Richard Dee's Blog, page 78
June 12, 2019
The Indie Showcase presents, Paulette Mahurin
Please welcome another author with an important message.
Why Not Tolerance?
I’ve
been writing about intolerance for the better part of this year, writing about
bigotry, persecution, prejudice and hatred.
For the sake of clarity, I want to define tolerance which is a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward
those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one’s own; freedom from bigotry. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tolerance) The
concept intolerance is not just the absence of, or opposite of, tolerance but unwillingness or refusal to tolerate or respect contrary
opinions or beliefs, persons of different races or backgrounds, etc. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/intolerance)
What is at the root of this
unwillingness or refusal? The truth is I don’t know, but in writing about it,
looking at it, looking at my own heart and soul, I’m finding things about
myself that are really creating some mental chaos. I find it interesting when
someone judges another, “I don’t like
gays or lesbians,” they say, and in the next breath, “I’m not judgmental!” I do that. Not about gays or lesbians,
African Americans, Jewish people or any large class of peoples, religions,
beliefs included, as long as they aren’t hurting anyone, but I do it when I
judge something to be wrong or negative. Someone makes me wrong, disagrees with
me in an unpleasant way, and I’ve got my script ready to fire and it becomes
all about them, and not what their actions are-their words, but I label them,
stupid, bigot, small minded, and in essence what I am doing is that very thing
that I’m accusing others of, I’m judging, putting them down, because my frail
ego has been nicked or worse, they just don’t go along with my agenda or
expectations of what is tolerant, loving, compassionate.
I started to really see this in myself when I started writing my book, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, and it’s a good thing I did because I feel it afforded me a greater depth and sensitivity into the underbellies of the characters I wrote about. We all have shadows, per Carl Jung, darker sides, the part of the whole which along with the good, makes us what we are—human beings. We’re all human, with similar emotions, we don’t like pain or loss, love to belong and feel wanted, to feel good, and share many things in common, and yet we’re so at odds with our different beliefs, hate each other because of them, want to change each other, instead of embracing differences. I don’t understand why we can’t just agree to disagree and see the differences, instead of labelling and castigating another. Sure, on the surface I get it that we are raised with our varying belief systems, religious beliefs, the prejudices of our parents, etc. but we also have the capacity to think logically, so why don’t we?
My philosophy on life is pretty
simple; do what you want just don’t hurt another.
I’ve no problem if your God is not
my God, your skin color is not my skin color, my preference is not your
preference, on and on but why hate me for it? You don’t have to like me but why
turn your dislike on me and label me bad, irreverent, heretical, evil? I had a
woman review my book a few weeks back. She used the term, “one of them” to
refer to lesbians and gave the book a thumbs down because, “We don’t associate
with them.” She also gave the book a thumbs-up because it was the best
characterization of any story she’s read.
All her other comments seems so coherent and logical, but this one. But
in her mind, this is what her religion states that it’s evil to indulge in same
sex relationships. I wonder how she really feels, inside her own heart and
soul. I don’t fault her and was grateful for the honest comment because putting
them into the sunlight allows a conversation to begin. I don’t know any other way
to make inroads in hatred then to start with dialogue.
I don’t know of anyone who wants to
be at the receipt end of a label that generates disgust and hatred and I also
don’t understand why “we” lack the compassion to see that there by the Grace…
My story embraces Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment for “indecency” which occurred in
1895, shortly after Britain had changed its laws to make it a criminal offense
for a man to be with a man. Wilde went to prison for two years and was not allowed
pen or paper, forced on a tread mill six hours a day, fed watery porridge and
slept on a hard wooden board. For something he could no more change than we can
stop breathing, than a dog can stop wagging its tail, or a leaf live without
carbon dioxide, all things natural, occurring with as a part of the design of
nature, and God if you will. The only thing that makes it wrong is what we
believe, what we read or hear and buy into.
It’s hard to suspend our beliefs, especially if our lives are invested in going along with them, to belong to our family, our group, our jobs may depend on it, but were we to suspend our beliefs to view another as-is, then what? It seems to me that the mind can never comprehend what the heart already knows, of all that is possible. We learn this when dealing with patients with terminal illness or we encounter an inexplicable miracle, then all of a sudden everything changes. The kindness and capacity of forgiveness of the heart is immeasurable, it therefore seems accurate that it would gain an individual great inner growth and joy, to embrace a willingness to see another human being, who has differences from our own, for what it’s worth, different, and not bad.
BIOGRAPHY:
Paulette Mahurin is an international best selling literary fiction and historical fiction novelist. She lives with her husband Terry and two dogs, Max and Bella, in Ventura County, California. She grew up in West Los Angeles and attended UCLA, where she received a Master’s Degree in Science.
Her first novel, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, made it to Amazon bestseller lists and won awards, including best historical fiction 2012 in Turning the Pages Magazine. Her second novel, His Name Was Ben, originally written as an award-winning short story while she was in college and later expanded into a novel, rose to bestseller lists its second week out. Her third novel, To Live Out Loud, won international critical acclaim and made it to multiple sites as favourite read book of 2015. Her fourth book, The Seven Year Dress, made it to the bestseller lists for literary fiction and historical fiction on Amazon U.S., Amazon U.K. and Amazon Australia. Her fifth book, The Day I Saw The Hummingbird, was released in 2017 to rave reviews. Her sixth book, A Different Kind of Angel, was released in the summer of 2018 also to rave reviews.
