask Ginger McNeil, whose story is told in As the Sycamore Grows. Her husband slapped and shoved but isolation and economic abuse were his mainstays. She lived with him in a two-room cabin hidden behind a padlocked gate without power, a telephone, or even a mailbox. She made her own soap, canned chickens and cooked catfish soup on a wood stove to feed her children. Then he bought a Jet Ski—with his disability check. Even poverty can be a means of abuse when it allows one person to control another.
“Verbal abuse is insidious,” says Patricia Evans in The Verbally Abusive Relationship. Name calling, sarcasm, criticizing, teasing, withholding—all disregard or devalue a partner. They can diminish self-esteem and confidence to the point of brain-washing.
Again Ginger provides an example. She was religious. Her husband was not—until he discovered the power of the Lord as a means of control. By that time, he was able to convince her to pray to God through him.
Now Ginger knows the warning signs. She knows that abuse always escalates. Verbal abuse always precedes physical abuse.
Wounds to the heart and soul may not leave outward marks, but purple will come.
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Jennie Helderman broke the glass ceiling at age ten by becoming the first girl page in the Alabama State Legislature. That surge of girl power wouldn’t be the last time she saw a need to put women’s issues at the forefront. Years later, after she helped set up a crisis-call center in an old house, a cry for help at the other end of the phone line resounded in her head. That call was the catalyst; eventually, the empty bedrooms upstairs served as the community’s first shelter for victims of domestic abuse.
From there, Helderman began work with women’s issues and leadership, community development, public relations and communications, beginning in Gadsden, Alabama, and reaching to national levels. She has championed women’s and children’s issues and worked with child abuse victims. From 2000 until her term expired in 2006, she presided over the six-member board of the Alabama Department of Human Resources, which serves 520,000 clients each month and oversees all family abuse issues in the state.
A 2007 Pushcart Prize nominee, Helderman coauthored two nonfiction books, Christmas Trivia and Hanukkah Trivia and writes profiles for magazines. Previously she chaired the editorial board of the 120,000 circulation alumnae magazine of Kappa Kappa Gamma, The Key.
Her latest book is As the Sycamore Grows.
Helderman is married to a retired newspaper publisher; is the mother of two and grandmother of three; and has recently moved from Alabama to Atlanta. Her website address is www.jenniehelderman.com.
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My new novel is titled A Despicable Profession. It is Book Two of the American Spy Trilogy. Here is how I came to write it:
As a young man I cut my teeth on the masters of hardboiled detective fiction – Raymond Chandler, Dash Hammett, with a shot of James M. Cain on the side. However, while their dialogue crackled and their gaudy people and gritty places leapt off the page, I always felt there was something missing. The stories were too small, trapped inside their own seedy world.
The other literary masters I came to admire – Charles McCarry, John le Carré and Ken Follett – didn’t often feature the snappy patter and lurid characters I so enjoyed in hardboiled fiction. What these novelists did have was a bigger tale to tell, a story that had the potential to affect everyone in the United States, or Western Europe, or the whole damn world.
So why not combine the two? The oily charm of hardboiled fiction married to the big picture sweep of the spy thriller? You might argue that Ian Fleming’s James Bond series had already merged the two genres decades ago. I would agree that Fleming tried. But Ian Fleming the writer, in my opinion, was not worthy of carrying Raymond Chandler’s pencil box.
I’m probably not worthy either but I do try my heart out. Melding the rat-a-tat style of detective fiction with the ponderous substance of the spy novel has proved quite a challenge. The only way forward that I could see was to create a young protagonist, as opposed to the traditional lead character in both spy and detective novels – a middle-aged man well-seasoned by life.
Hal Schroeder, the hero of A Despicable Profession, is only 25 years old. He is not well-seasoned. He is young and cocky enough to think he has all the answers. His immaturity drives the action, as we watch Hal learn the painful lessons that veteran agents like le Carré’s George Smiley already know.
Too many spy novels, in this man’s opinion, are steeped in cynicism, which breeds lethargy. The protagonist does what needs to be done, coolly, professionally. But without passion. Not Hal Schroeder. He thinks he’s a cynical hard guy but his youthful enthusiasm always gets the better of him. Which is usually, but not always, for the best.
Find out more about Hal at www.bluesteelpress.com.
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John Knoerle was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1949 and migrated to California with his family in the 1960s. He has worked as a stand-up comic, a voiceover actor and a radio reporter. He wrote the screenplay for “Quiet Fire,” which starred Karen Black and Lawrence Hilton Jacobs, and the stage play “The He-Man Woman Hater’s Club,” an LA Time’s Critics Choice. John also worked as a writer for Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.”
Knoerle’s first novel, Crystal Meth Cowboys, published in 2003, was optioned by Fox TV. His second novel, The Violin Player,won the Mayhaven Award for Fiction. Knoerle is currently at work on The American Spy Trilogy. Book One, A Pure Double Cross, came out in 2008. Book Two, A Despicable Profession, was published in August of 2010.
