Debra H. Goldstein's Blog, page 36

March 31, 2013

FRAGILE ANGLES by Debra H. Goldstein

dhg-photo.jpg Fragile Angles by Debra H. Goldstein


Recently, I had a birthday, but I didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on being a year older because my calendar was so full of “special” birthday events. Besides attaining another year of age, I’m sure I gained five pounds during the celebrations! What was important to me during what became my birthday month, were the friends and family members who wanted to share it with me. Each lunch, dinner, cupcake with a candle, was delightful, but three things put it all in perspective for me: receiving the Mildred Bell Johnson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Girl Scouts of North Central Alabama, an engagement party for my youngest daughter, and the unexpected death of a friend the day after he was part of a small, but joyful, birthday dinner party for me.


Three days before my birthday, I spoke the following words before almost four hundred people as I accepted the Mildred Bell Johnson award:


When Mildred Bell Johnson founded the first Girl Scout troop for African – American girls in Alabama and then worked diligently as a civil right activist, educator, Girl Scout district director, and assistant moderator of the United Church of Christ, she never dreamed that there would be an award named for her. She was doing what she believed was right for her community and for young women.


Today, I am humbled receiving the award named for Mildred Bell Johnson not only because of its namesake, but because of my admiration for the women who have received this award before me. They are a class of women whom I deeply respect for their integrity and their willingness to often forsake recognition while bringing others together to make a difference – or as Girl Scouts say – to leave a place better than we found it.


As a brownie, Girl Scout, and leader, I was taught and taught others to believe that we have a responsibility to be involved in any way we can contribute. I also learned that none of us do it alone – no matter how hard we work.


To digress for a moment, when my son, Stephen, was just beginning to learn how to print, he did something wrong and apologized by leaving a note on my pillow that he signed your little angle as he couldn’t spell angel.


I am honored and grateful today to accept this award, but it really is a reflection of the accomplishments and efforts for our community and its members by most of you in this room.


I thank the Girl Scouts of North-Central Alabama for singling me out today; I thank my friends who listen and help me connect the dots whenever I get a hairbrained idea, and I thank my family – especially my husband, Joel, who for thirty years has supported me in anything I try to do and our four wonderful children, three of whom are here today. They, and all of you, are the angles that combine to make me whole. Thank you again.


At that moment, I was a little worried that receiving a lifetime achievement award at this age was premature, but I was excited to be joining a class of women I deeply respect. It was a perfect day.


A few days after my birthday, five couples got together for a “special” birthday dinner. We laughed as we shared good food, friendship, and an evening where work and pressures were forgotten as we enjoyed each other’s company. It was a weekday work night, but we ignored that fact and stayed longer than any of us meant to. As we compared notes the next day, everyone who had been there agreed, it was a time good memories were made.


We flew to Houston two days after the dinner to attend a shower for my daughter and her future husband given by friends of his parents. When we landed in Houston and I turned on my phone, I saw I had voicemails, texts, and e-mails asking me to immediately call two people. We all know that when messages say urgent, but don’t say why, it isn’t good. It wasn’t. One of our dear friends who had been at the birthday dinner had had a stroke and died. He hadn’t been ill. He wasn’t old. My husband and I stood in the airport shocked remembering humorous exchanges with him during the birthday dinner, plans he had made to go to a basketball game next season with my husband, and realizing that in a matter of hours the love of his life was now a widow. We walked to the car waiting for us in disbelief. As my husband made small talk with the father of my daughter’s fiancé, I called our friend’s wife and other friends and shared a moment of shock, sorrow, and “what can we do to help” with them. Then, my husband and I had to put on our game faces to enjoy the weekend with our daughter.


I have blogged before about my reaction to my daughter being in love (My Daughter is in Love – 9/23/12) and once again, I felt excitement and joy seeing how happy she is. Her happiness brought me flashbacks of when I fell in love and got engaged. As the weekend progressed, I couldn’t help but think about our friends who also had a perfect love that now had ended as I watched this young couple just beginning their lives together. Aloud, I wished them joy and happiness, but in my heart I prayed for them. It was a prayer that comes from knowing how important the angles are that make us whole and how fragile keeping them together is.



