Meredith Allard's Blog, page 40

No Strings Attached Giveaway

It’s time for the No Strings Attached Giveaway. This one is simple. All you have to do is leave your name and e-mail address and that’s it! Thanks to I Am a Reader, Not a Writer for hosting.

I’m giving away three paperback copies of either Her Dear & Loving Husband or Her Loving Husband’s Curse (your choice). There’s also one $10 gift certificate for either Amazon.com or BN.com (your choice).

Fill out the brief form below and you’re entered into the drawing. Good luck!

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Filed under: Giveaways Tagged: Giveaways, I, I am a Reader Not a Writer, No Strings Attached Giveaway

Writing Historical Fiction: Planting a Victory Garden

Another amazing cover from Dara England for LDF Designs for Authors.

I’ve been burning the midnight oil getting Victory Garden ready for public consumption, and it seems to be working. The novel should be ready for download in a couple of days, a good two weeks ahead of schedule. I’ll post here, on FB, and Twitter when it’s ready.

For those of you who are enjoying the first two books of the Loving Husband Trilogy, you’ll find Victory Garden to be a change of pace. There aren’t any vampires, witches, werewolves, ghosts, or other paranormal elements. Both Rose Scofield and Adam Bell are fully human. There’s no complicated plot twisting between the past and the present—the whole story takes place between the years 1917 and 1921. It begins at the beginning and ends at the end, all told in first person narrative from Rose’s point of view.

In fact, Victory Garden predates the Loving Husband Trilogy by a full thirteen years. Rose Scofield’s story was inspired by a news report I saw on television during the 1996 presidential election where it was said women were voting in small numbers. Being the history buff I am, my thoughts immediately turned to a story I read years before (it may have even been in elementary school) about women who were arrested and force fed for fighting for the right to vote. Have we come so far in 76 years, I wondered, that women no longer want to vote when their grandmothers and great-grandmothers went to jail for that right? After kicking the idea around for a while, Victory Garden was born. I began writing it in 1997 and finished about a year later.

The novel is slightly on the short side at about 70,000 words. As I was getting the book ready for publication I thought about making it longer, but then I decided I didn’t want to add words just for the sake of adding words. Though the story is concise, it’s complete. In many ways, it’s a coming of age story for Rose as she struggles to navigate her own path in a time when women were expected to be subservient. She works for the suffrage movement, doing her part to make votes for women a reality, and in her determination to be strong she denies what she really wants—vaudeville actor Adam Bell—for fear it will make her weak.

Nearly everything I write is romantic in one way or another. While I can’t call my stories romances because they don’t follow the romance formula, they’re all romantic. I’m fascinated by how people fall in love. Not how they fall in like, attraction, or lust. Those are all wonderful in their own ways, but as a writer I’m more intrigued by the ever elusive love, true love, the kind that sticks for lifetimes and, in the case of James and Sarah, beyond. Sometimes, like James and Sarah, we accept true love with an open heart when it appears. Other times, like Rose, we fight it because we can’t see our own truth even when it’s staring us in the face. The destination is the same—falling in love—but the journey to get there is different for everyone.

For those of you hoping for more of the same as you see in the Loving Husband books, you’ll find history, romance, and that literary crazy-style you’ve come to expect from me. But even though Rose’s story is different from James and Sarah’s, I hope you’ll still enjoy it. Rose, in her fight for women’s rights, in her struggle to live on her own terms, shows us how far we’ve come as women, and how far we still need to go.

Filed under: News, Victory Garden Tagged: historical fiction, Victory Garden

It’s Amazing What a Little Amazon Free Can Do…

It’s hard to see from the picture, but that’s the ocean over my shoulder in Carmel. That’s one thing I don’t miss about living in California–the bad hair days!

I just returned from a fun time in San Francisco and a relaxing time near the coast in Carmel, California. It was nice to get away for a few days, and except for a few e-mail checks on my phone, I managed to stay unplugged, which was nice. I had never been to Carmel before and I have to say that was one of the prettiest beaches I’ve seen. There’s something about living in the desert that makes me need to see the ocean every now and again. That’s not to say the desert isn’t beautiful because it is in a different way, but there’s something calming about the ocean I love.

Now it’s back to Vegas and the real world, which isn’t so bad at all. Her Loving Husband’s Curse begins its virtual book tour today through Bewitching Book Tours, and throughout the rest of July and into the beginning of August you’ll be able to catch both books on various sites with promos, reviews, and interviews. Check here for the tour schedule, and I’ll be tweeting the various stops as they go live.

The view from the beach in Carmel.