John Knoerle currently lives in Chicago with his wife, Judie.
You can visit his website at www.bluesteelpress.com.
We have a special guest today! Cheryl Malandrinos, author of Little Shepherd (Guardian Angel Publishing) , is here to talk about rejection. Visit Cheryl on the web at http://ccmalandrinos.com.
Don’t Hate Me Because I Didn’t Get Rejected by Cheryl C. Malandrinos
by Cheryl Malandrinos
Some of you might be old enough to remember when Kelly LeBrock was the spokesperson for Pantene® hair care products. In a famous commercial for the brand, LeBrock says, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”
When asked to share my experience of how Little Shepherd brought me from aspiring author to published author, I thought of that famous line and knew it would make a great title for my post.
Guardian Angel Publishing (GAP) was the first and only publishing house I submitted the manuscript to. Why? Because I did my market research and I decided they would be the best ones to bring Obed’s story to life.
I first became introduced to GAP when Safari Sue Thurman asked me to review her book, Maybe We Are Flamingos. I was totally enchanted by this story of two flamingos who wonder when they will turn pink and soon learn their age and diet will help with that. Illustrated by talented artist, Kevin Scott Collier, I would tell everyone I knew about this great new book they simply had to read to their little ones.
I began looking for more GAP books to review. Every time, I was impressed by the quality of the books, the imagination of the authors, and the lovely (and sometimes silly) artwork. I knew I wanted to be one of GAP’s authors.
While reviewing, I was also writing my own book about a young shepherd in the hills outside Bethlehem tending his first flock. I sent my first draft over to my friend and fellow author, Mayra Calvani, who is also published by GAP. I asked her what she thought of it and if she felt GAP would be interested in Obed’s story. She offered some suggestions for my manuscript and told me how much she loved working with everyone at GAP.
Then God and His never-ending blessings helped me along. I learned that Lynda Burch, publisher at GAP, would be attending the Muse Online Writers Conference in 2008 and she would be giving conference attendees a chance to submit a manuscript.
I didn’t waste any time getting Little Shepherd ready. I asked for feedback from my critique group, polished it a bit more, and then sent it off to Lynda.
Then I spent the next few months biting my fingernails off, hoping to hear something, anything.
Lynda sent the manuscript back to me with suggestions and encouraged me to resubmit it. She accepted the revised manuscript, I signed the contract, and then I waited some more.
Finally the day came to choose an illustrator. I was familiar with Eugene Ruble’s work because of the GAP books I had reviewed. I knew he would do a wonderful job in bringing Obed’s story to life visually. The galleys took my breath away!
Now Little Shepherd is available at the Guardian Angel Publishing website, Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com, and indiebound.com.
So that’s my journey from aspiring author to published author. I hope you enjoyed it.
By the way, I’ve been using Pantene® for years and I still don’t look as good as Kelly LeBrock.
Cheryl Malandrinos is a freelance writer and editor. A regular contributor for Writer2Writer, her articles focus on increasing productivity through time management and organization. A founding member of Musing Our Children, Ms. Malandrinos is also Editor in Chief of the group’s quarterly newsletter, Pages & Pens.
Cheryl is a Tour Coordinator for Pump Up Your Book, a book reviewer, and blogger. Little Shepherd is her first children’s book. Ms. Malandrinos lives in Western Massachusetts with her husband and two young daughters. She also has a son who is married.
You can visit Cheryl online at http://ccmalandrinos.com or the Little Shepherd blog at http://littleshepherdchildrensbook.blogspot.com/.
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The difficult part for me, in writing my first novel, was not so much in finding the inspiration as it was in finding the courage.
Ever since I was a teenager, I’d wanted to become a writer, and I’d always dreamed of someday writing a novel. I was an avid reader growing up, and in junior high and high school I tried my hand at writing a few short stories. True to my literary ambitions, I was an English major in college. However, midway through college I started to get cold feet about becoming a professional writer. I’d heard a depressing statistic: only a pathetic number of book writers—something like fifteen to twenty writers total in America—were able to financially support themselves by writing alone. Now, I’d always been a practical person by nature. In an act of both practicality and cowardice (something about picturing myself standing in soup kitchen lines unnerved me), I decided it might be a good idea to pursue a “back up career.” I started taking pre-med classes with the idea of becoming a doctor—just in case.
Not surprisingly, establishing a “back-up career” in medicine resulted in a long hiatus from writing. Twelve years to be exact. Medical school, internship, and residency didn’t allow a lot of extra time to pursue outside activities such as writing.