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Published on March 31, 2013 15:36

March 10, 2013

Guest Blogger: Polly Iyer – Good Books Find Readers – Despite Breaking The Rules

Author Polly Iyer and her books

Author Polly Iyer and her books


Good Books Find Readers – Despite Breaking The Rules by Polly Iyer


Certain things make me grumpy. One is when I finish reading a book then pick up another in the same genre that sounds almost exact. The plot is different, marginally, but in many ways, you know what’s going to happen because there’s a recipe writers follow for that particular genre. I’m sure it’s based on the successes of many bestsellers, but after a while they all start to sound repetitive, at least to me. Is this the result of the demand of those who control what we read, namely agents, editors, and publishers?


Some genres have to adhere to the rules or they become something else. Romance, for instance, has to have a Happy-Ever-After ending because without it, the genre ceases to be a romance, by definition. Even a possibly-together-ever-after ending doesn’t cut it. Readers of that genre expect the Hero/heroine to ride off into the sunset and be together forever. Wedding bells are a bonus. Romantic suspense, which I usually write―all my books have a romance, kind of―is a little trickier, but nevertheless must adhere to the HEA ending. I was speaking to a multi-published romance author recently and mentioned I had just watched the movie, Casablanca, and declared it a romance. “No, no,” she said. It’s a love story but not a romance. She was right. There is no happy-ever-after in Casablanca. But I still think it’s one of the most romantic movies I’ve ever seen.


Then add Conflict to the formula. This is a must and where I have a problem. The writer must find a way to keep the H/h apart or in conflict. I don’t like when the conflict goes on too long, because it becomes forced and contrived. Gone with the Wind is neither a romance nor a love story. So what is it? I honestly don’t know, but Margaret Mitchell sure knew conflict, and readers ate up GWTW when it was written almost 75 years ago. They’re still buying and loving that classic because of the push/pull of the hero and heroine. Conflict.


There are two ways to write conflict in a romance or romantic-suspense: the H/h have an instant dislike to each other for whatever reason, or the story provides the conflict. The latter might put the H/h on opposite sides, but the story is creating the discord. In my not-quite- romantic-suspense book, Hooked, my heroine, an ex-call girl, is coerced by the handsome cop to work undercover at a brothel to find a murderer or go to prison for all the money she stashed in an overseas account and never paid taxes on. (I love characters who cross ethical lines.) She gave up the life, and now the cops are forcing her back into it. Needless to say, she’s not happy. The cop, on the other hand, feels guilty. To make matters more difficult for him, he’s attracted to her. She’s smart, beautiful, and royally pissed at him for doing his job. I won’t mention how it ends, other than to say it’s not a classic romance, but it is romantic. Thoroughly confused?


Mysteries create a similar problem for me. The murder should appear as close to the beginning of the book as possible to draw in the reader. But should it? Yes, for the most part. But there are stories where the author must set the scene or develop the characters so the reader is invested in them before something in the story can take place. I suppose those who read mysteries expect that, but I’m a character-driven reader, and I want to care about them from page one. My book Murder Déjà Vu is considered a romantic suspense/mystery. There are only two pages of conflict between the H/h. The first two pages. They like each other almost immediately. To make matters worse, the body doesn’t show up until page thirty-something. Did I break the rules? Yes, but I believe I needed to develop the story first in order to make sense of what happens later.


Agents and editors are always looking for the next best thing in genre fiction, but what they really want is a clone of another author’s recently successful novel. How many Harry Potter imitations hit the bookstands after the book became a phenomenon? What about the copycats of The daVinci Code published after that success? Why didn’t a publisher pick up Amanda Hocking before she self-published and sold millions of copies of her fantasy books? Or E.L. James, whose Fifty Shades of Gray books have generated shameless counterfeits and opened up erotica, or so called Mommy Porn, to the masses? Those writers made their genres become the next best thing. How many of those in publishing are kicking themselves for not grabbing these future blockbusters at the outset? Lack of imagination? Not having their fingers on the pulse of the reading public? Adhering to the rules? I think so.


