Pat Bertram's Blog, page 314

A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtake #6

A Spark of Heavenly Fire takes place during the month of December. To celebrate, I am posting outtakes from the book. Like movie outtakes, these are scenes that were deleted from the final version.  Posting them is not as easy as it sounds. Since the original version is no longer in my computer, I have to retype the pages from my handwritten draft copy.  Still, it's fun being able to revisit some of my original scenes. Hope you enjoy this look at my characters. Oh, and if you'd like to see a...

MY WEBSITE IS DECORATED FOR CHRISTMAS!

I realize the tree isn't as awesome as the Ashland University Christmas Card that's making the rounds, but it's more than I planned to do to celebrate. Even better, fellow Second Wind author JJ Dare (False Positive and False World) made it for me. Click on the photo and it will take you to my site where the tree is live. It's similar to an advent tree, but you get to click on all the ornaments now. (Mine is the lilac  one sort of in the center.)

Tagged: Ashland University Christmas Card...

Ugly Book Cover

A recent reviewer of More Deaths Than One liked the book well enough, but thought the cover was SO UGLY. (The capital letters were the reviewer's.) Perhaps it is. The printed version is not what I had envisioned. It was supposed to be an eerie night-vision-goggle-green painting with purple lettering (as you see on the right sidebar) and it turned out to be emerald and raspberry sherbet pink. The painting also lost much of its detail. However, whatever the vagaries of the printing process...

A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtake #5

A Spark of Heavenly Fire takes place during the month of December. To celebrate, I am posting outtakes from the book. Like movie outtakes, these are scenes that were deleted from the final version.  Posting them is not as easy as it sounds. Since the original version is no longer in my computer, I have to retype the pages from my handwritten draft copy.  Still, it's fun being able to revisit some of my original scenes. Hope you enjoy this look at my characters. Oh, and if you'd like to see a...

A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtake #4

A Spark of Heavenly Fire takes place during the month of December. To celebrate, I am posting outtakes from the book. Like movie outtakes, these are scenes that were deleted from the final version.  Posting them is not as easy as it sounds. Since the original version is no longer in my computer, I have to retype the pages from my handwritten draft copy.  Still, it's fun being able to revisit some of my original scenes. Hope you enjoy this look at my characters. Oh, and if you'd like to see a...

Books Make Good Christmas Gifts

Of course books make good Christmas gifts. You know that. Here's a list of books you may not have heard of by relatively unknown writers — at least they are relatively unknown at the moment. I wouldn't be surprised if one or two or even all of the authors are household names by this time next year. 

The Medicine People by Lazarus Barnhill is a deceptively lighthearted mystery with great characterization and surprising twists and turns.  Why has triple murder suspect and fugitive Ben...

The Place is More Than Scenery

I am pleased to welcome Malcolm R. Campbell as a guest on this blog. Not only has he left myriad thoughtful comments on my posts, he has written one of my favorite books, a delightful mystery called Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire. Though Jock Stewart is a throwback to the Hollywood's film noir reporters, Campbell's delight in words and wordplay shows through the hardbitten shell, and the novel has a gleeful undertone. If you are searching for a Christmas gift for a booklover, look...

A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtake #3

A Spark of Heavenly Fire takes place during the month of December. To celebrate, I am posting outtakes from the book. Like movie outtakes, these are scenes that were deleted from the final version.  Posting them is not as easy as it sounds. Since the original version is no longer in my computer, I have to retype the pages from my handwritten draft copy.  Still, it's fun being able to revisit some of my original scenes. Hope you enjoy this look at my characters. Oh, and if you'd like to see a...

A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtakes #2

A Spark of Heavenly Fire takes place during the month of December. To celebrate, all month I will be posting outtakes from the book. It's not as easy as it sounds. Since the original version is no longer in my computer, I have to retype the pages from my handwritten draft copy.  Hope you enjoy this behind the scenes look at my characters. It's a continuation of the scene posted in here: A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtakes. Oh, and if you'd like to see a photo of the handwritten book, you can...

A Spark of Heavenly Fire Outtakes #1

A Spark of Heavenly Fire takes place during the month of December. Originally, the story began on the first with the climax at Christmas, but during one of the rewrites, I got rid of most of the first chapter. So, oddly, the story now begins on December 2.  I could have have changed December 2 to December 1, but that seemingly innocuous change would have rippled throughout the book, and I didn't want to make inadvertant mistakes. I make plenty of vertant ones! It may not have mattered so...