Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 57
March 8, 2021
CHOOSE TO CHALLENGE_ International Women's Day
The theme for this year's INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY is "choose to challenge."
I avidly read Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson novels:
And Charlaine Harris' Gunny Rose series of novels:
I am just starting the 3rd Gunny Rose alternate history/science fiction novel
where Lizbeth Rose finds herself alone in Holy Mother Russia
which was once California/Oregon without her guns yet
and only her courage and wit to see her through to save her half-sister and the imprisoned man she loves.
I recommend both series.
I enjoy a great story no matter the gender of its narrator. I only ask it to entertain me.
Heroines have been my protagonists in several novels:
.
For a series of stories told from the bruised hearts of brave women try A SAMPLER OF SHADOWS:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XKWX8H4Courage, Wit, Compassion, Worth know no gender ...
although males all through the centuries have blindly thought differently.
DID YOU KNOW?
Until 1978 women could be fired from their work for being pregnant?
The first time courts recognized sexual harassment in the workplacewas in 1977.
Not until 1974 were women able to apply for credit.
It wasn't until the mid-70's that womencould legally refuse to have sex with their husbands.
While there is much more that remains to be done.
It is good to see how far women have comedue to their efforts to advance.
March 2, 2021
The MAGIC FORMULA for Writing a BESTSELLER_IWSG post
You might think the above image suggests that formula includes sexiness, mystery, and ...
cats.
Midnight made me include that last.
But while the BESTSELLERS of the last 100 years may have included those,
what they ALL possessed was a hotly contested SOCIAL ISSUE of its day ...
RACE, SEX, POLITICS, ALIENATION ...
Some large, unresolved, deep-seated nation-wide conflict in the minds of those who don't ordinarily read.
Even more important, those bestsellers focused on
fractured families, outsiders, iconoclasts who go their own way irregardless of the outrage from those around them.
And above it all is THE DREAM
Be it the AMERICAN DREAM, the DREAM DEFERRED, the DREAM PERVERTED, the DREAM LOST, the DREAM INVADED.
It is some form of that DREAM which drives the protagonist ever onward or downward to an unknown destination.
We Americans are innately suspicious of institutions, public or private, and
of strangers professing only good for us.
After all, the hand reaching out to feed us may actually be intent on feeding upon us.
Focusing on the mind is all very well and good,
but the thing all bestselling authors possessed was the ability
to connect to the heart and to the innate needs of the readers who read their books and then urged their friends to read them as well.
LAST THOUGHT ... FIRST LINE
SCARAMOUCHE:
"He was born with the gift of laughter and the knowledge that the world was mad."
IT JUST SEEMED THE THING TO DO:
"The rape was the best thing that happened to her."
THE OUTSIDER:
"Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure."
1984:
"It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
An arresting first line is crucial to grabbing readers and urging them to turn the page to find out what happens next.
May your next book be a BESTSELLER.
February 16, 2021
THE KISS_ WEP Post
https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2021/02/here-we-go-again-wep-2021-begins-with.html
From
BEWARE THE JADE CHRISTMAS
(761 Words)
Have you ever held someone close and watched the light slowly, so slowly drain from their eyes?
I lost count of those in my own time in the second war to end all wars.
As an O.S.S. agent, I knifed countless sentries, holding my hand over their mouths to keep their last sounds to themselves.
I can only imagine what someone whose mind was not sociopathic would have felt. I felt nothing, no thrill, no sadness. Nothing.
Until Ingrid Durtz.
Against my direct orders, she came back for me that night.
It was clear suicide to do it. She did not care. Ingrid loved me though I could not love her in return.
Or I thought I couldn’t. A hell of a thing to discover I’d believed incorrectly when it was too late.
I held her so tightly as she slowly bled out. The bullets whined past me, and I cared not a bit.
The feathered wings of ice fluttered against the inside of my chest, and it occurred to me that I might not fully understand what it meant to be sociopathic.
