Sherry Lewis's Blog, page 15

Think Happy Thoughts

It's been a rough few days with emotions running high. Nothing huge. Nothing major. Just a few of those days run together. They haven't been all my days, either. But you know how it is when someone you love is having one of those days. It kind of becomes your day, too.



I had planned to blog today about something I encountered online yesterday that bugged me, but as my youngest daughter was hanging up from an early morning phone call, during which we had been discussing her no good, horrible, very bad day (before the day even really got started) she issued a challenge to me to blog about something happy.



Well, clearly, venting about my new pet peeve didn't qualify, but having had a few of those days in a row, I wasn't sure where to find something happy.



And then a favorite quote from The Tao of Pooh  ran through my head, and I set out on a search to find it to make sure I got it right (because clicking around on the Internet is infinitely easier than searching through all of my bookshelves to find my copy of that tiny book.)



Of course, any time I delve into the mind of A.A. Milne, I'm fascinated and charmed and I very quickly find myself smiling. Even though it took forever to find my favorite quote (it doesn't happen to be everyone's favorite, I guess) I found some other charming quotes along the way.



This one, for example. Because if you can get past the personal frustration of being disorganized, which can frequently lead you to think you're not only having a very bad day, but you're destined to always have bad days because you just can't get it together, you might just realize that being disorganized can lead to having surprising discoveries ...



Like that purse you completely forgot you owned, or a favorite shirt found at the bottom of a pile of dirty laundry, or change you left in the pocket of a pair of jeans. Really, the discoveries never end.



Okay, some of the discoveries aren't all that great, but some are. That's the important thing.





Or this one, which is my second favorite quote from A.A. Milne because it's one I so desperately need to remember. A life spent as a single mother working all the time and always feeling as if I was sprinting from one forgotten thing to another (or one thing I couldn't quite get myself to on time because of my day job), there were times when I really needed to just take a deep breath and remember that rivers are incredibly wise.



There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.







There's some real wisdom in this quote. Because, seriously, in this day and age, when it seems that everybody is busy talking at each other and very few people are actually talking to each other, it helps to remember that the other guy probably has a small piece of fluff in his ear.



In reality, that piece of fluff is probably a life just as disorganized as yours, and he's probably just as worried about what he's late for or who he's disappointing as you are.



It won't hurt to (again) take a breath and work up a little patience. I think most people would happily remove the fluff from their ears if we stopped getting irritated with them for having fluff in the first place.





I wish I had a nickle for every time in my life I've been caught up in worrying that a tree might fall down when I was underneath. I would be a rich woman, indeed.



It has taken a lot of time and energy and mental focus to occasionally suppose as Pooh does. Supposing it didn't!



It's good to anticipate problems to some degree, but it's not good to get stuck in an endless loop of problem anticipating. Yeah, today's tough, but supposing it gets better? And even if it doesn't supposing tomorrow is a great day? What then?



I think, like Piglet, I'm comforted by this.



And finally, my favorite quote:







Aren't you glad you stuck with me? Is that great, or what? The thing I've realized over the years is that, if I walk out the door feeling pretty sure than an Adventure is going to happen, one usually does.



Maybe it will be a happy Adventure, and maybe it won't, but Adventures almost always happen to those who are Ready for Anything.



So brush the honey off your nose and spruce yourself up as best you can. I hope your Adventure is wonderful and fluff-free!

Fred's Back -- No Place for Tears

I'm really excited to announce that No Place for Tears is now available for your Kindle. It's also free to read on Kindle Unlimited. 




This is Fred Vickery's fourth adventure in murder and mayhem, and one of my favorites. They always say that writers should write what they know -- and in this case, I certainly did. 




Eddie Leishman is a local musician and, in Fred's mind, a local loser. Eddie has taken up with Sharon Bolinger, daughter of Fred's old friend, Doc Huggins. Trouble is, Eddie already has a wife. Everybody knows that Doc hates Eddie, and most folks believe he has good reason to feel the way he does. But when Eddie turns up dead after receiving treatment at Doc's hands, the tide of public opinion begins to turn against the old goat.




Doc might be a constant pain in Fred's neck, but soon Doc's back is against the wall and Fred can't ignore his old friend's troubles. 




