Marian Allen's Blog, page 483

Friday Recommends

My good friend Joanna Foreman takes good care of me, and has sent me two promotional opportunities which I will share with you.

The Chicks of Characterization have a Spotlight feature on their blog. I hope to avail myself of it.

Ramsfield Press is calling for stories with recipes in them. I could never do one of those–oh, no, not I. ~snicker~

Meanwhile, I recommend to you these sites, among the many wonderful ones in the interworld:

Barbara J. King's Friday Animal Blog, today talking about the healing power of cats in the sun.

Dr. Grasshopper's How To Kill Your Imaginary Friends, talking today about Schroedinger's Patient.

And always, always, Sara D vs Reality, posting M-W-F. Today is writing exercise day. I can't wait till she wakes up and posts for today. Meanwhile, Wednesday was 7 ways to deal with rejection, not including doing the bejection dance.

Meanwhile, I'm working diligently on "Lonnie, Me and the Battle of St. Crispin's Day". It's shaping up. I have the beginning, I know the end, and I have some of the middle bit. It's that middle bit that always kills me, so I'm ahead of my usual game, this time.

WRITING PROMPT: If you could sponsor a writing project/contest, what would be the focus? Would any of your characters enter it?

MA

Picking Up The Gauntlet

Alex J. Cavanaugh is co-hosting a blog challenge, and I'm taking him up on it. During the month of April, participants are to blog every day except Sundays (I WILL blog on Sundays), with each day's post beginning with or based on subsequent letters of the alphabet. I think it'll be awesome! beautiful! cool! delightful! exciting! fun!

Speaking of gauntlets, you do know there's a difference between gauntlets and gantlets, right?

The Gower Gauntlet, courtesy of Glamorgan County Golf Union

You throw one of these down to issue a challenge, and you pick up a thrown down one to accept the challenge. I don't care what anybody says, it isn't a form of punishment where you have to run between rows of people who are trying to hurt you. That's a gantlet. LISTEN TO ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!

Okay, use the two interchangeably. See if I care. You're not hurting anybody but yourself.

WRITING PROMPT: Have a character throw down or pick up a metaphorical gauntlet or run a metaphorical gantlet.

MA

Arlston's Is Mah FRAN

Mah fran = my fun friend. I love it. LOVE IT, DO YOU HEAR ME? Arlston's is the book store that just opened in Corydon. Here is their web site. It's still under construction (the web site, not the book store), but it's gorgeous, and it shows how cool the store is.

[image error]For one thing, they're open on Sunday, so I can drop in after church for a cup of coffee and a browse and a chat. For another thing, they love local writers, and are very supportive of us. Not, of course, to the extent of "lending" us money, but certainly to the extent of scheduling signings for us.

Here are some pictures I took of the store, which is coals to Newcastle, if you look at the beautiful pictures on Arlston's web site.

[image error]In the back, on the other side of the staircase, is where they have their art and gifts, their signing/reading area and their FREE COFFEE.

They order stuff for you, too. I asked for a cryptic crossword book, and Veronica looked it up and let me pick the one that wasn't too hard and didn't cost too much. You probably don't get service like that at BooksAMillion.

So, IF IT EVER STOPS SNOWING, check out Arlston's hours and drop in to see them. I can always find something to buy there, dammit.

WRITING PROMPT: A character walks into a bookstore. What kind is it? Does he/she know the assistant/owner? Does he/she run into someone new or someone familiar or someone once-known? Spill coffee on a book?

MA

Deer Friend

Okay, it's official: Our dog is in the pocket of Big Deer. We elected that dog to look after our interests, but he's obviously on the take. Why else did we have OVER A DOZEN DEER yesterday IN THE SIDE YARD, and no dog in sight?

Charlie called me to the back door to look at the deer at the bottom of the sledding hill–no, two deer–no, three…. One after another, they popped into view. I ran and grabbed my camera. Then #1 daughter drove in and they scattered and–ran? No, children, they strolled. They moseyed. They sashayed. They lollygagged. They slouched off, laughing and shrugging and punching each other in the biceps. Damn hoodlums.

