Michelle L. Levigne's Blog, page 52

Off the Bookshelf: WRITE NAKED, by Jennifer Probst

 

I joined (rejoined, actually) a local writing group, and when I found out they had a book club for reading and discussing craft books, that fit in very well with my goal to read at least one book each week this year.

So here's our first book, subtitle: A bestseller's secrets to writing romance and navigating the path to success.

This book tells it like it is from the beginning, tearing away the illusion that a writer's life is all glamour and lying around scratching at scented paper with a pink feathery pen for maybe ten minutes a day, raking in the $$, and eating bonbons. Umm, no. Writers need a healthy lifestyle, for one thing, to keep the little gray cells popping -- meaning exercise and a balanced diet. And for another thing, you still gotta get the story from the paper into the computer, so you can send the finished book to your editor! Waste of time, writing on silly, expensive scented paper. And what if you're allergic?

We had the privilege of having a Zoom chat with Jennifer after we finished the book and discussed it for a while. What a fun, generous, encouraging person. She has paid her dues and she knows what she's talking about, in the struggle to create stories that work, and characters that live and breathe. She covers so many topics, so many aspects to being a writer, because yeah, there's a LOT of work involved. A lot of preparation and revising and angsting, and the work doesn't stop once you get an editor to agree to read your book -- selling to the publisher is just the start of the uphill battle to sell to the readers, and connect with them, make fans, and keep the creative fires stoked.

Everyone who wants to be a writer (and everyone who needs a boost and encouragement and some laughter and confirmation that yes, others face the same battles and while we might look crazy, we really aren't, this is perfectly normal for writers) should read this book. No matter what genre they write. Maybe on a regular basis, as a refresher.

Thanks, Jennifer!

New release sample: ANGELA'S KNIGHT

 

"Maurice." Asmondius Pickle, head of the Fae Disciplinary Council that had exiled him to Earth a year-and-a-half ago, faded into view inside the Wishing Ball. "How are you, lad? Not getting itchy at this late date, are you?"

"Forget about me." Maurice snarled under his breath as his wings snapped into chop-and-liquefy speed. He clenched his fists and put all his control into calming them and folding them back out of the way. This was just another sign of how the pressure lately had messed him over. "It's Angela. I gotta know what's happening back home, and if it's coming after her."

"Coming after her?"

The Wishing Ball turned opaque, and then divided into two solid rainbow-swirled balls. One floated across the counter and over the edge, to drop to the floor and expand, while the other rainbow ball stayed in place and returned to normal Wishing Ball condition. The first expanded until Asmondius could step through it. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the counter.

"What has been going on back home?" He leaned over Maurice for three seconds, then sighed and snapped his fingers, and vanished in a shower of sparks, to reappear standing on the counter, shrunken so he was eye-to-eye with Maurice. "That's better. What's this about something coming after Angela? I thought everything was settled once that doppelganger immolated on the town's shield. Don't tell me the rebel Fae have snuck back under our watch?"

"Who knows? The guardians and everybody slapped them down good enough, they should be licking their wounds and sulking for a couple years. The thing is, I figure with all the fuss over Mellisande dying and the anti-hereditary royalty loonies running around, and a bunch of different ministries hunting for who poisoned the chocolate, and figuring it came from Earth and carob-tainted chocolate, and taking so long to let Epsi out of the holding tank to help hunt and... Well, maybe some of the real extreme morons want to cut off all ties with the Human world." Maurice shrugged. "Can't stand Fae politics. It's even worse than what the Humans are going through, and that's saying a lot."

New release: ANGELA'S KNIGHT, Neighborlee Book 12

 

New release TODAY

In paper, ebook, and audiobook.

Equinox: Maurice has a day of full-size freedom to spend with his true love, Holly. Their day of fun ends in panic, when Angela is attacked and the defenses of Divine's Emporium are breached. In the search to find out who hired thieves to steal books full of inimical magic from the shop and provided them with magic charms to do it, Angela's memories are stirred. Strange dreams disturb her sleep and she asks questions she hasn't thought of in decades.

 

Ethan Jarrod, a particularly gifted P.I. with some mysteries of his own, joins forces with local P.I. John Stanzer to identify Angela's enemies. Is Jarrod the knight from her dreams, or the final weapon of her enemies, to destroy all the magic of Divine's Emporium and Angela herself?