Semi-retired, she continues to work part-time as a Nurse Practitioner in Ventura County. When she’s not writing, she does pro-bono consultation work with women with cancer, works in the Westminster Free Clinic as a volunteer provider, volunteers as a mediator in the Ventura County Courthouse for small claims cases, and involves herself, along with her husband, in dog rescue. Profits from her books go to help rescue dogs from kill shelters.
LINKS:
PAULETTE MAHURIN BOOKS AMAZON:
U.S.
https://www.amazon.com/Paulette-Mahurin/e/B008MMDUGO
U.K.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Paulette-Mahurin/e/B008MMDUGO
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5895757.Paulette_Mahurin
PAULETTE MAHURIN BOOKS ON FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/Paulette-Mahurins-Books
BLOG:
Home
My thanks to this weeks guest for a great post. I hope you all enjoyed it.
While you’re here, why not have a look around the site? There are FREE things and a whole lot more, just follow the links at the top of the page.
You might also like to join my team. I’ll send you a bi-monthly newsletter, filled with news, updates and extra content, as well as more about me and my worlds. You’ll also get a free short story and offers on my novels. Subscribe by clicking HERE
If you want to be
featured in a future Showcase, where you can write about whatever
(within reason) you want, then please let me know. Use the comment box below
and I’ll get back to you.
You can catch up on
previous Showcase posts by clicking HERE
Don’t miss the Saturday Rewind, next Thursdays Showcase post, and my musings every Monday.
Have a good week,
Richard.
The post The Indie Showcase presents, Paulette Mahurin appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
June 9, 2019
Blog hopping, let’s talk about sex.
Have I got your attention?
Good, here’s this weeks prompt, from the Open Book blog hop.
What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?
To a certain extent, I think that the gender of your
character is unimportant. It can be just as difficult to write a character of
your own sex. Especially if they are someone that you are not. I reckon that it’s
all a matter of getting into the head of the character and becoming them,
seeing things through their eyes and reacting in the way that they would.
As a man with three daughters, a lot of the ideas for my female characters came from my life with them as they grew up. I saw the full range of emotions and angst (three times!), which gave me lots of inspiration and fuelled the female characters that I was writing.
Initially, I wrote male leads with females in supporting roles. I must make it clear though; they were never second fiddle, or eye candy. Sure, they might have been pretty and sometimes became the romantic interest but that was never their only purpose in the story. They were always strong and capable, like my girls were (and are). I always encouraged my daughters to believe that they could do anything they wanted; my characters were intended to prove it. My stories had female engineers, Captains of industry (and spaceships) and many others; they were competent and capable, doing their jobs on merit, as good as any man would be.
Then I wondered, could I write a female lead? As an
experiment, I wrote a short story, featuring a woman who was escaping a bad
situation. I showed it to my editor, and a few trusted people I knew, my question
was always: is it believable, would a woman behave like that?
In all the responses, the answer was yes. For my NaNoWriMo project for 2016, I turned the short story into a novel. Which led to a sequel, and now there’s a series.
I digress; without a doubt, the hardest thing with any character is achieving authenticity. If anyone had told me that Andorra Pett didn’t seem feminine; or was obviously written by someone who had no idea how females thought or acted, I would have changed her to a male character. Because the story was solid; in a way, it wouldn’t have mattered if Andorra had been male. Although, like my characters and my daughters, I could see no reason why I couldn’t do it if I tried.
I think that making her someone that I’m not and never could
be has sharpened her up. Having to really concentrate to get her right pulls
everything to another level and makes the whole story better.
Why not see for yourself? You can read the original short story by clicking this link, https://richarddeescifi.co.uk/andorra-pett-and-the-oort-cloud-cafe/
I’d love to hear your views on the subject and my post, please leave me a comment below.
If this post has got you interested in any of my novels, you can get more details by clicking the Portfolio link. Or, to receive a free short story, The Orbital Livestock Company, just join my team of subscribers by clicking here.
I’ll be back on Thursday with another Showcase post, featuring an Indie Author with something to say. Please leave a comment below, then click the links to see the other great blogs on this hop.
Have a great week.
You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter
The post Blog hopping, let’s talk about sex. appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
June 7, 2019
Simple Sourdough
The Rewind is a place where I take a break from writing and concentrate on other things that interest me. I’ve been baking bread for a long time, as I got fed up with the additive-filled and tasteless offerings that called themselves bread. I’ve been making sourdough for at least ten years and I thought that people might be interested in a simple Sourdough recipe.
If you consider the fact that the starter is made from flour and water, you are only actually using three ingredients (the yeast comes from the flour and the air).
I tend to make multiple loaves, the quantities quoted are for EACH loaf; so you will need to adjust for your number.
This recipe is based on one from Teresa L Greenway.
Ingredients
130 g of vigorous sourdough starter at 100% hydration,
275 g water,
10 g salt,
450 g strong white flour
Method
Best started at lunchtime, to bake the next morning.
