Mel Stone's Blog

And it's suddenly June...do you know what your author is doing?

Thankfully, this author is not on chapter one! She's on chapter 20. And she is so dang close! She's scared to put out a release date because she's positive that she'll miss it. (But August is her goal!)

Chip off, er, of the old block.

I know that when you release a book into the world, the world becomes its editor.

I know I'm just begging for my reviews and inbox to be full of people wanting to set me straight.

Word tried to autocorrect me.

Google told me I'm wrong.

So did the Cambridge dictionary, Collins, MacMillan, and dictionary.com.

They all say the phrase is, "chip off the old block".

But that's not what it was in 1825.

I have been heavily relying on Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue while writing The Ghost of Spring. I wanted to see if this phrase was in use back in the 1820s. It was. Sort of. It's missing an 'f'.

Here's the entry directly from Grose's 1811 version.

CHIP. A child. A chip of the old block; a child who either in person or sentiments resembles its father or mother. I put a link directly to the online version of the dictionary in this post so you can see it for yourself.

Research of idioms shows us that the phrase was first used back in 1621 when Bishop Robert Sanderson wrote, "Am I not a child of the same Adam...a chip of the same block with him?" That's what it was until 1870, when a newspaper in Ohio printed it as, "the child is too often a chip off the old block." And that's what we say today.

Ladies and gents that little 'f' is going to well, eff me over. Trolls and grammar experts are going to be coming out of the woodwork to tell me I'm wrong if I don't put in that little 'f'. But historians and die-hard researchers (like me) will be pointing out my factual inaccuracy if I do.

(Cue screaming and headbanging on the desk.)

Writing history is hard.

I haven't decided what to do yet. I really don't want to cut it.

I guess you'll have to read the book to find out when I release it.

(See how Mel tries to turn a possible headache into a brilliant marketing tool. Heh heh.)

Anyways, check out Grose's Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. (Hint hint family-Mel wants a hardback copy for Christmas ) It's got some beautiful gems in there like HUGOTONTHEONBIQUIFFINARIANS and RATTLE-PATE and my current favorite GRUMBLETONIAN.

Happy reading!

Mel

Halloween in March? Why not.

The groundwork has been laid. The characters are in position. Let the haunting begin! I'm excited to start into the actual "Ghost" part of The Ghost of Spring. To keep me in a spooky mood I've been reading ghost stories, listening to spooky podcasts, watching scary shows all month. It's like Halloween in spring!

Who do I turn to for my spookfest?

Stories - Darcy Coates. Her short scary stories are amazing, and I'll never look at mannequins the same way.

Podcast - Lore by Aaron Mahnke. Because history is stranger than fiction (shiver). I also like Unexplained by Richard MacLean Smith (and he has a warm British voice to make it extra awesome.)

Scary shows - honestly, this one is a hard one for me. I do books and podcasts much more easily than shows, maybe because then I can make it as graphic as I want in my brain. Favorite ominous shows (and you're all gonna laugh cuz I'm a wimp!) Arachnophobia, (please note I love spiders and rescue them all the time, just the creepy crawlies you get while watching is great.) Jaws, (I also love sharks, but I think that the human interactions in this movie are just as scary as the monster.) Watcher in the Woods, (Bette Davis scared me when I was a kid.) And my daughter made me watch Spooky Stories to Tell in the Dark (which freaked me out even though I'm a "grown-up" now as much as the books did when I was a kid.)

Wishing you a Spooooooooky Spring this year!

Mel

Word Count Update

The almighty word count. Did you know my first book, The House that Death Built, was originally over 170,00 words? Yeah, that was a behemoth that I whittled down to 112,00 words. And I was told it was still too big.

But you know what? I trust readers.

I trust them to make the final call on if a book was too big and boring or too small and not enough and after reading reviews for the last 6 months, trust me, you guys don't pull ANY punches. :)

My boss at my 'real-life I still have bills to pay job, being an author is a marathon not a sprint' (heh heh) asked me how my writing was going and I told him a I just released a novella. "What's a novella?"

So here's a little something I got from a Masterclass article with some definitions on what is what.

500 words or less - Flash Fiction

Anything above 1000 words to 10,000 words - Short Story

10,000 to 40,000 words - Novella

40,000 words and up - Novel (although most standards for a novel is 50,000 words)

That's right folks, I cut an entire novel-length of words from my first book. And it was good for me. It made me write a lot tighter and focus on the plot more. Yay for learning!

Currently, The Ghost of Spring is at about 18,000 words. Is it going to bulge into another monstrosity? Most likely. Another 175,000 words to hack at? I hope not!