That was the lesson of the Great War: that none of us understood what we thought we did. The truth of us was an onion, and life had a way of peeling layer after layer away while we wept.
The Christmas Eve that starts off this tale had been one of unceasing cold rain from sunrise
until the gradual brightening of the vague white light outside the Le Prete mansion indicated that the sun was nearing its zenith.
No White Christmases in New Orleans.
We were in the third month of Hitchcock’s filming, Murder by Moonlight, his eerie take on the Sultan Murders in the early days of the French Quarter.
Principal photography was nearing its end which was fortunate since most of the crew were nearing the end of their endurance and sanity.
Of course, they had been at that point after the first day and night of the shoot.
The murders of several crew men that fateful night were still being investigated by the local police.
They would not solve them. Supernatural beings, even in New Orleans, could not be brought up on charges and tried in a court of law.
Hard to slap a pair of cuffs on creatures who would tear out your throat in the attempt. But those particular demons were three months gone.
I tried to forget the law of science that stated nature hated a vacuum and always sought to fill it. Could that apply to the supernatural?
I didn’t press my luck and spent the nights in my room at the Ponchartrain Hotel.
The visiting spirit of my dead lover, Ingrid Durtz, enjoyed the jazz played in the hotel’s club.
Yes, Ingrid, the woman I discovered I could love only when she lay dying in my arms.
Science is a hollow know-it-all that proclaims surmises as certainties.
The Gates to the Endless Gulfs had parted that harrowing night, allowing creatures of nightmare access to our plane.
A few human souls slipped in as well.
I could only surmise that Ingrid’s soul somehow sensed I was close to dying again, and in she rushed … into a body most like hers.
No one at Hotel Ponchartrain noticed.
Who looks for ghosts in a jazz club? Especially when they possess the body of a lovely police detective in a provocative emerald dress?
What do you say to the woman who loved you when you were convinced you were incapable of love?
A woman who died saving you only to leave you with the numbing realization that you were capable of love after it was entirely too late?
What do you say to her when you find her mind and soul housed in another’s body?
That first night after the Le Prete murders, we had a wide-ranging conversation;
we talked about love, fate, and everybody’s inability to truly leave the past behind.
It had been an ugly end to a woman beautiful both inside and out. I had gotten my head and heart handed to me.
And it was all said in a simple kiss that had my lungs feeling as if they were going to burst through my chest.
Even though I do not cry that was when the valves opened, all the used air expended into the atmosphere, and all the fresh poured in, filled with limitless new possibilities.
Perhaps Ingrid is right when she says, ‘A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.’
{The truth behind Ingrid's ghostly return will be explained in the 4th book of the Dark Hollywood series, NIGHT SEASONS.}
(If the weather disasters will ever leave me alone, I will finish this!)
I hope you enjoyed this entry of mine after Covid-19, Hurricanes, and Winter Storms have battered me.
HOUSE-BOUND AGAIN!
"It was so cold I almost got married."
- Shelly Winters
Monday and Tuesday are my days off ...
and everyone else's at Lifeshare due to the lowest temperatures in 31 years with ice and snow.
Except for my friend and supervisor,
Freddie Rosteet.
This is a photo of him driving to check
on Lifeshare.
He should get a medal
from the company
for all he does.
Freddie and friend
in Canada.
"When it snows,
you have 2 choices:
Shovel or hunt ducks."
- Freddie
Yes, he hunts ducks,
but he feeds those on
the bayou running along
Lifeshare.
I awoke, face stiff with cold.
The electricity was out and
the temperature was 41 degrees
in the apartment.
No water either!
The lights just came back on.
But the black-outs are rolling.
Tonight it is said to become worse.
"There is no such thing
as bad weather -
only not enough fur!"
- Midnight
The sidewalk to the parking lot
is as iced over as it is.
The mechanized hinges to the
gates are frozen over.
If I am called in to work,
I do not what I will do.
But every problem has
a solution --
not a perfect one --
but a solution.