Mix everything together in a large container. Cover and leave it.
After 2 hours fold the dough, it’s easier to do this in the container. I don’t mean kneading, just pick up a corner of the dough, stretch it out and fold the dough in half. Turn the dough through 90 degrees (this is why it’s easier in a container) and do it again.
Do this on all four corners. Pick the ball of dough up and turn it over
Leave for another two hours
Fold again as above
Leave for another two hours
Shape the dough into a banneton and cover it with a plastic bag
Leave it for two hours, then put it in the fridge overnight.
Next morning turn the oven to ITS MAXIMUM SETTING, with a baking stone or heavy baking sheet for the loaf to cook on. Put an empty pan in the bottom of the oven, this will hold boiling water to create steam.
Remove the banneton from the fridge, take off the plastic and leave it for one hour, while the oven warms up.
Turn the loaf out, slash a pattern, boil a kettle and half-fill the pan with boiling water. Place the loaf in the oven and bake for 45 minutes. The internal temperature needs to be 95°C or higher, or make sure that it sounds hollow when the base is tapped (if you don’t have a thermometer).
I hope you like the sound of that, it’s not difficult to do and takes little actual time. The bread will keep for at least a week, make superb toast and tastes fantastic. Even making the sourdough starter is very easy.
If anyone wants to know more about sourdough, or bread making in general, leave me a comment below and I’ll be only too happy to help. For more bread related blog posts and recipes, click here for my bakery website
Meanwhile, i’ll be back on Monday, with another writing related blog hop. Have a great weekend
The post Simple Sourdough appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
June 5, 2019
The Indie Showcase presents, Paula Harmon.
Please welcome another author with a tale to tell.
Under my spare bed are several boxes full of bits of my writing, complete or otherwise, going back rather more years than I care to tell you.
One item is a puppet play I wrote with
a friend for my little sister’s ninth birthday. This was probably my first
writing collaboration.
All my published work after that point
was my own enterprise: collections of short stories, a sort of fictionalised
memoir about my father. I never anticipated doing another collaboration and
then a couple of years ago, I agreed to two.
The first is with Val Portelli whom I ‘met’ in a Facebook group at the point when I was just getting back into writing after a very long dry spell. We became friends, having a similar silly sense of humour and fascination with mythology (o.k. mainly dragons). Eventually, we met in person and decided to pull together a collection of short stories. We selected ones we thought would complement each other, so this part of the process wasn’t very difficult. We had to decide how to group and order things, whether to have themes or sections and then ultimately, tidy up and edit what we ended up with. But crucially, Val’s stories are totally Val’s and mine are totally mine. The somewhat harder part was deciding on a title and a cover. We probably ‘argued’ in a genteel sort of way about these two things for weeks. ‘Weird and Peculiar Tales’ is the end result. If you like short fiction with a fantasy bent, mostly humorous but with a few spooky ones thrown in, this could be for you.
The second collaboration was quite different. Liz Hedgecock and I also ‘met’ via Facebook. Liz is a successful author of a number of mysteries. We beta read for each other, became friends and one day she asked if I’d ever thought of collaborating on a novel. The truthful answer was ‘no’. I couldn’t imagine how two people could each have a ‘voice’ in one story. But I was curious as to what she had in mind and we bounced a few ideas about before eventually, one foggy lunchtime at work I sketched out a few thoughts and messaged a mocked up panic-stricken anonymous letter to Liz. ‘Oh hello!’ Liz messaged back. At this point, living even further apart than me and Val, we hadn’t met, but we had to talk things through over the phone. The easiest part was picking an era and genre. London in 1890 as our starting point and a mystery to be solved by two young women. Liz asked if we could write one with a view to a series if the process seemed to work. It sounded terrifying but then I thought ‘why not?’
I think it’s fair to say that Liz and
I are both a teeny-weeny bit control-freaky. Neither of us, frankly, wanted one
of us to supply ideas for the other to write. We wanted an equal and joint
enterprise. Starting there, we decided the best way forward was to take a main
character each and write alternate chapters from her point of view. We agreed
the structure of the novel, e.g. at what point in the word-count, the plot
beats would go and so on. With two contrasting characters, one determined not
to let difficulties ruin her life and the other lacking in confidence but
desperate to escape her mother’s restrictions, we just started writing.
As I’d come up with the anonymous letter, I wrote chapter one then effectively handed the baton on to Liz who then wrote chapter two and so on. We found we couldn’t stop. On a couple of days, we managed three chapters between us. The first book ‘The Case of the Black Tulips’ was such fun to write, we pretty much started book two straight away. There are now four books published in the Caster & Fleet series, with a fifth and sixth due out sometime in 2019.
The upside was definitely the amount of fun we have when we’re writing and we’ve become good friends. The downside? Sometimes we don’t quite know where the other is heading. Occasionally one of us drops a bombshell on the other. For example one of us lost something in chapter X that the other person planned to use in chapter Y. Editing can be hard. Sometimes we wrangle which can be more or less painful, depending. As the characters become more real and their lives more complex, plots necessarily become more involved. But despite all this, the ups are greater than the downs. We are still having great fun, we still chat about Katherine and Connie as if they are real and we’ve met in person several times to undertake research. When I say research, I mean walking miles round London, occasionally being cultural but often stopping for refreshments.