One of the fun things about being an author is being able to get justice with the stroke of a pen or the pressing of a few keys on the computer. I wrote No Place for Tears when my own dad was still alive. Dad always knew that he and Fred shared a few personality traits but he never did see himself in Doc's character in this book. Even so, it did us both good to give the fictional Eddie an untimely end since real "Eddie" (not his real name) was very much on the loose and busy ruining the lives of women with reckless abandon. 




I hope you enjoy Fred's most recent adventure! 




You can read an excerpt here 


and buy a copy of No Place for Tears here. 

Book of the Week - 11/16/15

Two pieces of news this week. We have a new Book of the Week and No Place for Tears, the 4th book in the Fred Vickery mystery series is coming to your Kindle. More about Fred tomorrow. Today, it's 






Book of the Week 









Let's start with this week's featured book from my back list. The Children's Cop is part of the Women in Blue series published by Harlequin Superromance in 2004. The series tells the stories of six female police officers who became friends while in the police academy and features books by some of the romance world's favorite authors: Kay David, Roz Denny Fox, K.N. Casper, Linda Style and Anna Adams. The Chidren's Cop is second in the series.  




The lovely thing is that thanks to digital publishing, the whole series is available in e-book format. You can find them all here: 




The Partner by Kay David 

The Children's Cop by Sherry Lewis

The Witness by Linda Style
Her Little Secret by Anna Adams
She Walks the Line by Roz Denny Fox
A Mother's Vow by KN Casper 




You can read an excerpt from The Children's Cop by clicking here. 




I had a great time writing this book and working with five other talented and accomplished authors to come up with a cohesive plot line that would allow each book to work with the other books in the series, but also to stand on its own. 




Enjoy! 

Sharing a Couple of Things Today

The week has definitely gotten away from me, so today's blog post is going to be a quick one. 



First, I want to share the news that, due to popular demand, we're revving up the publication schedule for my back list and all the Dancing on Coals workshops, We'll be doing one workshop and one work of fiction every month until all the workshops and the books on my back list I can re-release are available. 



To that end, one of my most popular workshops is now available on Kindle. 









Why, Why, Why? Mastering Character Motivation is a writing craft workshop focused on helping you create strong, realistic motivation for the characters in your novels.




Motivation is one of the key elements of any novel. Strong, believable motivation can drive your story from page one to the final scene, while weak or unrealistic motivation can be the kiss of death. In this workshop, we discuss how to avoid clichéd and contrived motivations and how to build on your basic characterization to create characters that actively push your story forward. We also tackle that dreaded nemesis of so many writers—author intrusion. 




This is a great follow-up to Creating Characters with Character, our workshop on characterization, but can also stand alone, especially if you've already some preliminary work with your characters. This workshop has been presented in part at various writer’s conferences, including Romance Writers of America annual conference in Washington, D.C. (2009) and an excerpt from it was published as an article in RWA’s trade journal, Romance Writers Report.




I haven't decided which workshop will come next. I'm trying to decide between Plotting the Organic Way, Avoiding Author Intrusion, and Dodging the Dreaded Saggy Middle.  I'm going to be conducting a poll on the Dancing on Coals Facebook page on Friday, so please stop by and offer your opinion. 




Also, for those new here, I'm featuring one book every week from my back list of books still available for purchase. This week's Book of the Week is: 












Picture Perfect 

(originally published as Call Me Mom)  




You can read an excerpt here and also find buying information if you'd like to pick up a copy. 




I think that's it for today. Hope everyone has a fabulous week! 

Fred's a Boxed Set!

It's live a whole day early, so let's celebrate! The first three books in the Fred Vickery Mystery Series are now a boxed set!








BOOK 1: No Place for Secrets

BOOK 2: No Place like Home

BOOK 3: No Place for Death



Save more than 30% when you buy all three books together in the set.



No Place for Tears is scheduled for release in just two weeks, so this is your chance to catch up on all three of the books that come beore it in the series. Just click the link below!



The Fred Vickery Mystery Series: Books 1-3

About Mr. Congenlaity

This week's Book of the Week is Mr. Congeniality. I'll be posting the links and excerpt tomorrow, but today I thought I'd share with you the letter I wrote to readers when the book was published in 2002. People often ask writers where we get our ideas. In fact, next to how much money we make, it's probably the most-asked question we encounter. So here's a little about the idea for Mr. Congeniality.