May this winter storm
be treating you not too badly.
February 13, 2021
SURREAL VALENTINE
"Love is a symbol of Eternity ...
but soon or late Death
shatters that illusion."
- Irene Dupre
So many hearts have been scarred by
the lethal grasp of Covid-19,
tearing apart 2 hearts
that had become one.
Or after 13 months of Covid Isolation,
Valentine's Day can be terribly lonely.
"All I want is a hug," some lament.
"The touch of another
caring hand on mine."
Small acts of kindness to others
can pull us out of
our loneliness and isolation.
Love is around you always ...
just perhaps not in the
form you think of as love
Pets. work friends,
old friends from childhood.
Solitude can bring peace
if the mind can find
embers of past love
to recall.
Do you know someone who is lonely,
missing a lost loved one?
Take a moment this
Valentine's Day
to touch base with them,
to let them know
they are not forgotten.
that they matter to someone.
February 11, 2021
NOTHING IS MORE REAL THAN THE MASKS WE MAKE TO HIDE OURSELVES
Finally!
Razor Valentine is out as an audio book!
Now, you can hear the
mesmerizing narration of
the talented actor
Scott ODell
https://www.amazon.com/Razor-Valentine/dp/B08VL16KX2/Listen to how it all begins:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08G8VMMYD/
Murder, Mystery, & Mardi Gras.
They seem linked somehow.
An abused orphan girl
cries out to an ancient
Entity of Death & Retribution,
getting both more and less
than she wished,
making the 1st Mardi Gras
after WWII
a truly memorable one.
Pacts with Darkness
always take more than they
promise to give.
And to save the orphan's soul,
a former O.S.S. agent
must beat the shade of
Harry Houdini in his hardest trick
or drown trying.
C'mon!
You know you want to know
what happens next.
"I believe in my mask.
The man I made up
bleeds and breathes .
I believe in my lies;
they are my destiny."
- Lucas
Asking for friends to buy your audio book is like asking for a kiss ...You never know howit is going to go.
Thanks for at least listening.
February 9, 2021
THE CINEMA OF PLACE
"The corpse must shock not only because it is a corpse but also because, even for a corpse,
it is shockingly out of place, as when a dog makes a mess on a drawing room carpet.”
- W. H. Auden
It was raining again the next morning, a slanting grey rain like a swung curtain of crystal beads."
- Raymond Chandler
Sherlock Holmes had Victorian London. Phillip Marlowe had L.A. of the Forties.
Your protagonist must have his locale live and breathe as a fellow character.
Setting can frame mood, meaning, and thematic connotations.
. “The moon went slowly down in loveliness; she departed into the depth of the horizon,
and long veil-like shadows crept up the sky through which the stars appeared."
– H. Rider Haggard
"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas
that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch.
On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks."
-Raymond Chandler, "Red Wind"
HOW TO MAKE YOUR SETTING A CHARACTER
1.) WHAT MAKES YOUR SETTING UNIQUE TO YOUR CHARACTER, TO YOU
Beyond description, beyond local foods,
find what makes your locale merge into the very fabric of your characters.
https://www.amazon.com/Razor-Valentine/dp/B08VL16KX2/SETTING comes ALIVE through detail, but mostly in how your novel's characters responds to them.
2.) HISTORY IS PERSONAL
How did New Orleanians experience the first Mardi Gras after WWII?
How did returning veterans who had survived Hell and brought some of it back with them?
More powerful than infusing a character with a strong opinion about his place and time
is infusing two of them with conflicting opinions.
How would a returning veteran like Col. James Stewart view the masks of Mardi Gras
as opposed to a returning O.S.S. agent who made his sociopathic face a mask to better blend in and kill his targets?
4.) LINK DETAILS TO EMOTIONS
What thoughts might pass through a bomber pilot's mind as he views elegant, though decrepit,
New Orleans streets when he flew above similar streets over Europe
as opposed to the thoughts of former O.S.S. agents who wrapped the shadows around them
as they fled Nazis down the streets of Occupied Paris.