It’s amazing what a little Amazon free can do. Since Her Dear & Loving Husband went free on Amazon on 6/20, more than 56,000 copies have been dowloaded. It was number one in both the free literary fiction category and the free historical fiction category for about a week, and since then it’s been fluctuating between the 1, 2, and 3 spots in both categories. As of right now, it’s number one in literary fiction and number three in historical fiction. People keep asking me how I feel knowing I’m not making any money from the downloads, but I’m happy to give away 50,000 free copies, 100,000 free copies, a million free copies if that will help get my books into the hands of people who otherwise might not have read them. Meanwhile, Her Loving Husband’s Curse has been hanging out at around #5 and #6 in its paid categories.

The pagoda in the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

I’ve seen a huge increase in the number of people visiting this site since the book has been free on Amazon, so welcome to any new friends stopping by. Many of you have been kind enough to drop me a line either through my Contact Me page or by posting in various places on the site. It means so much to me to learn there are others who have been as touched by James and Sarah’s story as I have been. I’ve also had a lot of inquiries into the whereabouts of Book Three. Believe me when I say I’m hard at work on it this summer! Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I don’t write as fast as some other writers so it takes me a little more time to finish a book. Partially, it’s because I write historical fiction so I have a lot of research to do. Partially, it’s because I have to spend some time thinking through the plot before I start writing so I have some sense of what this darn story is I’m trying to tell. Partially, it’s because it takes time to revise the language until I’m happy with it. I compare it to a woodworker with a chunk of wood in one hand and a knife in the other and he whittles away and whittles away until there’s a carved statue in his hand. Michelangelo used to say the statue was already in the marble and he had to carve away at it until he revealed what was already there. That’s how I feel about writing, but it takes time to whittle away until it’s just right.

It’s a good thing summer isn’t close to being over since I still have a lot of work ahead of me. As I said, I’m working on Book Three, and I also have two more books (unrelated to the Loving Husband Trilogy) coming soon. Victory Garden will be out first, on Tuesday, July 24, and then Woman of Stones will be out in late August. I’ll have more to say about those soon.

Once again, welcome to any new friends, and I hope you’ll join me on the virtual book tour for Her Loving Husband’s Curse. I’m looking forward to the ride.

Filed under: Her Dear & Loving Husband, Her Loving Husband's Curse, News Tagged: Amazon, Bewitching Book Tours, Her Dear & Loving Husband, Her Loving Husband's Curse

An Interview With Author Erica Manfred

What books did you love as a child? Why?

There were so many, it’s hard to choose—or remember.  I do remember adoring Green Mansions.  Hardly anyone remembers that one.  I loved the intersection of fantasy and reality – I also imagined myself as Rima, the bird girl, living in the forest away from the miseries of school and parents.

Who are your favorite authors? How did they influence your writing?

Keeps changing depending on what I’m reading at the moment.  Right now I adore George RR Martin and Diana Gabaldon on Audible.com.  As for influence I can’t say either of them influenced me.  My writing is humorous and I’ll have to say my idol in that area is the late, great Nora Ephron.  I also love Augusten Burroughs, Carl Hiassen and Dave Barry.

When did you decide you wanted to be a writer? Why did you decide to write?

I got fired from my job as a caseworker in the 1970s and wrote a mystery novel, Get Off My Case based on my experiences at the New York State Division for Youth. You can find it on Kindle.

What are the joys of writing for you?

The joy is in focusing on something outside myself.  I love that sense of being transported to another time and place, or just forgetting my problems and worries.  Writing gives me that feeling of “flow” where I’m totally involved and engaged.  Feels good.

What are the obstacles of writing? How do you overcome them?

The biggest obstacle for me is getting started.  Once I start I keep going. It helps to have a deadline. That’s about the only way I get to work.

What is your favorite genre to read in? Write in? Why?

I really love writing personal essays.  Give me a 1,000 words and I’ll wow you.  Give me a 100,000 and I struggle.  Don’t know why I keep writing books—probably because I like the continuity of them.

How would you describe your writing style? How did you develop it?

My writing style is funny.  I didn’t develop it, it developed me.  I just naturally think that way, talk that way and so write that way.   If I had another life I’d like to be a stand-up comic.

What was the inspiration for your book?

Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice of course.  I started thinking of a way to parody it, and voila, Interview with a Jewish Vampire.

What do you wish someone had told you about writing that you learned the hard way?

Discipline comes from within.  I didn’t start writing until later in life because I thought I had no discipline—that I’d have to have someone standing over me with a whip to write.  I had no idea that writing was a joy in itself, and the discipline comes from loving the process.  A shrink told me that, over and over, until I finally believed it.  That’s when I wrote Get off My Case.

What is your next project?