Here's to the creative process, no matter what yours is! Keep on making things, especially mistakes. It's how we grow.

-Mel

Photo credit - Olezzo at Dreamtime.com

Title reveal day

Originally I wanted to title my next book The Ghosts of Winter. I Googled it and was quickly shown that the title I wanted had been used. A lot.

Today I'm happy to announce the title reveal of The Ghost of Spring. I don't have a release date yet, but I promise it will be this year. I'll keep giving updates as they happen.

Lilacs will play a big part in the next book. I love lilacs. It smells like spring and life to me. Growing up, my Grandmother had a huge hedge of lilacs and the smell in her yard was divine. The bees were plentiful, so you had to be quick if you wanted to get a sprig to take home. After the blooms and bees were gone, there was a shady and secret place behind the hedge next to the fence where a young Mel could hide and read ghost stories, Nancy Drew, and Dragonlance all summer long.

ARC's Available, come and grab yours.

I can't believe I forgot to give you guys a link here on my blog. Someone should fire the entire marketing department! Oh wait, that's me. :)

Anywhooooo, I have copies available for From the Ashes of June here: https://booksprout.co/arc/54523/from-...

I've been debating with myself with the current climate on how hard I should be pushing this book. It's a bit of a sensitive subject at the moment. But I feel it's a tale that needs to be told. It's about those who are innocent and caught in the crossfire of a riot, and what they do to survive it. Some of their principles will be pushed, and they'll give in to be safe. Their emotions will be pushed to their limits and they will make questionable choices. They will find that social classes and age don't matter when the world around you is burning down.

You might like it, you might hate it. I hope it will help people take an honest look at themselves and not see the world in black and white, but the many shades of gray it actually is. Writing it made me learn a lot more about myself.

Day late and a dollar short, so in other words - everything is normal

What a ride this year has been! I published my debut novel, The House that Death Built, and 5 months later I published a prequel novella From the Ashes of June. That was tough. Probably won't do it again. EVER.

I am so thankful to fans who leave me nice reviews and emails and messages that you like my work. It makes ALL the difference between a good day and a bad one. And this year has had plenty of bad days to share.

I've learned a lot this year about writing, marketing, production, formatting, putting up with trolls, not being discouraged, and most of all PATIENCE! (hate that word)

So here's to 2020, a crappy year in the books, but a pretty darn good one for me. It's the year I became an author.

See you in 2021!

Chapter 31, the answer is there.

One of the best parts of writing mysteries is the clues. You want to leave just enough to make the reader intrigued, but not informed. You want to push them to read more, to find out why, and by the end of the story you'd better have answered all clues or they will let you know.

They let me know.

Dear readers, I didn't leave a big enough answer for a clue I left you. And I'm sorry. Many readers of The House that Death Built have posted in their reviews they didn't get their questions answered about the portraits lining the room the main character finds. I also would hate to have this dramatic scene and no answers for why it is there. I'll do better in the future, promise.

If you are still wondering about that scene, I left you a huge clue in this blog post. Outright telling you wouldn't be any fun, now would it?

Happy Spooktober and "Why yes Mel, I would like a free book."

It finally happened. Last night I turned on the furnace. Thermostat wars 2020 between me and my hubby have officially begun.

The holiday season is about to begin. It's going to be different this year than from any other. Different doesn't mean bad, just different. It's a difficult lesson that I'm learning and hopefully, you've embraced it with less kicking and screaming than I have.

My free novella, From the Ashes of June, is still a go for next month. In the meantime, I wanted to kick-off the holidays with a giveaway. I'll be sending out one lucky winner a signed copy of The House That Death Built. (Yay!) Starting on October 26th I'll be posting daily on Facebook little things I'm doing to gear up for Halloween. All you have to do to enter the giveaway is comment on the post. That's it! Easy peasy rice and cheesy.

Here's the link to my page. https://www.facebook.com/authormelstone See you next week!

The Red Pen

Back in the day, I used to write fanfic with some fabulous life long friends. One of us took it upon herself to be our editor. (Bless her face, that was awesome of her.) And every time she gave back my manuscript it was dripping with red ink. Bleeding. I always felt a little frustrated with my notes.

Now that friend is a NYT Bestselling author, (You are amazing, BoJam, I LOVE YOU!) and I look on those pages of red ink with fondness, because she was (and is) a friend that wants me to succeed and be better. I'm at the red ink phase of rewrites now. It's not dripping yet, and I'm probably not marking it up as much as she would (heh heh heh). But it's part of the process of making something good into something better. And something better into something great.

(Also check out my sweet orange Halloween nails! Happy spook season, everyone!)