There were well over a dozen of these things, and deer are HUGE. When I see one, I think of Teddy, who was in the rehab with Grandpa. Teddy had an imagination bigger than a deer, and he was always talking about the barn-full of deer the government was paying him to keep, and how a full-grown buck weighed two thousand pounds and could eat the top out of a tree. Of course, Teddy claimed to be married or formerly married to every woman on the staff, and once told me a long story about watching a Greyhound race between a pack of dogs and a bus. But he was right about deer being bigger than a breadbox.

I snapped several pictures, but the deer didn't show in any of them. It's like they were invisible without movement. It was freaky.

Oh, and, as soon as the deer had gone over the hill, here came the dog, looking for food and barking at my mother.

The dog is a sell-out.

Oh, and I'm also blogging at Fatal Foodies today, on the subject of rutabagas.

WRITING PROMPT: Bring a character face-to-face with a deer.

MA

And So The Adventure Begins Anew

Every year, the Southern Indiana Writers Group publishes an anthology from our members. A themed anthology. Once, it was dragons (DRAGON: OUR TALES). One year, it was mysteries associated with coffee houses (GROUNDS FOR SUSPICION). One year, it was sweet and tender romance (UNBRIDLED LUST). Last year, it was science fiction (FUTURE PERFECT– TENSE IN SPACE). This year, we're taking our old, thin, out-of-print Christmas collection (CHRISTMAS BIZARRE) and adding other holidays and calling it HOLIDAY BIZARRE. Cool, huh?

So I've been diddling around, stalling–uh, I mean thinking, yeah, that's better, let's go with thinking–thinking about what to write. Having just come out of the winter holiday season, it's been difficult to think about any others, so that's my best excuse. My second-best excuse is that I wanted to pick a holiday nobody else was likely to pick, so we wouldn't, you know, overlap.

But wait! I know a holiday that nobody I know celebrates: St. Crispen's Day. Yeah, Shakespeare's Henry V fans, you know what I'm talkin' about! Yeah, Margaret Wise Brown and Garth Williams fans, you heard me!

Now I had a holiday nobody else was liable to use AND two rich connections to it. Well, three, if you count God. Okay, a battle… with a dog in… Think about something else for a while.

A Twitter friend said she had read LONNIE, ME AND THE HOUND OF HELL and liked it, especially the title story. This pleased me. Then inspiration walked up and smacked me upside the head like Agent Gibbs.

And so the adventure begins.

"Lonnie, Me and the Battle of St. Crispen's Day". Coming soon to an anthology near you.

WRITING PROMPT: Connect a passage in Shakespeare to something else.

MA

Sample Sunday, Punchline

My mother called me and told me to turn on NPR, that they were running a story contest. So I turned it on and listened. Apparently, they've been doing these for a bit–this is the sixth. Every time, there have been more entries, so I guess it's catching on.

At first, I thought they wanted stories UP TO 600 words but, when I had written the story and was ready to upload it, I decided it was supposed to BE 600 words, or near enough as dammit. So I wrote another one. Then I saw that it was supposed to be up to 600 words (or, rather, to be read in three minutes or fewer [they said, "or less", but we know they should have said, "or fewer". You'll thank me later.]).

The prompt for this story was that someone must cry and someone must tell a joke.

Here is the one I wrote but did not upload:

Punchline

Laura knew it was coming when she walked into the room.

"Hey, Mom! Knock, knock."

Chad still hadn't tired of the joke Father Gephart had told him yesterday. Possibly because Laura had heard it so often, its very inevitability made it funny, like a comedian's signature line: "But no-o-o-o!" "Well, excuse me!" "Did I do that?"

"Who's there?" she asked, dutifully.

"Little old lady."

"Little old lady who?"

Chad's breath caught in a racking cough. Laura watched him force the corners of his mouth up, watched him blink back tears, watched him try to disguise the cough as laughter. It was a harrowing thing to watch a ten-year-old do.

Laura covered her face with both hands and gritted her teeth and stretched her lips, forcing the gulping breaths she couldn't quite smother to come out as, "Heee, heee, heee!"

When Chad could speak again, he said, "Little old lady!" and Laura repeated, "Little old lady who?"

"Why, Mom!" Chad's dark-circled eyes widened in mock surprise. His forehead wrinkled as the bare skin where his eyebrows ought to be lifted toward the bare skin where his hair ought to be. "I didn't know you could yodel!"