Would I recommend the process? Well it’s
worked for us. We have an independent voice in each of the books without
damaging the stories’ flow at all and as light-hearted mysteries, they’ve been
well-received.
Somehow, while all this was going on,
I wrote a Roman-British murder-mystery novel and a 10k story set in an
alternative universe with dragons. There was a point when trying to remember
which era (or indeed universe) I inhabited was quite hard.
And yet one day, when Liz said ‘what
about another collaboration, only this time in a contemporary setting?’ I said ‘oh
go on then’.
I must be mad.
Author Bio
Paula Harmon was born in North London to
parents of English, Scottish and Irish descent. Perhaps feeling the need to add
a Welsh connection, her father relocated the family every two years from
country town to country town moving slowly westwards until they settled in
South Wales when Paula was eight. She later graduated from Chichester
University before making her home in Gloucestershire and then Dorset where she
has lived since 2005.
She is a civil servant, married with two teenage children. Paula has several writing projects underway and wonders where the housework fairies are, because the house is a mess and she can’t think why.
Author Links
https://www.paulaharmondownes.wordpress.com
Portfolio (with links)
It’s AD 190 in Southern Britain. Lucretia won’t let her get-rich-quick scheme be undermined by minor things like her husband’s death. But a gruesome discovery leads wise-woman Tryssa to start asking awkward questions.
Can everything be fixed with duct
tape? Dad thinks so. The story of one man’s battle against common sense and the
family caught up in the chaos around him.
Secrets and mysteries, strangers and
friends. Stories as varied and changing as British skies.
Christmas without the hype – stories
for midwinter.
Dorissa and Menilly, estranged sisters descended from the dragon-people, are desperate to find their runaway brother before he falls victim to the urban underworld.
Caster & Fleet Mysteries (with Liz Hedgecock)
When Katherine Demeray opens a letter
addressed to her missing father, little does she imagine that she will find
herself in partnership with socialite Connie Swift, racing against time to
solve mysteries and right wrongs.
Weird and Peculiar
Tales (with Val
Portelli)
Short stories from this world and beyond
My thanks to this weeks guest for a great post. I hope you all enjoyed it.
While you’re here, why not have a look around the site? There are FREE things and a whole lot more, just follow the links at the top of the page.
You might also like to join my team. I’ll send you a bi-monthly newsletter, filled with news, updates and extra content, as well as more about me and my worlds. You’ll also get a free short story and offers on my novels. Subscribe by clicking HERE
If you want to be
featured in a future Showcase, where you can write about whatever
(within reason) you want, then please let me know. Use the comment box below
and I’ll get back to you.
You can catch up on
previous Showcase posts by clicking HERE
Don’t miss the Saturday Rewind, next Thursdays Showcase post, and my musings every Monday.
Have a good week,
Richard.
The post The Indie Showcase presents, Paula Harmon. appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
June 2, 2019
Talking Finance, Blog Hopping.
I’m back on the blog hop again, here’s this weeks prompt.
What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?
An interesting prompt this week, and one which is not quite as simple to answer as you might think. The way my mind works, this is actually several possible questions.
If you’re referring to money which I have spent to advance my writing career, my answer would have to be the money I spend on my editor. Not cheap but worth every penny. In fact, over the ten or so books that she’s collaborated on, I’ve very rarely found (or been told of) any mistakes after she’s finished with them.
She also features in reviews, like this one for my Space Opera Myra. It’s important to remember that any book is a team effort, everyone deserves a share in the credit.
After all, it might be my words but without her attention to detail, they would be a lot less readable. The most important thing, one that I learned very early on in my writing adventure, is that it’s very difficult to edit your own work. And that nothing puts a reader off buying your second book more than a badly edited first one. Even a few minor inconsistencies, but we won’t go into that.
Editing is only one of the services that you can spend your money on. There are things like cover design, formatting and advertising. Then there are fees for software, organisations like the Alliance of Independent Authors, local book groups etc. All of them important in their own way but dare I say it, none of them are anywhere near as vital as a good editor.
Then we have another way of looking at the prompt, it could be referring to the best money I spent because of my writing career. That’s much easier to answer; it would be my first royalty payment, which bought me a pint of beer (as you can tell it wasn’t a huge payment…, but there was some change!)
That was received for my novel Freefall, way back in 2013. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to receive royalty payments just about every month. Never big ones, but the fact that they occur at all is encouraging, as they show that my work is getting noticed.
Like a lot of authors, I’m not doing it purely for the money, although it’s very welcome. If I wasn’t getting a penny, I’d still write and publish. You see; if I didn’t tell the stories that are bursting out of my head, I’d feel somehow unfulfilled. The fact that people are prepared to pay to read the product of my keyboard is a bonus
Which reminds me of the Stephen King quote,
And if you apply that quote to the fact that I’ve been able to buy things with the money I’ve received from my writing; Stephen King thinks that I’m talented!!
And that’s good enough for me.
If this post has got you interested in any of my novels, you can get more details by clicking the Portfolio link. Or, to receive a free short story, The Orbital Livestock Company, just join my team of subscribers by clicking here.
