Melissa Bowersock's Blog, page 15

Coming Soon!

September and October are busy months, with lots of appearances and events packed in. Here's what's coming up in the Verde Valley and the state of Arizona:

Cottonwood Authors' Forum: Saturday, September 26 11:00a - 1:00pOver 30 local authors are scheduled to participate in the 2015 Authors' Forum. Meet the authors. Hear the stories behind their stories. Buy new books (take it from us, you can never have too many books). 
The event will be in the Cottonwood Recreation Center. It kicks off with Keynote speakers, Bill Armstrong and Allen C. McKinzie, and continues with plenty of opportunities to network with some of the published writers living among us. 
I will be appearing and will have all of my books with me. I hope to see you there!

OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) workshops on
self-publishing. Offered for the first time in
Camp Verde, Arizona.
I will be conducting two workshops in October on self-publishing, one for paperbacks and one for e-books. If you've got a book you've written (or plan to write), I hope you'll join me for one (or both!) of these informative workshops, packed full of information and leading you step-by-step through the publishing process.
Self-Publishing with Amazon: Paperbacks – October 6, 2015 (V-870-15) This nuts-and-bolts workshop will show how to publish your book using Amazon’s self-publishing company, CreateSpace. If you have written or dream of writing a novel, memoir, non-fiction, cookbook, book of poetry, children’s book, art book—any kind of book—you can self-publish for as little as about $10. Limited to 12 participants. Location: Rm 310 in Camp Verde, 9am to 12pm.
Self-Publishing With Amazon: E-Books – October 20, 2015 (V-871-15) This nuts-and-bolts workshop will show how to publish your book using Amazon’s digital format, Kindle Digital Publishing. If you have written or dream of writing a novel, memoir, non-fiction, cookbook, book of poetry, children’s book, art book—any kind of book—you can publish it as an e-book for free.  Limited to 12 participants. Location: Rm 310 in Camp Verde, 9am – 12pm.
See catalog for registration details here.

On October 13, I will be in Lake Havasu, meeting with a book club and talking about my book Stone's Ghost, which concerns a ghost who haunts the famous London Bridge. 

A Rose is a Rose: What's in a Name?