Laura laughed until she cried.

WRITING PROMPT: Write a story that happens on a Sunday.

MA

Very Boring All About EEL, Go On And Skip It, See If I Care

Joy Kirchgessner sent me this review which, now that I think about it, isn't about EEL'S REVERENCE after all, so I lied in my title. I didn't make a mistake, okay?–I deliberately LIED, which is evil but not, you know, actually stupid.

Anyway, Joy said she tried to post this on Amazon, but they wanted her to have bought something from them first, and she buys local. So there it is. Anyway, here is her review for LONNIE, ME AND THE HOUND OF HELL:

I'm more than delighted to read all of Marian Allen's stories. What do zombies, wolves, donkeys, and a parakeet have in common? You've just got to read Lonnie, Me, and the Hound of Hell to find out. Unbelievable mix of characters. She used a great wit and skill to pull them all together. I'm a big fan of Joseph Campbell's, but to package his ideas with a crocodile! What a wonderfully bizarre and pleasing way of taking the hero's journey. I suspect we will be seeing a lot more of Marian Allen.

Joy

Thank you, Joy! I'm so glad you like the stories! You make MomGoth very happy. MomGoth does that little happy penguin dance she does.

Okay, next up is a poster that Echelon Press, publisher of EEL'S REVERENCE, made up for the 2011 Love Is Murder mystery conference. It looks like loads of fun and it's in CHICAGO, but I can't be there. Boo hoo for me. But promo material for EEL will be there, in the form of this snazzy-jazzy poster. The next book coming out from me through Echelon will be FORCE OF HABIT, which is a crime novel–among other things–and maybe I'll be able to hit LIM in 2012. Here's hoping.

Finally, EEL'S REVERENCE (did I already tell you this?) was featured at Bargain eBooks which I think is, as Laura Bickle taught me to say, awsomesauce.

I submitted three stories for publication during this cold. I must be ill more often, if I'm going to be this productive. Two of them were freshly written, and the other was radically edited.

Tomorrow is Sample Sunday, and I think I may post the OTHER story I wrote that turned out to be too short for the contest.

See you in the comments!

WRITING PROMPT: Two characters, at the same hotel for different conferences, meet in the bar.

MA

Friday…Friday…Friday Something

First, here is a picture of my mother's house in the snow. Yeah, snow. More snow. If I'd wanted to live in freakin' Minnesota, I'd LIVE in Minnesota, okay? But it's pretty. And the snow sparkles. Sparkles like vampires.

My cold has abated somewhat. I'm hardly languishing at all, anymore. This one has taken me very oddly. The last one made me crafty. This one seems to have gone from my lungs to my head to my fingers, and I've been writing.

I wrote a 600-word story to submit to NPR's Three Minute Fiction thing, which I emailed yesterday.

I wrote a 500-word story to submit to Dark Valentine, which I plan to submit today.

I'm thinking about trying a 500-1000-word story for an anthology to benefit the victims of the Queensland, Australia flooding. I'll prolly do that today.

Oh–before I forget, David Nelson Brasher won Denise Verrico's TWILIGHT OF THE GODS T-shirt. Congratulations, David!

Now, where was I? Oh, yes. I mentioned on FaceBook that Kleenex tissues with lotion sparkle like vampires, and Dan Bays suggested I go into advertising, so I wrote this ad:

Scene: Girl on balcony in filmy nightdress, eyes wet with tears, tissue to nose.

Girl: This tissue is so rough! Oh! It hurts! It hurts!

Enter: Edward steps out of shadows. He sparkles. He places his hands on her shoulders.

Edward: You need something more…tender.

Girl: Oh! Edward!

Edward: Blow.



Girl: Why–it's LOTION!

Edward: Now with Vitamin E and Aloe Vera. It's not just a tissue–it's a comfort

Creativity is totally wasted on me. I only abuse it.

It's the 21st, so I also have a post up at The Write Type, this one about a rare occasion on which Charlie and I agree on the quality of a book.

WRITING PROMPT: Two characters disagree on whether or not a book is good. Do they know each other, or only strike up acquaintance when one comments on what the other is reading? Do they argue? Does one acquiesce, while holding her/his own opinion secretly? Does one convince the other? Try it different ways.