I’m working on a sequel to Interview with a Jewish Vampire entitled True Kosher Blood.  In this book Rhoda will rescue Sheldon from the clutches of the Vampire Bureau of Investigation, the VBI.

What are you reading now?

I mostly listen to books on Audible.com.  Right now I’m listening to The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon who never ceases to amaze me with the intricate details of the time period she writes about.  I mean how the hell does she know all this stuff.

Interview with a Jewish Vampire

By Erica Manfred

About the Story:

The last thing zaftig middle-aged journalist, Rhoda Ginsburg, expected when she signed up for JDate was to fall in love with a vampire. But when she meets drop-dead gorgeous Sheldon, a Hasidic vampire, she falls hard. She rationalizes that he may not be alive, but at least he’s Jewish.

She learns that back in the nineteenth century Sheldon was a rabbi who was turned into a vampire by Count Dracula, an anti-Semite who got his kicks from turning Orthodox Jews into vampires because then they’d have to drink blood, which isn’t kosher.

Soon after she meets Sheldon, she discovers her beloved mother, Fanny, is terminally ill, so she comes up with the crackpot idea of getting Sheldon to turn Fanny and her friends, known as “the goils,” into vampires.

Once she becomes a vampire, Fanny tires of her boring life in Century Village, Florida, and, seeking thrills, she goes clubbing and disappears into the nightlife of South Beach in Miami. When Fanny and her goil posse  “go rogue” and start preying on the young, Rhoda and Sheldon must track them down to keep them from killing again.

Interview with a Jewish Vampire turns vampire lore on its head, proving that not all vampires are young and beautiful and it IS possible to be undead and kosher.

About the Author:

Erica Manfred is a freelance journalist, humorous essayist, and author.  Her most recent book is the novel Interview with a Jewish Vampire. She’s also authored two non-fiction self-help books, including most recently He’s History You’re Not; Surviving Divorce After Forty. Her articles and essays have appeared in Cosmopolitan, The New York Times Magazine, Ms., New Age Journal, Village Voice, Woman’s Day, SELF, Ladies Home Journal, and many other publications. Erica lives in Woodstock, New York with her Chihuahua, Shadow, and her daughter, Freda. Brought up by Jewish parents who spoke Yiddish but avoided religion, she got her Jewish education at the Woodstock Jewish Congregation which welcomes Jews from all backgrounds, from atheist to Orthodox to vampire. Her website is www.ericamanfred.com or visit www.jewishvampire.com.

Filed under: Guest Authors Tagged: Bewitching Book Tours, Erica Manfred, Interview With a Jewish Vampire, interviews

Winners of the Midsummer’s Eve Giveaway

Thank you to everyone who entered the Midsummer’s Eve Giveaway! Here are the winners:

E-Books:

Latisha D.

Larissa B.

Tracy J.

Veronika B.

Donna

Paperbacks:

Rolanda B.

Endina E.

Victoria H.

Amazon.com $10 Gift Certificate:

A.D. Dulling

I’ll be back on July 17 with the No Strings Attached Giveaway. That one should be fun since all you have to do is leave your e-mail and you’re entered.

Filed under: Giveaways Tagged: Giveaways

Do I Have to Choose Between Being a Best-Selling or a Best-Writing Author?

The Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon has sparked some interesting conversations about writing quality and how well an author needs to write in order to produce a best-seller. This is hardly a news-worthy debate. I remember the same questions when Bridges of Madison County was selling like crazy. I remember it again when The DaVinci Code was on the best-seller lists. I heard it again when Twilight-Mania overtook girls and women all around the world.

A few weeks ago, as I was reading Joanna Penn’s wonderful The Creative Penn blog, I saw this interesting post about deciding whether she wanted to be a best-selling or a best-writing author. In her post, Joanna talks about the difference between books that are lauded as literary masterpieces but don’t make waves with readers and therefore don’t sell well and the books that aren’t considered literature or even particularly well-written but sold millions of copies. She has a point. There are authors whose cerebral style makes their stories and their characters detached and inaccessible. More than anything, people want to feel connected to the stories they read and the characters who inhabit them. Joanna’s conclusion? She’d rather be a best-selling author.

Best-selling certainly sounds cool, especially since I’m writing this in the glow of some good Amazon news: Amazon set Her Dear & Loving Husband to free, and as of my last check, it was #5 on the historical fiction list, #12 for literary fiction, and #190 overall. If you have a Kindle, by all means, enjoy a free copy. I even took a screen shot because I was so excited. After all, writers write because we want our stories read, and being a best-selling author means a lot of people have read your story—or at least bought it—or downloaded it—or whatever. It means a lot of people, okay?