Good books that don’t fit a specific genre are rejected all the time by agents and editors because they don’t know how to sell them. Where do they fit on library and bookstores shelves? Can’t place them, reject the book.


Ebooks might be the answer, and self-publishing a means to that answer. No shelves. Just a blurb that gives readers a description to decide if the book is something they find interesting. It is happening, and cross-genre books are coming more into their own. I, for one, am glad. New fiction recipes are being created every day. I think I’ll call them Originals.


A good book is a good book, and a good book will find readers. There are quite a few authors finding that out every day, and the reading public is much richer for it.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~


Polly Iyer was born on the coast of Massachusetts.  After studying at Massachusetts College of Art andHooked Cover 6x9 Feb-21 Design in Boston, she lived in Italy, Boston, Atlanta, and now resides in the beautiful Piedmont region of South Caroline in an empty nest house with her husband; Joey, the timid cat; and a drooling mutt named Max.  Writing novels turned into her passion after careers in fashion, art, and business.  She is the author of eight suspense books:  Hooked, InSight, Murder Deja Vu, and the Diana Racine Psychic Suspense series –  Mind Games and Goddess of the Moon, plus three others written under a pen name.  Writing has turned her into quite the hermit, wearing comfortable clothes she wouldn’t be caught dead wearing on the outside, while she devises ways for life to be complicated for her characters.  Better them than her.  Check out Polly’s website at http://PollyIyer.com .



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Published on March 10, 2013 18:01

March 3, 2013

Type A, Type B or Type C?

Sometimes, I feel like Mr. Magoo – extremely nearsighted, unwilling to admit to even being a trifle nearsighted, and then lucky by the way things turned out. I say “yes” to so many things I want to do and then add in those “have to do” items until I find myself either having to sacrifice any chance of sleep or needing to prioritize what matters most. Perhaps, I could let some tasks drop by the wayside, but that isn’t my style. If I say I’m going to do it, whatever or how painful it is, it gets done.


Lately, I’ve been taking stock of this kind of behavior in myself, and in my friends. Books tell us we’re Type A. Wikipedia, today’s source of all information, offers this quick comparison summary of Type A and Type B.


Type A individuals are “ambitious, rigidly organized, highly status conscious, can be sensitive, care for other people, are truthful, impatient, always try to help others, take on more than they can handle, want other people to get to the point, proactive, and obsessed with time management. People with Type A personalities are often high-achieving ‘workaholics’ who multi-task, push themselves with deadlines and hate both delays and ambivalence.”


Type B people exist in a different world. Wikipedia says they “generally live at a lower stress level and typically work steadily, enjoying achievement but not becoming stressed when they are not achieved. When faced with competition, they do not mind losing and either enjoy the game or back down. They may be creative and enjoy exploring ideas and concepts. They are often reflective, thinking about the outer and inner worlds.” Often, Type B individuals “have a poor sense of time schedule.” Even just reading these definitions, I’m ready to pull my hair out at the idea of not being competitive and having no sense of a time schedule.


And yet, there is a lot to be said for knowing when to give or to step back for a moment. Perhaps, finding a compromise would make a lot of Type A or B people happier. Years ago, I met a man who gave up his corporate career to take pictures of flowers. He spent days catching each moment of a flower blooming so that he had the perfect sequence of the flower unfolding. To me, his work was precise and tedious, but he exhibited pure joy and patience in capturing every nuance of how a flower opened. I didn’t understand it then, but recently I came across a note mentioning his photographs and the many awards the pictures won. Those photos were always peaceful, but taking them had to involve stress, time management, and channeling energy to get the right shots.


Back then, I was too nearsighted to see anything beyond how boring I thought his work was, but now, looking at some of those pictures, I see that he combined Type A and Type B in a way that was lucky for all of us.  Maybe there is a way to be Type C….what do you think?