MA

I Love De Interwebs

Look at this! This is a site called Bargain eBooks, that features eBooks for under $5.00. And they did EEL'S REVERENCE. I read the reviews and I was like, "That sounds like a good book–I ought to read that. …Oh, wait…."

I still have a cold. I was going to blog in detail about it, but I got enough sleep last night and thought better of it this morning. I'm wanting to write a story for NPR's Three Minute Fiction. This might be a good time to do that. I already wrote a story for it, but it's too short. I can't expand it, because it's already as sad as I can bear to make it. I think maybe I'll try to write a funny one.

Have you ever read a description of a winter day where the sky and even the air was described as "gunmetal gray"? Well, that's what it looks like outside my window this morning. We had a dusting of snow last night, with more predicted. Oh–it's snowing a bit right now. I've never seen it really gray like this. It's like somebody put a gray filter over everything. The evergreens look black and everything else looks some shade of gray. Even the snow looks very pale gray. I'm very impressed.

WRITING PROMPT: Describe the weather outside your window as if you've never seen weather like that before.

MA

Who Says Crime Doesn't Pay?

My guest today is Canadian author Cherish D'Angelo (aka Cheryl Kaye Tardif). If you don't know her already, allow me to introduce her to you.


When I began writing Lancelot's Lady back in 2002, it was a very different story. Not only did it have a different title (Reflections), the main character had a different name and it was more of a normal contemporary romance. Girl meets guy, romantic chase begins and they all live happily ever after. But if you've read any of my novels, you'll know that's just not me, which may explain why I buried this novel for eight years.

When inspiration hit me to write Lancelot's Lady, I knew that the story would change. Sure, some aspects were the same. Rhianna is left stranded on a tropical island with a handsome recluse (good grief, that must be rough!). There's even a painting in a Florida mansion that remains the same, mainly because when I think of it, I can picture it so clearly.

So what's different in Lancelot's Lady? Well, the addition of a ruthless, sadistic character named Winston Chambers is probably the biggest change. With Winston's entrance in the story comes a whole other sub-plot. Tension is created beyond sexual tension. Danger looms closer with every page turned. We're not quite sure what the outcome will be.

I love Winston. He's probably my favourite character to date. But I sure wouldn't want to meet him. He's a greedy SOB who's set his sights on Rhianna, and he's going to go after her at all cost. Winston brings the "Ew!" factor to Lancelot's Lady.

Sure, I could've left Winston out and written a contemporary romance. But I like danger. I love suspense. I thrive on crime. Okay, in my books I mean. In real life, I'm a law-abiding citizen, but when I'm at my computer writing, I can commit all sorts of crimes―or have my characters commit them. That's far more interesting to me. And it seems many readers feel the same.

From the emails I receive from readers, I can only deduce that people enjoy suspense and a criminal plot. I'm confident that my fans will enjoy this mix of steamy romance and heart-pounding suspense in Lancelot's Lady. When they're done, they can move on to Divine Intervention and The River for more criminal activity, if they haven't already read my thrillers.

Who says crime doesn't pay? For me it certainly does. Just not as much as maybe I'd like it to.

Lancelot's Lady ~ A Bahamas holiday from dying billionaire JT Lance, a man with a dark secret, leads palliative nurse Rhianna McLeod to Jonathan, a man with his own troubled past, and Rhianna finds herself drawn to the handsome recluse, while unbeknownst to her, someone with a horrific plan is hunting her down.

Lancelot's Lady is available in ebook edition at KoboBooks, Amazon's Kindle Store, Smashwords and other ebook retailers. Help me celebrate by picking up a copy today and "Cherish the romance..."

You can learn more about Lancelot's Lady and Cherish D'Angelo (aka Cheryl Kaye Tardif) at http://www.cherishdangelo.com and http://www.cherylktardif.blogspot.com. Follow Cherish from September 27 to October 10 on her Cherish the Romance Virtual Book Tour and win prizes.

Who is your favourite romantic suspense author and why?

Leave a comment here, with email address, to be entered into the prize draws. You're guaranteed to receive at least 1 free ebook just for doing so. Plus you'll be entered to win a Kobo ereader. Winners will be announced after October 10th.