5.) MAKE USE OF THE TIME OF YEAR
Who has wondered what it is like in New Orleans?
Imagine that a literal demon is walking among the partiers?
Who is leading that little girl into the fog?
A partying mother fetching her wayward childorNuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte,Our Lady of Holy Death?
I hope you see nowhow Setting can becomethe Cinema of Your Novel.
February 8, 2021
ENTICING DESCRIPTIONS SELL BOOKS
Besides an evocative cover ...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1537255339(my 2nd highest selling audio book)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1523889152(My Highest Selling Audio Book)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1511548207
But after you baited them with the cover,it is the description on the backthat will urge them to open the book.
If I had it to do over again,I would lead in large font with:
WHEN THE "GOOD" FAIL TO ACT, IT IS UP TO EVIL TO RESTORE ORDER ... THEIR WAY.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1519375794Take my above historical fantasy:
When Ancient Evil wars with Cosmic Darkness, no matter who wins, the living lose.
"But my book isn't in book stores," you say.
You have a blog perhaps.It has a side bar.
Make use of thator Twitter orPinterest, FB.
Make it short:
To isolate what is specialabout your book.
The plot twists,the heart-grabbing characters,the setting,the sharp dialogue ...
they only matter when the book is bought and read.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1511548207Take my Tagline for this bookin my sidebar:
In the end, all the light we have is what we nourish in our hearts.
The title gives the setting.The cover paints it a supernatural thriller.
But its tagline gives you the book's heart.
Without heart, a book is only an animated corpse going throughthe motions.
Buzz sells books.
A recent survey said that 49% bought booksrecommended to them.
This has been a dark time of late:
Touch a reader's heart andshe/he will respond ...
maybe even recommendyour book.
A THOUGHT:
Ask your close friends -
What 5 books did you last buy?
What prompted you to buy them?
Would you buy another from that author?
If so, why?
The answers may give you ideas on how to write better taglinesand to write better booksin the future.
February 6, 2021
I LIVE AT AN ALIEN CRASH SITE! A Midnight Guest Post
First a shameless plug for my human
Now, that that is out of the way ...
There I was looking out of the terrace door
when I spotted a huge crater below
with dirty water
in its rippling center.
Sure, Food Guy says
it's going to be a fancy pond
as this dive, ah, apartment complex
is still being built
(only 4 buildings out of 11 done so far.)
But I am putting Paw to Keyboard
just in case he and I turn up missing
you will know why!
But if an alien makes a try
for my food dish,
it will NOT be pretty!
After all, I am
CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT!
February 1, 2021
SO YOU WANT TO SELL YOUR BOOK_IWSG Post
it's not about you ...
It's about the person you want to spend $ on your prose.
We want to share in a great read with others ...
I got my 4 best friends in junior high to read a "phone book" of a tome
by teasing the beginning of a desert fort manned by only corpses ...
Who propped the last body up?
It led to
THE LEAGUE OF FIVE
and
why I think audio books are important:
https://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-league-of-five.html
The LEAGUE OF FIVE did not last.
The Tugs of Life have a way of doing that.
But we're talking about
selling your new book, right?
Nissa Annakindt wrote a great post on that:
https://myantimatterlife.wordpress.com/2021/02/01/writing-book-promotions-for-social-media/
The reader's enjoyment is paramount to the writer who sells well.
WHY DO YOU READ?
How much do you enjoy
calls from telemarketers?
Keep those 2 questions in mind as you try
to market your book.
Be brief in your tease.
Add wonder, mystery,
And in a world gone mad ...
give them laughter
along with relatable characters
who are good company for the journey.
REMEMBER:
That you are marketing at all means to many
you are not selling thousands and are probably self or small press published
which casts doubts on how well you can write.
ENTICE THEM WITH THE SPARKLE
OF YOUR LOGLINE
AND FRESHNESS OF YOUR WIT.