July 2002

Dear Reader,



One of the questions that authors
are frequently asked is where we get ideas for the stories we write. As a
reader myself, I’m always fascinated to hear about those snippets of
conversation, moments glimpsed from the train or the car, stories on the
evening news, and songs on the radio that spark other imaginations and turn
into the seeds from which stories grow.



Mr.
Congeniality got
its start about three years ago. I was half-heartedly watching a cooking show
on television, trying to take my mind off the fact that I had to pay bills. I
don’t remember what was on the menu or even which show it was. But I do
remember glancing up once to see a chef (who was quite obviously from the city)
standing along the bank of a stream in the mountains of the American West.



As I watched, the chef began
pulling tin containers, linen napkins, and assorted trinkets from a saddle
bag--things she’d hauled up the mountainside by horseback so she could create
an artistic arrangement of hors d’oeuvres
along the trail. By the time she cheerfully assured her viewing audience that
presentation is vitally important even in the mountains, my bills were
forgotten, Annie Holladay had come to life, and Dean Sheffield had crept into
the shadows of my mind.


Photo from Unsplash


I’ve been visiting Annie and Dean
off-and-on ever since that day. They weren’t always the easiest couple to work
with. In fact, they were frustratingly uncooperative at times, and I officially
gave up writing their story several months ago, making a solemn vow never to
look at it or think of it again. The very next morning I was standing in line
at the bank when Dean perched on my shoulder and began whispering the secrets
I’d been searching so hard to find on my own.




Mr. Congeniality is a story about forgiving and
healing, about loving and laughing, about letting go and hanging on. It’s about
life with teenagers and all the joy—and occasional pain—that comes with the
territory. I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.



~Sherry



I dedicated this book to my male cousins because I'm lucky enough to have the best cousins around. So once again, this is for you, 




Gary,
Ted, Bart

Tony,
Ray

Carter (Jeff),
Chris, Jay, Todd

Blaine,
Brad, Garth

Clay,
Clint, Blake

Mike,
Steve and Sam



        

Thanks for a lifetime
of laughter and memories!

                              

Let it Snow, a trial post

I'm playing around with a Facebook function I've never tried before. Apparently, I can embed posts from Facebook on my blog and/or web page. I just want to see if it actually works.

TBT -- One of my favorite books. While driving outside Gunnison, Colorado, I saw Rick in my imagination, standing on the...

Posted by Author Sherry Lewis on Thursday, October 29, 2015

 And look at that! It works. Hmmm...   

Easy, Quick Ideas for Halloween

It's almost Halloween and I've been out of town so I haven't even thought about decorating for the season. That's a shame because decorating for holidays has always been one of my favorite things to do. I'm having to content myself this year with clicking around on the Internet and saving ideas for next year.







Here are a few of my favorites.







Source

Look at these cute little guys. A few small pumpkins, some pipe cleaners and a votive candle or two and you're in business. I'm not sure I'd put them on the floor, especially with pets or small children around, but they'd also be great either clustered in small groups or alone as centerpieces.



If you had a big enough mantle over your fireplace, they'd also look great there.



Speaking of fireplace mantles, I also love this idea:







Source

It's a very different theme, so I can't see the pumpkin spiders on the same

mantle with the pictures, but this is very creepy and haunting, don't you think? Some inexpensive black frames, a few pictures printed out from historical sites or family genealogy, a smattering of candles, and a little cotton batting and you're in business.



Here's another relatively easy and inexpensive decoration if you have a sidewalk or garden path, or even a patio you'd like to surround with cheerful Halloween faces. Hang the carved jack-o'-lanterns from shepherd's hooks using hangers made out of heavy-gauge wire (easy to find.) Use battery-powered candles to keep the pumpkins lit without risk of fire.







Source






Tell me these little guys aren't cute! Use plastic-foam balls in different sizes and draw pupils using a permanent marker. Use a toothpick or stick to hold eyes together and attach pairs of eyes to a bench or fence or any other dark-colored background. I'm visualizing them on the shelves of a bookcase. 