I’ll be back on Thursday with another Showcase post, featuring an Indie Author with something to say. Please leave a comment below, then click the links to see the other great blogs on this hop.
You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter
The post Talking Finance, Blog Hopping. appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
May 31, 2019
Spelt Focaccia with Sundried Tomatoes.
This week’s rewind features a bread recipe. I was going to link this page to the original blog post, from 2015. Instead, I’ve decided to save you a click and have copied it across. If you want to go to my baking site, the link is HERE
You can find a lot of other recipes on that site, not just bread but biscuits, scones and even onion rings, all taken from the time I was running an Organic bakery in Brixham.
Here’s the post.
I like a piece of focaccia with any Italian food, it mops up the sauce and tastes good on its own. Mine is made with Spelt Flour and lots of Olive Oil. It has a secret ingredient for extra crunch.
The Recipe.
Makes four loaves, you can scale the quantities to make two, or make four and freeze them for later.
1000g Spelt Flour (I used half White and Half Wholemeal Spelt)
700g Warm water
100g Olive Oil
20g Instant Yeast
20g Salt
40g Coarse Semolina.
200g Sun-dried Tomatoes, Sulphite Free of course, chopped up small.
Extra Olive Oil, to coat your baking trays
Method.
Make a normal dough, adding the chopped tomatoes along with everything else. It will be a wetter dough than you might be used to, don’t worry about that. Keep it moving and it will be fine. After kneading for around ten minutes by hand, or four in a mixer on slow speed, leave the dough in a warm place to prove for around an hour and a half, or an hour if you have a proving oven.
Top Tip.
If you don’t have a proving oven, here’s how you can use your ordinary oven as one.
Place a pan of boiling water on the base of your oven.
Place the container of dough in the oven, uncovered. NO PLASTIC CONTAINERS.
Turn the oven to MAX for ONE MINUTE ONLY, then turn if OFF and leave it for an hour.
Back to the recipe,
After the first rise, cut the dough into four equal portions and stretch it into shape in heavily oiled trays.
Leave the dough to rise again for 40 minutes while your oven heats up (don’t forget to take the water out if you were using the oven to prove). Bake at 220°C for 15-20 minutes, for an internal temperature of 96°C.
I hope you enjoy the Focaccia, look out for more recipes every week, as well as my thoughts on writing on Monday and the Indie Showcase on Thursday.
The post Spelt Focaccia with Sundried Tomatoes. appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
May 29, 2019
The Indie Showcase presents, Sharon Marchisello
As long as I can remember, I knew I was a writer. Even before I could put pencil to paper, I entertained myself with stories after my parents tucked me into bed, extinguished the lights, and ordered me to sleep. I loved creating a world where I was in control. My heroines were prettier and cleverer than me. They succeeded where I failed, always firing off that zinger at exactly the right moment.
I wrote short
stories all through school, and although teachers and peers praised my work, I
got nothing but rejection letters when I submitted them to national
publications.
My first completed
novel was a plotless, semi-autobiographical rant. When I got accepted into the
Master’s in Professional Writing program at the University of Southern
California, I showed my masterpiece to one of my professors. He suggested I
begin a new project.
This
professor believed the way to get published was to pick a genre. Agents and
publishers want to know what shelf your book belongs on in a bookstore. He was
a mystery fan, but I wasn’t, and I didn’t think I could write one. I decided to
try my hand at romance.
My master’s
thesis started as a romance novel, but I couldn’t follow the formula. Set in
France, where I spent a year as a Rotary scholar, it’s full of culture clashes
and misunderstandings. The heroine doesn’t choose either guy vying for her hand
but rides off into the sunset with her new girlfriend for a summer of travel
and adventure. The book never got published. Maybe someday I’ll rewrite it as a
YA-coming-of-age novel.
Unable to
find fame and fortune as a writer by the time I finished my master’s degree, I
got a real job working in the airline industry, which allowed me to indulge my
passion for travel. I sold some travel articles based on trips I’d taken. I
wrote some screenplays. I got an agent for one of my screenplays, but no one
bought it. One script I worked on did get made into a film, but the movie never
got released. Probably a good thing, because it was terrible. My contract
promised “deferred pay” from the profits; I never saw a dime.
One night, while
working at the Los Angeles airport during a major construction phase, I walked
through a long, deserted, temporary hallway to meet an incoming plane. The fog
was rolling in, shadows loomed, the ramp area where I waited was almost dark. I
thought, Someone could get killed out
here and no one would know. The idea for my first mystery, Murder at Gate 58A, was born.
I had a great time writing it, creating a cast of characters who all had motive and opportunity, and then trying to figure out whose motive was strong enough to commit murder. I was so excited when I found an agent to represent me, but unfortunately, after almost two years of peddling my story around the publishing world, he admitted he couldn’t sell it. Murder at Gate 58A is still on the shelf. Maybe someday…
My fourth completed manuscript, Going Home, also a murder mystery, was my first novel to get published. Going Home was inspired by my mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease, which prompted me to wonder what it would be like to interview a witness or a suspect who could not rely on her memory. It opens when the heroine comes home to check on her elderly mother, who has Alzheimer’s and finds her hovering over the bludgeoned body of her caregiver. Alone. And unable to explain what happened. The heroine is forced to remain in her hometown in a caregiving role; while trying to prove her mother’s innocence. Although I began writing Going Home in 2003, it was 2013 before I got a publishing contract, and 2014 by the time the book was released.