I’ve just started writing a new book. I’ve had the main idea swimming around in my brain for a month or two, but just in the past couple weeks have I put together some research that is vital to the story, plus some ideas of who the main characters are and what the arc of their story will be. So far I’ve got a couple thousand words down, and within that short period of time, I’ve changed several characters names two or three times.I love this phase of writing. I love naming my characters. At this point, I will happily, almost giddily, watch the news, a golf tournament, any sports channel with a crawler just so I can peruse the names that flow by. I could very literally sit down and read a phone book for a couple hours and be happy as a clam. For a woman who’s never been pregnant, I have an obscene number of baby name books.Mahan, Riggs, Spieth, Charleston, Wertzel, Howland, Grogan. I love playing with the names. I test out several for each character, some monosyllabic, some polysyllabic. Why does the number of syllables matter? Let’s play a game. What sounds better?Rhett SmithRhett ButlerRhett FarthingtonOf course we’re all going to recognize Rhett Butler and most likely that sounds the best to us primarily because that’s the name we know. But note how the various full names roll off the tongue, how we emphasize one syllable over another and how it all works together — or not. A couple books ago, I had a character named Lasta (long story, but it’s in the book). For her last name, I wanted something short and rather harsh to match her difficult life. I finally settled on Beck. Lasta Beck. I liked the punch of the last syllable, the hard edge to it. Lasta Purcell would have softened her name and would not have worked near as well for what I wanted, which leads to another consideration.The sound of the consonants in the name is important. The name of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series gives us clues about his personality before we ever see him. The sibilance of the name and the similarity of Snape to snake all work to suggest someone evil, menacing, and manipulative. The shortness of Snape gives it a brittle quality (like snap), as if he might lash out at any time. And of course finding out later that Snape is not the untrustworthy snake-in-the-grass he was made out to be provides tension and revelation later in the series.Which leads to another point. Do we want the name to reveal something about our character? Or do we want to set up something of a smoke screen? If my main character is a private detective named Rip Bolger or Clash Callahan, we get a certain idea from those tough, manly names. But what if I name him Alfonse Dardanelle? Or Willis Altamonte? It all depends on whether I want to lead the reader toward the real person behind the name or not. If I don’t want to give anything away, I might name him something rather bland — John Carpenter — and let his character develop organically from the story.Another consideration is if the character’s nationality or heritage is important to the story. If I give my character a last name of O’Neill, Weiss, Gunther, Xi, or Chopra, that might be enough to quickly give a suggestion of the character’s physical or emotional make-up. Again, as above, it could be a clue to the character’s personality — or not. Mixing nationalities — Padraig Nguyen — could actually point up a conflict in the character’s background, or an interesting story about his beginnings. That’s the fun thing about names. They can add a huge amount of depth to our characters and really make them memorable.I’d love to have you tell me some of the best (and worst) names you’ve used or seen. And in the meantime I’ll leave you with a little game of what might have been in an alternate universe.So what’s in a name? You tell me. Famous Titles Famous Names Famous Lines The Great GillenhamReggie ButlerCall me Rupert.The Picture of Dorian GerberCindy O’HaraSonia! Hey, Sonia!Leonard, King of the ApesCaptain ApplebyElementary, my dear Winkleman.Monica of the d’UrbervillesAtticus PheasantOpen the pod bay doors, Alvin.Susie’s ChoiceFrank ChristianToughy, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.The Mystery of Edwin DoobyHester PiffelBond. Freddie Bond.Dickie CopperfieldShelby HolmesMrs. Dingle said she would buy the flowers herself.
This article was originally published on

Shake Up Your Summer Doldrums

Mid-summer blahs. All the big holiday weekends are gone except one. School looms. Jobs are veering into the no-vacation months. What to do?

How about an unexpected ghost story to shake up your summer? 


Matthew Stone doesn't believe in ghosts … until he meets one. He owns a successful business in Lake Havasu, Arizona, home to the famed London Bridge that was brought over stone by stone and rebuilt over the Colorado River. He has a gorgeous girlfriend, a doting mother, and more money than he needs, but no time for stories about the ghosts who were transplanted from England with the famed bridge. When a chance encounter with a female ghost leads to unexpected friendship, Matt and the ghost are forced to rely on each other as they confront the pasts that haunt them.

Sound interesting?

For three days, August 5-7, my e-book Stone's Ghost will be on sale for only 99 cents. I've taken the book out of Kindle Unlimited because it's also available at other outlets, so this is the cheapest you'll find it. If you haven't scooped it up yet, now's the time. 

Author Interview: Bill Munns

Today I’m sitting down with William (Bill) Munns, author of When Roger Met Patty. No, it’s not exactly a romance. It’s actually a very intensive non-fiction investigation of the famous Bigfoot sighting in Northern California in 1967. You may not remember hearing about it back then, but I’m pretty sure you’ll recognize the most iconic frame of the video that was shot that day.

So, Bill, can you give us a quick rundown of the events of that fateful day as they were reported?

Munns: Roger Patterson had a strong interest in researching the Bigfoot phenomenon for over seven years, and he spent a tremendous amount of time exploring wilderness areas where sightings and trackways were known to have been. Bob Gimlin was a very experienced horseman and had some tracking experience as well, so Roger frequently enlisted Bob’s participation in these excursions. In August, 1967, a trackway was found in the Blue Creek Mountains near Bluff Creek, CA. and Roger was told of this so he decided his next trip would be Northern California in October. Bob Gimlin agreed to come along and other men were invited but couldn’t be away from home for several weeks. So Roger and Bob began exploring the Bluff Creek region in early October and spent weeks searching but finding nothing. On that fateful day, October 20, 1967, they were on horseback riding north along Bluff Creek when they encountered “Patty” (as she is known to Bigfoot researchers), an apparent female Bigfoot. Roger had a 16mm camera loaded and set to film on a moment’s notice, and he grabbed it, chased Patty and filmed as he ran after her, capturing the most controversial home movie in history, the Patterson-Gimlin Film.