But what do I want to achieve as a writer? What do I really want to achieve? I have a more literary style than other writers, which can work for or against me, I know, but it’s who I am. It’s my uniqueness. My fingerprint. I’ve had it, apparently, since college when professors and other students would comment on my literary style. The truth is I’m a frustrated poet, and while I’m not wise enough to write poetry, I can use the elements of poetry I love to create my own style of prose. John Forster, Charles Dickens’ good friend, biographer, and beta reader (yes, they had beta readers in the 19th century, they just didn’t have the name), used to point out to Dickens his tendency to fall into blank verse during the more emotional moments of his stories. I have the same tendency, though I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It gives a certain flow to the prose.

Language matters to me. How words string together into sentences, paragraphs, pages, and chapters matters to me. I will spend a half hour on a single sentence trying it with the comma here, the comma there, the comma in another sentence, no commas anywhere ee cummings-style. And being a teacher who often reads out loud to my students, I’m keenly aware of the flow of words, and I want my writing to sound as good read aloud as it does in the reader’s mind. That’s not easy, and it takes a lot of fine-tuning. My main challenge writing poetry-inspired prose is to keep my characters and their stories accessible to my reader. It’s okay for the language to be pretty as long as the reader can follow along, and, more importantly, care about what’s happening.

When I had Her Dear & Loving Husband critiqued in 2010, the critiquer, a romance novelist, suggested I leave out the more literary flights of fancy. She wanted me to leave out “The hunt, the hunter, the hunted…” passage, and she thought the scene between James and his father, where the father’s unconditional love shines through, could go. She wasn’t sure about Geoffrey, but then again no one’s sure about Geoffrey. She wanted me to turn my English professor James into an alpha-male, and she wanted more explicit sex scenes. In other words, she wanted me to turn it into a traditional romance. She pointed out that romance readers expect their books to be a certain way, and since she’s the award-winning romance writer I have no doubt she’s right. I took a lot of her advice, but the literary passages stayed. The poetry stayed. James, his tender, loving nature, stayed. Geoffrey…well, you know Geoffrey. He wouldn’t go away even if I asked him to. I knew I was taking a chance by not adhering to conventions, but I had to write my book the way I had to write it. My style, for its strengths and weakneses, is mine, and I wouldn’t change it to conform to the expectations for a romance novel. I knew I might lose readers because of it, so I had to decide that that was okay with me. I didn’t feel right making changes I didn’t believe in because “this is the way these types of books are written.”

Whenever I skim my own book reviews at Amazon or BN and see the ones that say, “This wasn’t what I expected, and I was surprised by how much I liked it,” I smile. I know my style isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I don’t mind. There are readers out there who do like it, and I’ve received the most lovely e-mails any author can hope for from people who get my stories, crazy-style and all.

In the end, did I decide I wanted to be a best-selling or a best-writing author?  I’d like to be both, please. I still think it’s possible to write a story that readers will enjoy while taking care with the style of the language. That’s what writing is, isn’t it?

Addendum: I’m trying not to be OCD about checking my Amazon stats, but I have to admit it’s a tough battle because it’s so much fun. I just peeked again, and Her Dear & Loving Husband is now #9 in literary fiction, #94 overall, and #4 in historical fiction. What’s number 3 in historical fiction? Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Those of you who know how much I love Dickens can guess what it means to me to see my book next to his on the best-seller list.

Filed under: Writing Tagged: Amazon, BN, Her Dear & Loving Husband, writing

Midsummer’s Eve Giveaway

Seems like we were just here, doesn’t it? Since I have more time during the summer, I have more time for giveaways!

Welcome to the Midsummer’s Eve Giveaway. Thanks to I Am a Reader, Not a Writer and  Uniquely Moi Books for hosting. This hop runs from June 20 to June 26, 2012.

For this giveaway I’ll be giving away five e-books (either Her Dear & Loving Husband or Her Loving Husband’s Curse–your choice). I also have three paperback copies of either HDLH or HLHC–your choice.  If you’re not familiar with the stories, check here. There’s also a $10 gift certificate to either Amazon.com or BN.com (your choice) for one lucky winner.

You must be a follower of this blog to enter. You can gain extra entries with the following:

Following this blog +1

Follow me on Twitter +1

Like The Copperfield Review on Facebook +1

Friend me on Goodreads +1

The extra entry options are available on the right sidebar of this page. Then fill out the form below and you’re entered.

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There are 200 great blogs participating in this giveaway. Check here to visit the other sites and see what else you can win.