Besides fiction, I write a blog about personal finance, Countdown to Financial Fitness, and I self-published Live Well, Grow Wealth, an accompanying nonfiction book. I chose self-publishing for this book because the information is too time-sensitive to wait on the traditional route. Also, I have no financial credentials, other than experience in an investment club. My book provides basic financial information for young people getting started on independence, based on my personal experience of living frugally, saving and investing, and retiring early with a net worth of over a million dollars.
When Going Home was finally accepted by Sunbury Press, I was afraid to tell many people, for fear of jinxing my good fortune. What if they went out of business or cut their list before they got around to publishing my manuscript? What if they changed their mind before my book made it to print? As a result, I made many mistakes regarding marketing: I didn’t build a website or start a blog about my writing journey, didn’t get on social media and create hype, didn’t try to get advance reviews and blurbs.
For years,
I’d thought my journey would end with publication. Then I could sit back, count
the money rolling in, and start working on my next novel. In reality, the
journey only begins upon signing a publishing contract. Authors, whether
traditionally published or self-published, are thrust into a role most of us
are not comfortable with: marketing.
I haven’t done any paid advertising, but I’ve joined a lot of free social media groups for authors and readers. (I suspect these groups contain more authors than readers, with everyone trying to peddle their own stuff.) I have a Facebook page, a Twitter handle, and an Amazon author page. I’m on Linked In, Goodreads, and BookBub. I’ve done blog visits and podcasts. I go to writers’ conferences and speak on panels when they let me.
Probably what works best is one-on-one connections with potential readers. If I can work my writing into a conversation and find out if the person is a reader of my genre, I can often make a sale.
For the past three years, I’ve sold copies of Going Home at fundraisers for the Alzheimer’s Walk. Most people who attend these fundraisers have some connection to this terrible disease, so they can relate to my story. And many buy the book because all the proceeds are going to charity. It’s not a great way for me to earn a living, but it helps gain readers. It’s better than a giveaway; because I collect money for a good cause.
I’ll be doing it again this year!
Links
My thanks to this weeks guest for a great post. I hope you all enjoyed it.
While you’re here, why not have a look around the site? There are FREE things and a whole lot more, just follow the links at the top of the page.
You might also like to join my team. I’ll send you a bi-monthly newsletter, filled with news, updates and extra content, as well as more about me and my worlds. You’ll also get a free short story and offers on my novels. Subscribe by clicking HERE
If you want to be
featured in a future Showcase, where you can write about whatever
(within reason) you want, then please let me know. Use the comment box below
and I’ll get back to you.
You can catch up on
previous Showcase posts by clicking HERE
Don’t miss the Saturday Rewind, next Thursdays Showcase post, and my musings every Monday.
Have a good week,
Richard.
The post The Indie Showcase presents, Sharon Marchisello appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
May 27, 2019
Let me tell you a Secret, Blog Hopping.
I’m really getting into this blog-hoping lark now, I like the idea of getting a prompt on Wednesday and having to produce something for the next Monday. Even though I’m not normally a fan of deadlines and being told what to do. Maybe it’s because it’s my choice to participate?
Here’s this weeks prompt,
all the details of the hop and links to the other participants are at the end of my response.
Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?
In the immortal words of so many before
me, If I told you
that, I’d have to kill you!!!
If your question means; do I deliberately hide information, or seek to make it hard for a reader to see what’s going on, then the answer is no. I’m not that clever, I wish I was. So rather than secrets, I’m going to talk about hidden meanings, the extra bits and pieces that you might find, things that take you beyond the superficial.
There are several places in my
books where my characters have said or done something that reveals a lot more about
a situation or sets up a sub-plot. And it might not be immediately apparent to
the reader. Sometimes it can be as little as a comment made in conversation, or
a fact placed in a bit of back story. Just occasionally, it’s so out of the blue
that when I read it back, the sheer brilliance of it makes me wonder where it
came from (excuse my modesty). Often it leads the narrative in a whole new
direction.
And then there are the things that
eagle-eyed reader does spot, little connections and clues scattered around that I
don’t remember writing. They lead to questions, set up sequels or explain things
that you come across in other parts of the tale.
I’ve also had messages or read
reviews which show me that a reader got a whole different experience from a
particular passage (or even the whole book) from that which I had intended. They
saw things in the tale that I never realised were there when I was writing it, which
all goes to show how incredibly varied we are, in what we see and how we
ascribe meaning. Who knows what else they might find in the future?
Does that count?
Let me give you an example,
in my first novel, Freefall (2013), my hero, Dave Travise, is portrayed as a loner, full of grief for the loss of his love. To reinforce that, I wrote this;
I only ever intended it to be a throwaway paragraph;
to show the grief that still haunted Dave Travise, but then people started
asking me about the story behind the dent, they wanted to know what had
happened to Myra.