What’s the genesis of this book? What made you want to tackle this very controversial subject?

Munns: My interest in the film, and Patty, has been casual since the filming was announced in 1967, because I was in college and studying filmmaking and makeup for films. There was immediate suspicion the film was a hoax, and Patty was just some guy in a fur ape suit, and because I was learning about “creature effects” and ape suits, I was curious about why Patty didn’t look like any ape suits I was aware of. But it wasn’t until around 2008 that I thought about contacting one of the prominent Bigfoot researchers and simply offering my appraisals based on my work as a “creature guy” (a makeup artist who does creatures and special makeup effects). But once I actually researched the film images in depth and the controversies around the filming, I felt that I could make a valuable contribution to this research. Once I applied myself to this project, I soon became recognized as a researcher who could bring a unique perspective and professional expertise to resolving the controversies.


The arguments for and against this being real are very complex. What expertise do you bring to this discussion?

Munns: My expertise in the special makeup effects profession was initially what I felt I could contribute, but as I studied the film controversy more, I realized that there were issues of cameras, lenses, film editing and image analysis that I could also apply to the analysis of this film and the suspicion of hoaxing. In my seven-year effort, I also assembled the finest film image scan database of research material ever held by any researcher, and so I was able to study and analyze issues that no prior researcher could resolve.

I believe the general public thinks the sighting was faked. Can you tell us why you disagree?

Munns: The subject figure in Patterson’s film (called a creature by many) is a real biological entity as she appears, and is not a human in a fur costume, to a certainty. There are many specific aspects of her anatomy which could not be accomplished with a human in a fur costume back in 1967. The most compelling are: (1) The head shape and size presents a challenge for a costume mask that no makeup artist creating ape suits has ever successfully done, even now; (2) the breasts have a fluidity and natural shifting of form when she walks that no costume prosthetics in 1967 could replicate, and this has been tested scientifically; (3) the skin along the side of the torso going down the leg to the knee has an elastic shifting that occurs on real human anatomy, but no fur materials of the 1960s could replicate; (4) the contours of the back and lower spine area have a shape that was never designed into costumes but perfectly matches human anatomy, when the combination of muscle mass, adipose tissue deposits, and posture are all factored together.
All of these considerations scientifically support a real biological body and refute a fur costume worn by a human performer.
There are also many subtle but meaningful facts that can be revealed by analysis of the film simply as filmed footage, and what the camera operator did, and these facts also verify the event was spontaneous, frenzied, and not staged or planned.

What would someone have to do to prove this is all a fake? What would they have to do to prove it’s real?

Munns: To prove the film is a fake, one simply has to find evidence in the film of some kind of act of deliberation on the part of the filmmaker, editing the original before copying, taking more time than just a minute or two for the whole event filming, or some discontinuity between the actions of the camera operator in relation to the actions of the filmed subject. Any of these would be an absolute and factual proof of a faked film, a hoax. But the film has been meticulously examined for such and no evidence was found.
The primary proof that the film is real lies in the analysis of the filmed subject figure, “Patty”, because there are many subtle aspects of her anatomy that simply could not have been created with a human in a fur costume in 1967 (and some couldn’t even be done today). But the proof requires an extensive knowledge of makeup effects technology of the 1960s and few researchers today truly understand how things were done back then. I started makeup work in 1967, so I can confidently say I am truly familiar with the materials, processes, and effects that could be accomplished then.

You’ve got some very technical arguments in your book. Would you say this book is more written for film insiders or for anyone who has an interest in this fascinating subject?