One More Neighborlee Book To Be Published: THE LIVING PROOF GETS THE BLUES, to release May 1, 2022!

 

 

At the Movies: DEATH ON THE NILE, by Agatha Christie and Kenneth Branagh

 

Played hooky from several deadline projects the other day and went to a matinee of DEATH ON THE NILE.

I know I saw the version with Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot, but it was so long ago I couldn't remember anything about the story except it took place in Egypt, on a boat, someone died, and Poirot was quirky and brilliant.

WOW ...

Lavish, lush set, gorgeous costumes, all-star cast and brilliant director. Well, duh, knew that already, because I saw the first Branagh-as-Poirot outing, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.

The two hours went fast, and the story and acting and pacing just picked me up and carried me along to the stunning finish. Ouch ... now I need to read the book and find out just how closely the script followed the book, because you know Hollywood, everyone involved has to leave their fingerprints on the project, and changes to suit an agenda seem to be encouraged. (Don't get me started about the total gutting job done on Andre Norton's science fiction book, Beastmaster, when it was turned into a sword-and-sorcery flick. Bleah ....)

But bottom line: no matter what changes were made, this is a gorgeous, stunning film, well worth escaping the winter bleahs and blahs to experience.

New release sample: DAWN OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

So now we had to determine if the doppelganger was something new. Maybe another enemy had decided to make a move since Big Ugly had been seriously handicapped when he gulped down a whole bunch of Rival minions and whatever poison they were trying to pump into Eden. Talk about bad indigestion. Or maybe the doppelganger was just another face of the returning enemy that most recently had struck at us through the vampish Kerri, she of pale hair and skin, and black clothes.

All in all, not a good way to bring in the new year.

Especially when London and Sherwood informed us that with the energy signature of the doppelganger Kurt and Jane had dealt with, they had been able to backtrack all the tiny blips in the defensive field of Neighborlee. They had tracked down the place and time when the doppelganger got inside. Accessing a traffic camera on the Cutterville side of the intersection, they had identified Daniel's car crossing the border. So the next question was if the doppelganger had imprinted on Daniel, so it was stuck wearing his face when it tried to infiltrate the party at Eden. If so, did that mean it would always wear his face when it attacked, if it ever attacked again?

New release sample: DAWN OF THE LIVING PROOF

"Something got lucky and squeezed through during an ultra-low dip," London said, taking up the explanation from him. "The energy signature matches whatever was bouncing off the shield on the Neighborlee side for more than two hours." She winced a little. "During a matching ultra-low dip in the modulation."

"We've altered the program so it doesn't go that low again," Sherwood hurried to add.

"So it couldn't get out -- that's what it was doing the whole time we were chasing it?" Kurt said. "Bouncing off the inside of the shield, trying to find a weak spot or low point?"

"And something else, either a partner or another entity like the doppelganger, was waiting and trying to penetrate the shield, and latched onto your phones when you flew out," she said.

"Why not another enemy altogether?" Maurice shrugged. "Sorry to be the downer in this war council, but you gotta consider the possibility."

"He's right," Angela said, "but that leach signal that latched onto Lanie's phone also caught onto Kurt and Jane's, correct?"

That was true, and we tried to see it as a positive -- we only had one enemy to deal with. Of course, we weren't sure how large the team was now attacking us, but that had to be better than facing enemies on two fronts, right?

 

Off the Bookshelf: SHROUD OF DARKNESS, by Deborah Cullins Smith

 

The Last of the Long-Haired Hippies series, Book 1

As the author will tell you, I don't really choose to pick up dark fantasy, or anything tending toward horror. Although I did add a book on writing Christian horror to my writing library. Just to be prepared if a book slammed me across the back of the head, demanding to be written.

The Last of the Long-Haired Hippies is a three-volume set that grows in darkness and tension as the story progresses. I know this because the author told me so. And dang it, as soon as I finished book 1 I pulled book 2 off the to-be-read leaning tower of impending avalanche to start reading immediately. Because the story snagged me.

This is Victoria's story of healing, and being dragged unwilling into exploring her rebellious past. A runaway flight at sixteen across country to San Francisco and the hippie movement and a time in Woodstock. All the darkness that was planted in those days now is coming to surround her and haunt her small town, and destroy lives.

It begins in small ways, with a little boy looking for his missing puppy, and finding it brutally killed in what looks like an occult ritual. And the nasty shock when Victoria prepares to welcome a rising star author to her bookstore and discovers the man whole stole her innocence and nearly dragged her down with him.