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Published on March 03, 2013 12:16

February 10, 2013

Guest Interview: Elizabeth Zelvin — Author, Psychotherapist, and Singer-Songwriter

AN INTERVIEW WITH ELIZABETH ZELVIN – -  AUTHOR, PSYCHOTHERAPIST, AND SINGER-SONGWRITER


1) What is your most recent book? Tell us thing about it.


Death-Will-Save-Your-Life-Final-MedDEATH WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE was published as an e-novella by BooksBNimble Press in December 2012. It’s the eighth entry in my mystery series about recovering alcoholic Bruce Kohler and his friends, world-class codependent Barbara and computer genius Jimmy. Two of the three novels and all the short stories in the series are set in New York City. But in DEATH WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE, Barbara and Jimmy attend a couples workshop at a New Age intentional community known to the locals as Woo-Woo Farm. Bruce goes along to keep them company, and when the obnoxious relationship guru is murdered, he falls for the victim’s widow. So of course, they have to solve the murder.


2) What inspired you to write this book?


What inspired the mystery series as a whole was my desire to write about recovery from alcoholism, codependency, and other addictions and compulsive behaviors. Recovery is an amazing transformational process that sometimes verges on the miraculous. Many people know little or nothing about it, and many others think it must be dark and depressing. I wanted to create engaging characters in recovery to manage to have some fun in the process of turning their lives around.


DEATH WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE, in particular, was inspired by an urge to write about Woo-Woo Farm—a name I created before I learned that mystery lovers, especially those on the e-list DorothyL, often use “woo-woo” as a term for the paranormal element in a mystery story. There’s no paranormal in my novella (well, except for the Tibetan monk who claims he levitates), but the characters and setting are pretty far out. Jimmy calls the place “a dude ranch for space cadets,” and Bruce explains that “anybody who knows about Esalen and Sedona but wouldn’t be caught dead going there called it Woo-Woo Farm.”


3) If it is part of a series, what made you follow these characters? Do you have a favorite character?


As I’ve said, I wanted to follow the process of people in recovery who are trying hard to grow and become better people while having periodic setbacks and stumbling into murders. I love Bruce, Barbara, and Jimmy equally (doesn’t everyone love all their children the same?), though I’m tickled to find that some of my readers has one favorite or another. I love Bruce’s sardonic voice and his not-too-well-concealed heart of gold. Barbara is a lot of fun to write. Like me, she’s a nice Jewish girl from Queens, but because she isn’t me, I get to take her over the top with her compulsive helping and minding everybody’s business. And Jimmy is a great big teddy bear of tremendous sweetness. I could have made him a curmudgeon, but then people might have thought I’d based him on my husband. As it is, my husband claims I’ve stolen all his one-liners.


4) How did you choose the title?


LOL, because DEATH WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE is the one work I’ve had published where my publisher made me change the title. The whole series, as an idea, started with the title of the first novel, DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER. In that one, Bruce gets sober. The other novels are DEATH WILL HELP YOU LEAVE HIM, which is about codependency and love addiction or addictive relationships, and DEATH WILL EXTEND YOUR VACATION, in which Bruce, Barbara, and Jimmy take shares in a lethal clean and sober group house in the Hamptons. The short stories are “Death Will Clean Your Closet,” “Death Will Tie Your Kangaroo Down,” “Death Will Trim Your Tree,” and “Death Will Tank Your Fish.” Three of those appeared in anthologies, the fourth in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Two were nominees for the Agatha Award for Best Short Story, and a third was a nominee for the Derringer Award for Best Short Story.


I love my titles. They’re funny, they match, and they tell you what the story is about. But when it came to this one, my publisher, Edgar-winning author Julie Smith of BooksBNimble, said my original title, Death Will Improve Your Relationship, wouldn’t do. This was e-publishing, and she said the word “relationship” was too long to figure in a good design for a cover the size of a postage stamp. She proposed DEATH WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE instead. We, er, discussed it, and she won. The funny thing is that everyone loves the title, and the cover is terrific.