Filed under: Giveaways Tagged: Giveaways, I am a Reader Not a Writer, Midsummer's Eve Giveaway, Uniquely Moi Books

Indie Author Giveaway Winners

Thanks as always to everyone who entered. Here are the winners:

E-Books:

Denise Z.

Jennifer I.

Shauna B.

Laura S.

Ryan A.

Paperbacks:

Karen W.

Sophia Rose

Nicole P.

Never fear, the Midsummer’s Eve Giveaway starts…oh, I’d say in about fifteen minutes. Whew! But it’s all good. I love doing these giveaways.

Filed under: Giveaways Tagged: Indie Author Giveaway

Indie Author Giveaway

Welcome to the Indie Author Giveaway! This hop runs from June 13 to June 19. Thanks to I Am a Reader, Not a Writer and Krazy Book Lady for hosting.

Since this giveaway is about featuring indie authors, it’s all about the books this time. I’m giving away five e-books (either Her Dear & Loving Husband or Her Loving Husband’s Curse–your choice). I also have three paperback copies of either HDLH or HLHC–your choice.  If you’re not familiar with the stories, check here.

You must be a follower of this blog to enter. You can gain extra entries with the following:

Following this blog +1

Follow me on Twitter +1

Like The Copperfield Review on Facebook +1

Friend me on Goodreads +1

The extra entry options are available on the right sidebar of this page. Then fill out the form below and you’re entered.

[contact-form]

There are over 200 great websites involved in this hop. Check here to see what other wonderful items you can win.

Filed under: Giveaways Tagged: Giveaways, I am a Reader Not a Writer, Indie Author Giveaway, Indie Authors, Krazy Book Lady

Writing Historical Fiction: The Trail of Tears

My interest in the Trail of Tears began four years ago. At the time, I was teaching U.S. history and I taught the Trail of Tears in some depth to my students. One day, not long after the 2008 presidential election, I was flipping the television channels and stopped long enough to listen to a news show host as she talked about the injustices at Guantanamo Bay and proclaimed, “This is America. We do not torture.” While I love the thought behind the sentiment and wished it were true, I knew it wasn’t. My thoughts immediately turned to what I had taught my students about the Trail of Tears, and that was America, and that was torture. There’s no other word for forcing hundreds of people to walk a thousand miles in the elements, hot and cold, with barely enough food to eat or water to drink. The Trail of Tears wasn’t merely an unfortunate incident in American history. It was U.S. government sanctioned.

Flash forward to the summer of 2011. Her Dear & Loving Husband was out and about in the world, and it was time to write Book Two in the trilogy. I wanted to keep everything readers love about the first book (mainly the love story between James and Sarah as well as the historical background), but I also needed to challenge my characters (and myself) by pushing us all past our comfort zone. I had already used the Salem Witch Trials as the historical background in Book One, and while it’s impossible to write about Sarah without touching on the 1692 witch hunts, I needed something new to introduce in the sequel. Very quickly I settled on The Trail of Tears as the background for Book Two.

I spent most of last summer researching the Trail of Tears. I started with my obligatory Internet search (no Wikipedia allowed—I don’t care how often it pops up as the first listed website), but I also hit my local university library and took hours of notes. I looked up details of the trail itself because I was already visualizing how the experience would involve my characters, but I also wanted to know how the people lived before they were forced away. I thought through the plot enough to know how I wanted to incorporate the history into the story as a whole; as a result, I was able to work my way through the research in a few weeks instead of a few months.

The Cherokee weren’t the only tribe forced to walk west, but I chose to use the Cherokee experience since that gave me a lens through which to focus the story.  That’s one of the calls you have to make when you’re writing historical fiction: the more you can whittle down and narrow your topic, the better. Especially in a story like Her Loving Husband’s Curse, which weaves back and forth between the past and the present. I didn’t have time in that narrative to explain about the other tribes since for each of the tribes they had their own unique stories. In order to keep my plot focused, I chose to see the Trail of Tears through James’s experience with the Cherokee before and during the expulsion, and it’s through James’s eyes we see this travesty in American history.

My main goal when I write historical fiction is to inspire readers with enough curiosity about the period that they seek out nonfiction historical accounts of the era. I can’t give a thoroughly detailed account of the westward expulsion of the native tribes within the limitations of my story structure, but I can hope readers become interested enough in the history that they want to know more. There are many lessons we can learn from the Trail of Tears. As a society we still suffer from intolerance, ignorance, and greed, the traits that allowed the westward expulsion in the first place. If readers can see an echo of the past in the present in my stories, then I’ll feel I’ve done my job well.

Filed under: Her Loving Husband's Curse, Writing Tagged: Cherokee, Her Loving Husband's Curse, Trail of Tears, writing, writing historical fiction