That's all I'm gonna tell you. Prepare for rapid-fire book reviews every week until this series is done, because I'm not going to be reading anything else until this story comes to its end.

And yeah, the author is a friend. But that's not why this story caught my dip-one-toe-in-the-water-in-fear-of-sharks attention. It's good. 

New release sample: DAWN OF THE LIVING PROOF

 "You all picked up a signal that's sort of like a parasitic vine," London reported. "It's weak, mostly just sucking at power right now, but we're worried that it's trying to wear down your security programs and get at vital information."

"Fortunately, you beefed up our security so nothing short of another artificial intelligence can get through. Right?" Kurt said. He sounded a little tense. Yeah, I could understand why. Tonight should have been romantic and entirely focused on him and Jane.

"Hey, I'm not exactly a fan of all this high-tech stuff," Maurice said, waving his arms. "Seems to me even on a lot of those shows the guys love, with all the computers and spaceships and such, the simplest fix is to just shut everything down and reboot, right?"

We all sat very still for about five seconds. Then London laughed. She nodded and held up her hand for a high five. Maurice flew over to the tablet and slapped at the screen. Less than a minute later, we had shut down our three phones, Sherwood verified the leach signal had vanished within ten seconds, we turned our phones back on, and everything was back to normal.

"Okay, so somebody is on the outside, tampering with the shield again?" Jane said.

"Looks like it," Sherwood said. "We were focusing on the shield, playing with some of our modulation programs, after Pete and Meggie saw something on an episode of Stargate. We've set up a pattern that doesn't repeat until nearly 500 modulations of the frequency. That's kind of taking up more of our attention than we anticipated." He shrugged. "Sorry."

New release sample: DAWN OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

However, something had effectively closed a heavy door on the signals for our three phones. The link still functioned, just strong enough to know we were there, but nothing could get through. My signal had cut off when I went to the door to confront the doppelganger. Kurt and Jane's phone links got squeezed, or maybe strangled would be a more appropriate word, when they crossed the border, in their effort to follow the doppelganger.

"So how do we get it back?" Kurt put his phone down on the table next to my tablet, where Sherwood's image gave a very good impression of a sleepless night.

"We're working on it." He glanced off-screen, which really wasn't necessary, since he wasn't physically anywhere.

Just to show how my brain was starting to fog up and not all the cylinders were firing in synch, I wondered just how many mannerisms London and Sherwood had picked up from us. Was it conscious? Was it deliberate mimicry? Was it something they couldn't control, and they were becoming more like their models, Doni and Cosmo, every day?

The screen split and London appeared in the right half. She was wearing her favorite outfit of black Greek fisherman's cap, black sweater and multiple fine silver chains. Actually, that was Athena's favorite outfit about a year ago. So what did that say about the AI's mimicry? 

Yeah, I really needed to get horizontal and turn off the lights before my brain entirely imploded. I was getting sidetracked a little too easily.

Off the Bookshelf: HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL USING THE SNOWFLAKE METHOD, by Randy Ingermanson

 

I've had this book sitting in my iPad library for a while now ...

Could somebody please tell me WHY I didn't read this sooner?

Well, maybe because whoever I heard talking about the snowflake method gave me a really twisted, off-the-mark idea of what was involved, and I was getting psychosomatic hives thinking of all the nitpicky work.

As in dozens of pages of character charts and psychological analysis and writing out a description of each scene and all sorts of anal-retentive-to-the-maximus work before I wrote one word ...

It ain't so!

For those of you who consider yourselves mega-pantsers, this won't interfere with your method. And it's adaptable so that the most organized of plotters will be happy and cozy.

The big word is flexibility.

And yeah, going back and revising, the more you learn about your characters and setting and their goals and dreams and fears and values and figuring out what will work -- yeah, BEFORE you write that opening scene.

The really fun part is that our esteemed teacher presents this as a story -- appropriately, set at a writing conference. There's conflict, fear, shame, old secrets and grudges, humor, angst, suspense, and discovery. Whew! Essentially, as our heroine Goldilocks learns to prepare to write her book and know where she's going and more importantly WHY she's going there in the story, we also learn along with her.

This is one of those writing books where it makes sense to go back and re-read it every few months, as a refresher course. If you haven't read this one yet ... don't be like me, and let an itchy fear of hives get in your way. Read it!