Doesn't that make the porch look warm and inviting?



Source




Last, but certainly not least:

















Doesn't that make the porch look warm and inviting? I sure think so. 



Ahhh, well, I won't be doing any of these things this year. Maybe next October

Book of the Week - 10/19/2015

This week's Book of the Week is Keeping Her Safe. Originally published by Harlequin Superromance in 1997, it has also been released a couple of times as part of other imprints.



This was my third book for Harlequin and it was one of the hardest books I've ever written. The plot was simply too close to home.



Like far too many women in our society, I was involved in an abusive relationship. I was luckier than some and escaped with my life--but just barely. My kids and I went into hiding for several years after I finally managed to leave and, in fact, it's only been within the past few years that my youngest daughter (the basis for DJ's character) has had any kind of contact with her biological father.



Like Christina, my original plan was to tell my daughter that her father had died or moved away somewhere, but I soon realized that the best way to keep her safe was to tell her the truth. I was driving down the street one day after a conversation with her (she was just 10 at the time) when I began to wonder what might have happened if I had lied to her about her father.



Like many books, this one was born from a What if?  What if my daughter had grown up believing that her father was dead--and then he showed up on her doorstep one day? How would she feel about him? How would she feel about me?



From that, the idea for Keeping Her Safe was born.



Adam was the perfect match for DJ. Strong and trustworthy, with a bit of baggage of his own, he was just what DJ needed--and she was right for him. In writing him as the hero in this book went a long way toward healing some of my old wounds.



I knew the book would be hard to write, but I didn't realize just how tough it would be. I didn't know how to write the scene between DJ's sister, Laura, and Larry Galloway, and my daughters and I ended up doing some roll-playing with the help of a family friend. It ended up being cathartic for both my older daughter and me, but it was one of the most difficult things I've ever done.



Of course, it is first and foremost a romance--a story about truth and trust and the redemptive power of love,



You'll find an excerpt from the book and information on where to buy here.



Happy Reading!!!

One Downside of a Long Writing Career

I had a conversation with my oldest daughter the other day that made me look at my world in a whole new--and not entirely pleasant--way. We were talking about re-releasing the very first mystery series I ever wrote, the Fred Vickery mysteries. When I wrote those books, I created Fred as a mixture of my dad, who was in his 70s at the time, my maternal grandfather, who had passed away years before, my next-door neighbor, Fred, and me.





When I pictured Fred, I saw him as an elderly man, at least a full generation older than me. I based his speech patterns on those I'd heard my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents use. Fred was elderly. No doubt about it. If I imagined the books being made into a movie or a TV series, I pictured actors of the day taking the role of Fred -- Andy Griffith, maybe. The older Andy, not the younger Andy of Mayberry version. Andy in his 70s, just like Fred.



Even though I created Fred in 1992, which means in the real world he would have aged a good 20 years, in my mind he was still Andy-Griffith-in-Matlock-esque.



But the other day my daughter said something that blew me right out of the water. "Ooh!" she said. "If they made a movie now, Kurt Russell could play Fred."



Excuse me!?! What??? Kurt Russell?  No! No way!



To begin with, Kurt is my number one go-to hot guy. Kurt is not old enough to play Fred in a movie. Kurt is Wyatt Earp in Tombstone tough (and have I mentioned hot?) Kurt isn't 70-ish and slowing down. Kurt is timeless.



When I wrote my very first published romance, Call Me Mom, the hero, Kurt Morgan, was based on Kurt. Kurt was Kurt. Kurt still is Kurt. When I reworked Call Me Mom to be republished as Picture Perfect by Harlequin Heartwarming, Kurt was still ... Kurt.





But, as my mother always says, "If wishes were fishes, we'd all have a fry." I can't change reality just by refusing to acknowledge or even accept it. The fact is, I've aged. Kurt has aged. And the hot guy who was the hero in my very first romance novel probably could now play the septuagenarian in my very first mystery novel. I'm still not okay with it, but I'm not okay with a lot of things that show up in my world--like the fact that I'm not 30 anymore.



But I'll tell you one thing--if and when I write more books in the Fred Vickery series, I'm going to be looking at good old Fred in a whole new light!