I finished residency and started working as an emergency room physician. Despite the big detour I’d just taken, the desire to be a writer remained. Moreover, I was pleasantly surprised to find ER work allowed me more free time than expected. The ER job was shift work: you put in twelve-hour shifts, three days a week, and you were off for four days. Suddenly, I had four days a week I could devote to writing. The practicality problem was solved. My “back up career” was working out after all.
I started to write short stories and essays. After a year of ego-deflating rejection letters, I began to publish a story here and there, mainly in small magazines. I stuck with the short stories and essays for about five years. However, I looked upon short story writing mainly as preparation work, preparation for what I really wanted to do: write a novel.
The challenge, however, again lay in overcoming my natural cowardice. I knew the taste of rejection from those early short story pink slips. Would my first novel meet with the same fate? I hated the idea of facing the failure of a project I’d devoted two or three years of my life to. For some time, my cowardice again got the better of me. I lacked the fortitude to start a book out of fear my book might face the iron fist of failure.
And, then, one day I simply started writing. It was my novel flowing out of my brain. Cowardice be damned! The characters had been running around in my head for several months; the plot was more or less worked out. Indeed, the surprising thing was it was a mystery. Having been an English major, I’d studied so-called “serious literature.” Yet here I was writing a medical murder mystery thriller.
Of course, in hindsight, the medical thriller was a natural fit. They say “write what you know about,” and medicine was the one thing I knew a fair bit about. In addition, I think certain contemporary events in the news goaded me to write a medical mystery. Several large drug companies were in trouble for allegedly covering up certain side effects of drugs they’d brought to market. This led me to formulate the question that would, ultimately, be the underpinning of my book: what would happen if a drug company’s biggest and most promising drug were too big to fail?
Two years later, I had a finished manuscript.
I liked my book. My mother, my best friend, and my wife liked it, too—which, of course, meant nothing. The strategy I fell upon to find a publisher is what I call the “brute force method.” It’s a rather crude method, a method I suspect literary agents and writing coaches frown upon. At the same time, I’m sure it’s a method that’s been used by many before me.
Here’s how it works. I purchased the current edition of Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market. The N&SS Writer’s Market contains a section listing something like 300 publishing houses that publish book-length works of fiction. Detailed information about each publishing house is included: contact names, mailing addresses, number of books published per year, types of books the house is looking for (romance, science fiction, humor/satire, westerns, etc.), and whether or not the house accepts unsolicited manuscript submissions.
Breaking out a yellow highlighter, I went through the entire list of book publishers, and I highlighted each publishing house that a) was interested in mysteries and b) accepted unsolicited submissions (i.e., out-of-the-blue submissions directly from the author rather than via the intermediary of a literary agent).
This narrowed the field down from about 300 publishers to about fifty. Next, I sent out a query letter to the twenty-five most promising publishers on my list. I made sure to follow the query guidelines of each publisher exactly. Some publishers wanted nothing more than a query letter. Others asked for the first chapter of the book or perhaps just the first few pages. Other publishers wanted a detailed synopsis. Others just an outline.
I spent a couple weeks sending out my queries. Then, I sat back and waited.
Predictably, the form-letter rejection slips started flowing in. “Regrettably, your book does not meet our publishing needs at this time.”
However, about a month into the process, I received the letter I was hoping for. The letter came from Silver Leaf Books, a small publishing house located in Massachusetts. I had sent them three sample chapters. They liked what they’d seen and wanted more.
Crossing my fingers, I sent them the completed manuscript. Not long thereafter, I received a second letter from SLB. The answer was “yes.” They were going to take a chance on an unknown writer and his first book. They wanted to publish my mystery. My book had found a home.
# # #
Christopher Stookey, MD, is a practicing emergency physician, and he is passionate about medicine and health care. However, his other great interests are literature and writing, and he has steadily published a number of short stories and essays over the past ten years. His most recent essay, “First in My Class,” appears in the book BECOMING A DOCTOR (published by W. W. Norton & Co, March 2010); the essay describes Dr. Stookey’s wrenching involvement in a malpractice lawsuit when he was a new resident, fresh out of medical school. TERMINAL CARE, a medical mystery thriller, is his first novel. The book, set in San Francisco, explores the unsavory world of big-business pharmaceuticals as well as the sad and tragic world of the Alzheimer’s ward at a medical research hospital. Stookey’s other interests include jogging in the greenbelts near his home and surfing (he promises his next novel will feature a surfer as a main character). He lives in Laguna Beach, California with his wife and three dogs.
To find out more about Chris, visit his Amazon’s author page at http://www.amazon.com/Christopher-Stookey/e/B003UVLDI4/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0.
Join Valmore Daniels, author of the science fiction novel, Forbidden the Stars (Mummer Media) as he virtually tours the blogosphere November 1 – 26 ‘10 on his first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!
In true nomadic spirit, Valmore Daniels has lived on the coasts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans, and dozens of points in between.