In the end, to explain Dave’s anguish and save me having to repeat myself, I wrote a prequel, called Myra (2017), which got everyone up to speed. And parts of that story prompted me to write a third novel, called Promise Me, which is soon to be released. Perhaps it will complete the story, resulting in Dave’s redemption and allowing him to move on; who knows?
Meet Dave TraviseWhile things like that might not be secret, they all add a new layer to the narrative. A deep understanding of them is not needed to enjoy the story but realising their meaning enhances things.
For another example, my novel Life and Other Dreams features two worlds, initially they appear to have little or no connection. As the story develops, they become increasingly linked. Once again, placing the points of similarity was done almost without my realising it was happening, it was only when I started to get comments that I realised how intricately they had been joined together.
Life and Other DreamsYou might think it strange, how I don’t always see things in the same way as my readers, how I can possibly put stuff in without knowing it?
Here’s my guilty secret; I don’t
actually plot any of my stories. I get an idea, dream up a location, place my
characters in it and stand back. I then watch a film of the action, as it
develops, in my head. All I have to do is write it down. This is great, as it
saves me all the bother of plotting or messing around trying to manipulate
events to get to the desired conclusion. It’s all done for me.
My characters make it up as they go
along, I just type. And not very well; considering how many words I have
written on a keyboard; I still have to look at the keys as I type. Which means that
I don’t actually see the words on the screen until I stop for a break. Very
often, that is where the magic begins, as I read it back and see what my players
have been up to. I’m always conscious that the reader comes to the story in the
same way that I have, unsure of what’s going to happen next.
If anyone’s guilty of putting secrets in, it’s my characters. As for their motives, I guess you’d have to ask them.
If this post has got you interested in any of my novels, you can get more details by clicking the Portfolio link. Or, to receive a free short story, The Orbital Livestock Company, just join my team of subscribers by clicking here.
I’ll be back on Thursday with another Showcase post, featuring an Indie Author with something to say. Please leave a comment below, then click the links to see the other great blogs on this hop.
You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter
The post Let me tell you a Secret, Blog Hopping. appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
May 22, 2019
The Indie Showcase presents, Laura Lambton
My guest this week is an author of historical fiction. Over to you, Laura.
‘Everyone has a story inside them,’ were words I had heard a thousand times and they became all the more frustrating as each year passed with nothing to show for my efforts beyond a pile of discarded ideas. No story seemed worth telling and I embarked on a teaching career, leaving my dreams of becoming an author on the back burner. ‘If I couldn’t do it myself,’ I thought, ‘at least I can teach others and inspire a passion for literature and the English language in them.’
Typically, it was in the midst of my teaching career when I
had no time for anything else that the idea for Carmela came in to fruition. I wrote small sections in snatched
moments and the characters did begin to develop but when I left teaching in
2017, they really took flight and the story unravelled around them. I published
in April last year and have been fortunate enough to see some success with
this.
Carmela is a work
of fiction based on a true story. The two main characters, Carmela and Angelo
were real people – my great-grandparents – who lived in Italy in the late
1800s. Carmela was raised by the monks of Monte Cassino and Angelo, a poor farm
boy would risk his life twice a week making the journey in to town to learn how
to read and write. The story follows them through key years of their lives
through love, loss, hope and mystery as the reader learns just how closely
entwined their lives really are. The story is told from different perspectives,
allowing the reader to make predictions and experience twists in the tale.
The hardest part of the writing process was trying not to
offend. I knew Carmela and Angelo’s family would eventually read what I had
written and I needed to ensure I portrayed their characters in the way people
living today, remembered them. The story developed itself around me but it was
the characterisation I spent time agonising over. As a result of this, the
whole process from start to finish took me just under five years to complete
but seeing Carmela in print, means
that every second was worth it.
The process of writing Carmela
really was an adventure and it has inspired another idea that I am currently
researching and developing. For me, writing, very much like reading, is an
escape but you get to create the world you escape to. The saying really does ring
true: ‘If you can’t find your escape on the shelves, create it.’
Here’s a review from Amazon,
My thanks to this weeks guest for a great post. I hope you all enjoyed it.
While you’re here, why not have a look around the site? There are FREE things and a whole lot more, just follow the links at the top of the page.
You might also like to join my team. I’ll send you a bi-monthly newsletter, filled with news, updates and extra content, as well as more about me and my worlds. You’ll also get a free short story and offers on my novels. Subscribe by clicking HERE
If you want to be featured in a future Showcase, where you can write about whatever (within reason) you want, then please let me know. Use the comment box below and I’ll get back to you.
You can catch up on previous Showcase posts by clicking HERE
The Saturday Rewind is taking a short break, I’ll be back on Monday with another blog hop, don’t miss next Thursdays Showcase post either.
Have a good week,
Richard.
The post The Indie Showcase presents, Laura Lambton appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
May 19, 2019
My favourite Character, Blog Hopping
Welcome to my Monday post; this week, the topic for the blog hop aligns with a subject close to my heart. Which is a win for me, I can use the same notes for both and save myself from writing a second post. If you were here last week, you’ll understand what I mean.
In case you weren’t, here’s a quick reminder of the rules of the hop,
Link your blog to this hop.Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
This week, the prompt is:-
From all the characters you’ve created, which is your favorite and why?