5) Tell us about you — What makes you want to write? Do you have

any writing rituals? Are you working on a new project? What do you

do besides writing?
LZheadshot_FINAL


I’m a lifelong writer. I first said I wanted to be one when I was seven years old. I’d published two books of poetry, a book on gender and addictions, and a lot of professional articles and book chapters before my first novel came out when I was already in my sixties. I’ve also been writing weekly blog posts for the group mystery blog Poe’s Deadly Daughters for six years now, as well as biweekly posts for SleuthSayers, a group of “crime writers and crime fighters,” for the past year or two.


My only ritual is making sure everyone leaves me alone. I can’t fathom writers who work in Starbucks. I write best if I come to it fresh, ie use my morning energy. It helps if I can resist checking my email before I start to write. If I need to write later in the day and push myself through to achieve a certain goal, I may take a nap on the couch so that when I get up, my writing brain thinks it’s morning again.


I’ve just completed a short story for submission to an anthology on a Cold War theme. This is a new angle for me. I often use shorter works to explore voices, characters, settings, and points of view that are very different from my mystery series. “Shifting Is for the Goyim,” published in 2012, is about a nice Jewish girl who’s a rising country music star and a shapeshifter. I’ll have two stories out in 2013, one in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine that’s about art theft at the Metropolitan Museum, and one in the e-zine Mysterical-E about a Cape Cod whale watch, featuring an 11-year-old girl who’s being molested. BooksBNimble will bring out DEATH WILL GET YOU SOBER as an e-book this spring and, I hope, the other novels later in the year.


Besides writing, I’m a psychotherapist. For the last dozen years, I’ve been working online on my online therapy website, LZcybershrink.com. It fits well with my writing, and I’m currently working with clients on three different continents. I’m also a singer-songwriter. Last year I achieved the lifelong dream of recording an album of my songs. It’s called OUTRAGEOUS OLDER WOMAN. My most recent performance was at the 92nd Street Y in New York. I combined my therapist and songwriter hats to give a talk and performance to seniors on “Maturity & Chutzpah”—in other words, how to be an outrageous older woman. It’s like getting to Carnegie Hall: you practice and you practice.


LizZelvinPanel1hiresfinal


6) Where can readers learn more about you, your books, and your music?


My author website is at http://elizabethzelvin.com, my music website at http://lizzelvin.com. You can also find me on Facebook.



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Published on February 10, 2013 14:52

January 27, 2013

Guest Blogger: Edith Maxwell aka Tace Baker — An Experience in Self-Publishing

Debra, thanks so much for inviting me over!


I went on a new adventure last week. It occurred to me that two of my short stories that were published in the last ten years included some dark back story for two of the main characters in Speaking of Murder.


My story “Reduction in Force” describes revenge after corporate layoff and was published in Thin Ice, an anthology of mystery and crime fiction, by Level Best Books , 2010. The main character is Lauren Rousseau’s sister, Jackie, who is an important secondary character in Speaking of Murder.


“Obake for Lance” was a short story about murderous revenge published in Riptide, an anthology of mystery and crime fiction, by Level Best Books , 2004. This story describes a dark incident in the past of Lauren’s best friend, Elise, who plays a pivotal role in Speaking of Murder.


The rights to both stories reverted to me a year after publication. People who read Speaking of Murder have asked me when the next Lauren Rousseau book is coming out. It won’t be out anytime soon, despite being mostly written, because I need to keep writing and promoting the Local Foods mysteries around the demands of my day job and daily life.


But it occurred to me that these two stories are directly related to Lauren and might satisfy some of the hunger of readers. So I read my writing colleague Kaye George ‘s booklet The Road to Self-Publishing and cleaned up the formatting.


With the help of Kaye’s booklet, I figured out how to publish the stories for most formats through Smashwords and for Kindle through Amazon. And while it requires some careful attention (that is, don’t start doing it at night if you’re a morning person), it really isn’t that hard.


Through the unfailingly helpful Guppies I found a cover artist, Stanzalone Design , who uses open-source stock photographs and adds the lettering, which makes her covers very affordable, so I commissioned a cover for each. Which I love!