An insatiable thirst for new experiences has led him to work in several fields, including legal research, elderly care, oil & gas administration, web design, government service, human resources, and retail business management.
His enthusiasm for travel is only surpassed by his passion for telling tall tales.
Valmore’s latest book is Forbidden the Stars, a sci-fi novel set at the end of the 21st century.
Visit his website at www.ValmoreDaniels.com
Forbidden the Stars is hard core science fiction at its best. At the end of the 21st century, a catastrophic accident in the asteroid belt has left two surveyors dead, but the asteroid itself is completely missing, along with their young son, Alex Manez, who was accompanying them.
On the outer edge of the solar system, the first manned mission to Pluto, led by the youngest female astronaut in NASA history, has led to an historic discovery: there is a marker left there by an alien race for humankind to find. We are not alone!
While studying the alien marker, it begins to react and, four hours later, the missing asteroid appears in a Plutonian orbit, along with young Alex Manez, who has developed some alarming side-effects from his exposure to the kinetic element they call Kinemet.
From the depths of a criminal empire based on Luna, an expatriate seizes the opportunity to wrest control of outer space, and takes swift action.
The secret to faster-than-light speed is up for grabs, and the race for interstellar space is on!
If you’d like to follow along with Valmore as he tours the blogosphere in November, visit his official tour page at Pump Up Your Book. Lots of fun in store as you learn more about this gifted author as well as win prizes, too!
Join us for Valmore Daniels’ Forbidden the Stars Virtual Book Tour ‘10!
Pump Up Your Book is an innovative public relations agency specializing in virtual book tours. You can visit our website at www.pumpupyourbook.com.
The First Page is one of Literarily Speaking’s newest features. Here we get a glimpse into an author’s work and what better place to begin than the first page? Authors share their first pages and answer a few questions about why they started their books off the way they did. Today we welcome Joshua Graham, author of the suspense thriller novel, Beyond Justice (Dawn Treader Press).
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Beyond Justice
by Joshua Graham
The First Page
The question most people ask when they first meet me is: How does an attorney from a reputable law firm in La Jolla end up on death row? When they hear my story, it becomes clear that the greater question is not how, but why.
I have found it difficult at times to forgive myself for what happened. But a significant part of the answer involves forgiveness, something I never truly understood until I could see in hindsight.
Orpheus went through hell and back to rescue his wife Euridice from death in the underworld. Through his music, he moved the hearts of Hades and Persephone and they agreed to allow Euridice to return with him to Earth on one condition: He must walk before her and not look back until they reached the upper world. On seeing the Sun, Orpheus turned to share his delight with Euridice, and she disappeared. He had broken his promise and she was gone forever. This failure and guilt was a hell far worse than the original.
My own personal hell began one night almost four years ago. Like images carved into flesh, the memories of that night would forever be etched into my mind. The work day had been tense enough—my position at the firm was in jeopardy because of the inexplicable appearance of lewd internet images in my folder on the main file server.
Later that night, as I scrambled to get out the door on time for a critical meeting with a high profile client, my son Aaron began throwing a screaming fit. Hell hath no fury like a boy who has lost his Thomas Train toy. In my own frenzied state, I lost my temper with him. Amazing how much guilt a four-year-old can pile on you with puppy-dog eyes while clinging to his mother’s legs. His sister Bethie, in all her seventh grade sagacity, proclaimed that I had issues…
Welcome to The First Page feature of Literarily Speaking, Joshua. Can you tell us what your book is about?
BEYOND JUSTICE is a book that explores the limits of human and divine forgiveness. In it, attorney Sam Hudson is wrongfully convicted for the brutal rape and murder of his wife and daughter and sent to death row.
The first page is perhaps one of the most important pages in the whole book. It’s what draws the reader into the story. Why did you choose to begin your book this way?
I wanted to set the tone for the reader so that he/she would know from the first sentence what they were in for.
In the course of writing your book, how many times would you say that first page changed and for what reasons?
Once. Because I cut the first eight chapters.
Was there ever a time after the book went to print you wished you had changed something on the first page?
No. By the time my book goes to print, it’s already had all the editing it needs. It’s a finished product.
What advice can you give to aspiring authors to stress how important the first page is?
Assuming a reader likes your cover, your back cover copy enough not to put your book back down on the bookstore shelf, they generally decide within the first page if they are going to buy the book or not. I cannot stress how important it is to hook your reader from the very first sentence, and never let them go until the last word of the book. If you are Stephen King, or John Grisham, you can afford to tarry as you describe anything you please. Their fans would probably pay big bucks to read their shopping lists. But for the rest of us writers who are not quite where Mr. King and Mr. Grisham are, we owe it to ourselves and our readers (most of which are looking at our work for the first time in their lives) to give them an unforgettable experience. That comes with the promise you make in the first page of your book, and the fulfillment of that promise all the way through the last page.
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