Asking any author, especially one
whose head is filled with conflicting voices, which character is their favourite
(excuse the spelling, I’m English!), is not a thing to be taken lightly. It’s like
telling a group of girls that one of them is prettiest. It’s best done from a safe
distance and even better if you can get your friend to do it.
As I’ve written eleven books now, both series and stand alone, I have a lot of characters to pick from. They can be a rowdy bunch, clamouring for my attention and all trying to shout at once. I don’t want to cause an argument or hurt anyone’s feelings. I need these people on my side; if they sulk, they won’t tell me their stories and then I’ll be stuck.
Although they disturb my waking and sleeping moments with their tales, I feel incredibly protective of my characters. I’ve given them life and a purpose, I agonise over their tribulations and if one has to die, I feel bad about it for days. That means I have to be careful in my assessment.
Let’s break it down, look at a few of
the inhabitants of my imagination in slightly more detail. Not just at the leading
characters either. There’s an important place in my work for the sidekick, the conscience,
the voice of reason. Or even a good villain, they’re all important to the plot.
As you will have noticed, I write Science Fiction and Steampunk, which means that my stories take place either in the future or an alternative now. We must always remember that, when we head out into the Galaxy, we’ll take all our emotions and vices with us. Our drama will play out on a wider stage, but it will still be us. My characters are all people who you might meet or know, they all have good and bad in them.
First, the males,
should I choose Dave Travise, Galactic trader, deserter, loner? A man with a past that haunts him. He was my first (so to speak), the one who started it all off, he will always have a special place.
Or maybe I could pick Horis Strongman, the minor and naïve civil servant who discovers foul play? He has to learn how to fight, just to stay alive in a world of Steam powered machines and Victorian intrigue.
How about Maloney, the ex-soldier from the same world, with his strict morals and his clockwork arm?
Finally, we have Dan, living a boring life but dreaming of exploring the Galaxy; until his dreams and his reality start to overlap and he loses track of which is which.
Many of them are based in some way on people that I’ve met on my travels.
Then there are the females,
we have the ill-fated engineer Myra, the girl from a farm who just wanted to get away and see the galaxy.
The feisty chambermaid Grace, who saw the danger that the innocence in Horis encouraged. Instantly, she resolved to protect him.
Then there was the enigmatic heiress, Layla Balcom, throwing off her spoilt-rich-girl tag and realising her birthright the hard way.
And Vanessa, the woman in our heroes dream life. But is she more than a figment of his imagination?
All of them are strong, independent women; having a wife and three daughters made them easy to write.
Last but not least among them,
we come to Andorra Pett. She, in common with a lot of women, has been wronged by a cheating partner. She heads off for pastures new with her best buddy; arrives on a space station in orbit around Saturn and lands in more trouble than she ever imagined. Forced to turn detective, she finds unexpected talents and pleasure in her new life.
However,
there is one character that I haven’t mentioned. I’ve saved it until last. When I was thinking about this prompt, I looked at all the people in my worlds and realised that there is one character that I love more than all of them (sorry guys).
I’ve always thought that setting,
the place where the story plays out, is a character in its own right. After
all, it can stir emotion, influence actions and play as much of a part in the tale
as any person can. Just think of how you felt seeing a beautiful sunset, or the
view of your favourite holiday destination.
What’s the best bit about writing about somewhere that nobody but me has ever seen? It’s the fact that I have complete control over it. I design it from nothing, with no other purpose than to be the place where my action unfolds. This is tremendously powerful; because when you’re building a world, you can set it up to drive the narrative and force the other characters to do whatever you want.
Readers tend to agree with me.
Here are a few comments about my settings, taken from reviews of my books,
Life and Other Dreams:
There’s
some fantastic world building too, Richard Dee takes the normal and the not so
normal, to create the planet Ecias, it was so vivid I could almost picture it
in my head.
Ribbonworld:
This is a
fabulous example of world building – you really get a sense of what it might be
like to live under a dome.
The Rocks of Aserol:
The
individual steam-punk elements that the author has created fit so perfectly
into the world around them that I cannot help but be impressed.
Andorra Pett and the Oort Cloud Café: The descriptions of the space station and how it all worked were clever, I was able to ‘see’ the place.
Judging from those opinions, I must be doing something right.
In summary, it turns out that my favourite character isn’t who you might have thought. In fact, it isn’t a who but a where. In many ways, my travels are to blame. I’ve been lucky enough to see a lot of the world, including many places that are off the beaten track. They’ve inspired me to create settings that do more than just provide a location.
I guess you could say that by refusing to name an actual person, I’ve dodged the question. I would prefer to think that I’ve kept all the voices in my head happy (for a while).
If this post has got you interested in any of my novels, you can get more details by clicking the Portfolio link. Or, to receive a free short story, The Orbital Livestock Company, just join my team of subscribers by clicking here.
I’ll be back on Thursday with another Showcase post, featuring an Indie Author with something to say. Please leave a comment below, then click the links to see the other great blogs on this hop.
Bye for now.
You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter
The post My favourite Character, Blog Hopping appeared first on Welcome to my Worlds..