Munns: I tried to find a balance between the general reader and the more technically astute reader, and give both an explanation in layman’s terms, as well as a more detailed and technical explanation. But for the more technical matters, I also tried to include some foundation knowledge to educate the reader as to the basis for the technical discussions. So in many respects, the book is an educational text as well as a remarkable investigation into one of the great mysteries of the 20th century.

What else are you working on? Any more books in the future?

Munns: I am considering a follow-up book with a higher level of technical discussion of the research work, and a primer for future researchers and people wanting to study this in depth. But I also have interest in other varied factual topics, and do enjoy writing fiction stories based on humanistic themes and offering some measure of hope. I am intrigued by what people can accomplish, and I am attracted to ideas that inspire people to reach for the highest accomplishments they are capable of. But this book, this whole endeavor, is quite unique, because there is no other controversy quite as profound and bizarre at the same time. My satisfaction dwells in the confidence that I made a difference, and helped find a truthful answer to a question people have been asking for 48 years.

Bill, thanks very much for taking the time to explain to us about your book and the fascinating mystery it's based on. If people want to find out more about you and the book, where should they look?



William Munns Amazon Author page
The Munns Report
Bill Munns Creature Gallery

The Joy of Editing

Ever since I hung out my editing shingle late last year, I have been fortunate to have a nice flow of work coming in--not a flood, but more than a trickle. Just enough to keep me busy. And I'm enjoying it immensely. I've always had a knack for spelling, punctuation and grammar, and I enjoy getting it right, but it goes beyond that. 

I get to help people bring their dreams to life.

Several of my clients have been first-time authors just beginning the process of transferring their ideas into reality. I love the dance as we explore their vision for the book. I will generally take the first chapter to read and edit, giving suggestions or asking questions, then ship it back to them to see how my ideas gel with theirs. If we're lucky, we have similar ideas and we can move forward as a team toward the ultimate goal of making the book the best it can be. 
That doesn't always happen. I've had a few instances where my ideas were not even close to the author's, and we've agreed quickly that we're not a good fit together and move on. Such is life, and of course it's better this way. Neither one of us would enjoy the process, and the result would not be as good as it could be, if we were on different pages. 

But with those whose ideas do dovetail with mine, we make an awesome team. It's pure joy to take a rambling, sometimes disjointed conglomeration of sentences and give it structure, flow and punch. It's great fun to take a Word doc and mold it into book format so the author can see, sometimes for the first time, what their brainchild will actually look like. And of course, it's ecstasy when the author holds that first book in their hand, when the idea in their head becomes a real, tangible thing. It's not even my book, but I can feel the satisfaction and the sense of accomplishment right along with them. 

Can't beat that with a stick.

Check out my services here.

Open Letter to all Beta-Readers

Dear Beta-Reader:Dear Beta-Reader:Okay, I’ve written my magnum opus. I’ve elicited friends, family and beta-readers to read it, and I’m waiting on pins and needles for the feedback. I’m sitting with fingers and toes crossed, holding my breath, checking e-mail every five seconds, hoping against hope that the readers will like it. Then I get the first response: “I liked it. It’s good.”Helpful? Yeah, no. Of course I would love to have my first readers ooh and ahh over the book, but this very non-specific comment is not constructive. Nice as it is, it tells me nothing.The purpose of beta-readers is not to stroke my writer’s ego. That job belongs to my mother. The purpose of beta-readers is to find all the shortcomings in my writing before I push the publish button. They need to take that puppy out for a rigorous shake-down cruise and find every bug, every glitch, every typo, misplaced comma, and inconsistent tense. It’s painful to get feedback with a laundry list of problems, but would I rather see that list now, in a private e-mail before publication, or see it pasted up in a lambasting Amazon review for all the world to read?(And if you have to think about that, writing is not the business for you.)The two things writers need from beta-readers are honesty and specificity. Honesty because, “I liked it,” when you didn’t is not helpful. I know, we all want to encourage our friends, we want to be supportive. But tough love is the rule here. Did you have to force yourself to finish the book when you really just wanted to throw it in a corner and forget about it? Did you find yourself groaning again and again over the wrong use of it’s for its? Did you roll your eyes at every exchange of dialog because, really, who talks like that? Or did you have to re-read sentences or even whole paragraphs because they just didn’t make sense?TELL ME.Really. I need to know. I’ll thank you for it. (Well, maybe not right away. But eventually. Probably.)Okay, I can hear it now: How do I tell her the book stinks? How do I tell her it bored the pants off me? I’ll make her mad. I’ll hurt her feelings. I can’t do that.Yes, you can. I need you to do that. My ruffled feelings will heal. If I publish a book that’s full of errors and bad writing, that stays out there in the public eye for a long, long time.TELL ME.How?Enter the next criteria: specificity. Be as specific as you can be in your feedback. Cushion it if you like in the soft cotton of personal opinion (which is perfectly valid) to soften the blow, but remember always that you and the writer are working as a team toward the same goal: making the book the best it can be. In this vein, here are some examples of what you might need to say and what the writer needs to hear.I like your main character, but he’s so blind to the lies of the female lead that I just found him frustratingly stupid. I understand he thinks he loves her, but I felt it was unrealistic of him to not notice how she was using him.You change POVs a lot, jumping from one character to the next and I found it hard to keep up with who was thinking what.I found the premise of using human sacrifice to gain power to be totally unbelievable, and you never really established why the character thought that would work.All three of your main characters have names that start with D. I found it difficult to separate them out at first, and it made it hard to get to know each one individually.You introduce 15 characters in the first three pages without giving me any distinguishing characteristics to separate them. I need fewer names, more descriptions to keep them straight.On the first page, you said the main character’s last name was Johnson, but in Chapter 21, you say it’s Jones. Pick one, then do a search and replace to make them all the same.By the same token, give positive specific feedback when you can. Believe me, writers love to know when something works.I love your description of the mountains and the valley below. I felt like I could actually see it in my mind.The twists and turns of the story really had me guessing and the ending was a total surprise. I never saw that coming.I thought your dialog was excellent; it sounded completely realistic.And finally, one last point. If you can respond to me in this way, YOU ARE GOLD. Having an extra set of eyes look at the book, having a fresh, open mind take my text journey, and then giving me your honest impression is worth more than you know. Because I have the entire story in my head — everything from what happened to my character when he was five years old to what he had for breakfast this morning — I’m not always sure if I have put enough of that on the paper — or too much. Your feedback is priceless. Believe me, Beta-Readers, you seriously rock.Originally posted on Indies Unlimited on May 27, 2014.

Sizzling Summer Sale!

If your summer isn't hot enough, let me see if I can help you out with that. For three days only, July 1-3, my book Burning Through is free! Perfect for on-the-beach or by-the-pool reading! 

Here's the story:

When Jennifer and Robert Stinson buy a beautifully restored Victorian house, the last thing they expect is to share their home with a ghost ― especially one with a penchant for setting fires. Unfortunately the ghostly arson only creates more tension in their already strained marriage. Jen launches her own investigation into the history of her house and discovers a surprising ally in a sympathetic fire captain. But can she unravel the mystery of the fires before they consume her home, her marriage … and her life?

Want to know more? From July 1 to July 3, you can grab a free Kindle copy from Amazon. The book is regularly $4.99, so this is a gonga deal. 

A Question of Balance

I’m deathly afraid of heights. Going out on the observation platform on the Space Needle in Seattle, I have to plaster myself to the back wall of the central structure and dig my fingernails into the wall when the wind blows. At the Grand Canyon, I have to stay at least six feet back from the low walls that line the trails; none of this blithe waltzing over to the edge and looking down for me.So how did I end up on a tightrope?I’ve discovered that writing is very much like walking a tightrope, placing the feet carefully on the rope itself, hefting a balance beam and making very small corrections to the left or right as necessary. But what, exactly, are we balancing?The more I write, the more I realize that there are several balancing acts at play in the process. The most obvious and well known is the contrast between planners (or plotters) and pantsers. Planners tend to plot out their stories in great detail, creating long outlines of specifics, managing every nuance of the story before writing. Pantsers (flying by the seat of their pants) tend to start with a few broad ideas and just wing it, letting the story develop organically. Neither way is right or wrong except as it suits the writer, and most writers probably fall somewhere in between the two poles.But there are other balances as well.One balance point that’s come up in discussions lately has been writing for self vs. writing for the public. Writers of series, I believe, are much more plugged into their readers and much more aware of the expectations of their fans. Never having written a series, I can’t speak to what that feels like, but I would be happy to hear about it from others. Does that add extra pressure? Or is it more liberating to know what your readers expect and be able to give them that? I write wholly for myself and if I like it, I’m happy, but I wrote one book where a note played a central part in the story. I alluded to the note but never disclosed the full text of it. My publisher insisted I had to rectify that. She reasoned that since the note was so pivotal and was mentioned over and over, I had to reveal the full text or the readers would feel cheated. After some thought, I had to admit she was right, but it was not something I would have arrived at on my own.Also, I’ve seen more mention in online forums about writing consciously as opposed to letting the subconscious take charge. I think it’s fairly easy to differentiate the two; while we’re sitting poised over the keyboard, ideas percolating in our brains, the ideas that flow logically from one to another are usually the conscious. If our main character is a 30s-something man, then logically he is still working, still building his life. His parents may still be alive; he may or may not be a family man at this point. All these are logical assumptions that stem from our original idea of the character. But if we get ideas from out of the blue that don’t arise logically, those are probably from the subconscious. What if our main character likes to sky-dive? What if he has a natural talent for languages and speaks dozens of them fluently? What if he’s terrified of earwigs?These are the kinds of ideas that bring us to a balance point. When something like this comes up, do we go with it, lean into it, and see where it takes us? Or do we lean away and dismiss it as silly and not pertinent to the story?I’ve faced this challenge over and over in my writing. One book in particular seemed to lend itself to this kind of thing, maybe because it was ultimately a spiritual novel.Goddess Rising was unlike any other book I’ve written primarily because I did let the subconscious have free rein. Very often when I sat down to write for the day, I had no idea what I was going to write. Just as often, I would add in developments and then wonder why and what I was going to do with them down the road. The really marvelous thing was when a completely illogical development popped up later on in the book and became useful, even central, to the plot. And it was a huge surprise to me when it did.If I had confined my inspiration to the logical, the usual and the sensible, serendipitous events like that would never have happened, and the book wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting.I feel like the overarching balance point (closely associated to the above) is control vs. going with the flow. If the tightrope is our planned story, once we step off the platform and head for that distant end point, how do we get there? Do we grip the balance beam with white-knuckled hands and try to maintain our balance with the smallest amount of sway in the tightrope? Or do we relax into the sway, going with the tightrope as it swings first one way, then the other? Do we try to command the journey through sheer will power, or do we dance across the rope and enjoy the journey as much as the accomplishment of reaching the other side? Or is there a happy medium between the two?You tell me. How do you balance the aspects of creativity?

This post was originally published by Indies Unlimited on 5/6/2014.

Foreword, March!

Foreword, preface, prologue. We’ve all seen one or the other of these at the front of a book, and many people think they are the same thing. They’re certainly very similar, but there are definite distinctions between them. Do you know what they are? A foreword is a short introductory statement, especially when written by someone other than the author. It’s not unusual to see the writer of the foreword lauding the author of the main work, or telling a bit about how the work came about or how it came to his/her attention. Note that the definition describes it as a short introductory statement. Usually a foreword is a few paragraphs and less than a page.The opposite of a foreword is an afterword: a concluding section or commentary or a closing statement.A preface, conversely, is a preliminary statement by the book’s author or editor, usually setting down its purpose and scope, expressing acknowledgement of assistance from others, etc. Very often we will see an acknowledgment page used for this purpose instead.A prologue is described as a preliminary discourse, an introductory part of a poem, novel or play. It can be an introductory speech calling attention to the theme of a play, as Shakespeare often did. In Romeo and Juliet, the prologue is as follows:Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.These days, a prologue like this would likely be regarded as a spoiler, but a subtler version could be used to draw the reader’s attention to a theme or a thread that might otherwise be overlooked amid the action of the story. The prologue will usually hint at what is to follow, and give the reader a sense of the flavor of the story.The opposite of the prologue is an epilogue: a concluding part of a literary work like a novel, or a speech after the conclusion of a play. This is very often used as a wrap-up, tying up the loose ends or letting the reader know what happened to the characters after the climax of the story. It may pull the entire story together, capturing the theme in a final, brief resolution.Where a foreword or a preface is not integral to the story, the prologue is. A word of caution here, however. While the prologue may be used to set up the story, beware of using it as an info dump: filling it with names, dates, and relationships that, at this point, mean little to the reader.Here’s a sample of how NOT to write a prologue:Blonde and petite Christina Butterfield Warren, a clairvoyant who shares her prophetic powers with her twin brother, Anderson, has been shielded by her parents, George and Regina Warren, for the first sixteen years of her life. Now, however, at their untimely deaths, Christina finds herself at the mercy of her cruel uncle, the Duke of Warrenham. Forced to leave the only home she’s ever known in Nodding Hill, she arrives at Warren Hall in Piddlington where her older cousin Frobisher seems to offer a sympathetic ear. But can she trust anyone in Warren Hall? And does the appearance of the specter of her granny Hawthorne mean madness or truth?By contrast, the prologue to the original Star Wars gave the viewers just enough information to understand the action that’s taking place and introduced them to one character only. All the other characters were introduced during the unfolding of the story, allowing the viewers to get to know them one by one.A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their  first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.  During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the Death Star, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy…Prologues, used correctly, can set up a sense of anticipation in the reader, drawing them immediately into the story, making them want more. A prologue that provides too much information too soon, however, can often produce no more than a glazed look in the reader’s eyes and a temptation to move on to more subtle, but infinitely more interesting, stories.Choose wisely.This post was originally published by Indies Unlimited on April 29, 2014.

Memorial Day Sale

Just in time for Memorial Day (and summer reading season), I'm putting my non-fiction book,  Marcia Gates: Angel of Bataan  on sale for just 99 cents. This is the award-winning true story of a courageous Army nurse and prisoner-of-war who just happens to be my aunt. 



This book was truly a labor of love. I had always heard growing up that my aunt was a prisoner of the Japanese during WWII, but not much more beyond that. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the Wisconsin Historical Society had in their archives two scrapbooks that were created by my grandmother during my aunt's time in service, filled with letters, photos, news clippings, telegrams and every other bit of information from that agonizing time. I knew the story needed to be told, and I knew if I didn't do it, no one would. 
I've been hugely gratified by the way this book has touched others. It has garnered several awards and was featured in a TV documentary Our Wisconsin: The Military History of America's Dairyland. Here's a sample of some of the very nice reviews the book has received:
I found the story exciting, surprised by some of the descriptions of conditions and wondered why I hadn't heard this story before. The author has brought out one of the untold stories of World War II--about a nurse. I believe this book will have wide appeal to many audiences including: medical personnel, historians, veterans and anyone interested in good story with a happy ending.--Edward Kelly, Military Writers Society of America
If you like history, true stories, stories of dedication and commitment and humble bravery, you might enjoy this book. During this time of remembering and honoring our veterans, I believe it's important to keep their stories alive. I hope you will join me in honoring all the men and women who have served our country.

Kindle version (99 cents)Paperback version

And, if you're planning a driving vacation anytime soon, the audio version of the book brings a new dimension and emotion to the story. Every time I listen to it, I cry.

Audio versionWatch the book trailer here