I also realized that Obake was the wrong word to use in that story. The real name of the triangular rice-dough pastry filled with sweet bean paste is Yatsuhashi, so the newly published story is called “Yatsuhashi for Lance.” It’s up on Amazon and is already #25 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Travel > Asia > Japan and #77 in Books > Travel > Asia > Japan > General . Cool! (We won’t worry about the fact that it isn’t nonfiction…) It should be up for Nook, Kobo, and Apple formats before the end of January.


I also liked the cover for “Reduction in Force” since it takes places in a software company and tea plays a critical role in the revenge. It’s up on Amazon , too.


This exercise gave me confidence in the world of self publishing, even though I have “non-me” publishers for all my books so far. I can track sales and let people who ask know that there is more of my writing out there they can read. For a mere ninety-nine cents! I’m not expecting to get rich on a couple of short stories but I like having them available. And you never know…


Have you self published anything? Do you order short stories for your ereader? If you don’t have an ereader and a story isn’t available in paper, would you buy it and read it on your PC?


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


Edith Maxwell writes the Local Foods Mysteries. A TINE TO LIVE, A TINE TO DIE introduces organic farmer Cam Flaherty and a Locavore Club (Kensington Publishing, May 2013). Edith once owned and operated the smallest certified-organic farm in Essex County, Massachusetts.


Tace Baker, the pen name of author Edith Maxwell, is the author of SPEAKING OF MURDER (Barking Rain Press) featuring Quaker linguistics professor Lauren Rousseau. Edith holds a PhD in linguistics and is a member of Amesbury Monthly Meeting of Friends.


A mother and technical writer, Edith is a fourth-generation Californian but lives north of Boston in an antique house with her beau and three cats.


Find her at http://www.facebook.com/EdithMaxwellAuthorhttp://www.facebook.com/EdithMaxwellAuthor , @edithmaxwell, and http://www.edithmaxwell.comwww.edithmaxwell.com. Tace Baker can be found at http://www.tacebaker.comwww.tacebaker.com , @tacebaker, and http://www.facebook.com/TaceBaker.



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Published on January 27, 2013 13:02

December 27, 2012

GOOD-BYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE 2012 – OR IS IT? by Debra H. Goldstein

GOOD-BYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE 2012 – OR IS IT? by Debra H. Goldstein


Good-bye and good riddance 2012.  It was a year of insane running around and life altering events, but it also was a year of wonderful trips and sharing moments of excitement and joy with family and friends.  There was the birth of a second career as my first novel and several short stories won awards and brought me both an opportunity to travel the country meeting fascinating people and a way to use my passion for writing to benefit others.  There were hours spent in hospitals and doctors’ offices as a patient and as a note-taker.  A minor knee surgery paled next to others who were diagnosed with breast cancer, lymphoma, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s.  I had empathy when friends, as I have in the past, lost a parent, but I couldn’t even begin to comprehend the pain being felt when the twenty-five year old son of friends died.


I will remember 2012 as the final year of a personal decade that passed so quickly I could barely keep track of each year.  It also always will be the year my youngest daughter got engaged to the love of her life.  Through her eyes, I once again remembered how and why I fell in love with her father. 


2012 was the year I realized I had fully become my mother.  I actually sound like her when I harp to my children how things should be done or share my worries with them about their choices.  I know I should keep my thoughts about their lives to myself, but I understand how fast things become uncontrollable.  It is the fear of these unknown and unexpected changes that is causing my friends and me to rethink what is important to us.  Our answers are different, but for the first time, a lot of us are balancing thoughts of mortality with what we still want to accomplish.  2012 has been a year of reflection and decision-making.  2013, I hope will be a year of effectuation. 


So, I say goodbye and good riddance to 2012 as having been a difficult year, but then again, so many good things happened during it that I’m a little sad to see it go. 



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Published on December 27, 2012 17:14

December 13, 2012

An Arthroscopic View of Writing by Debra H. Goldstein

An Arthroscopic View of Writing by Debra H. Goldstein


Life often gets in the way of planned obligations.  Normally, I write a blog every two weeks, but somehow arthroscopic knee surgery dropped the blog to the bottom of my “to do” list.  It actually turned out to be a nice break.


Not only did being laid up give me the time to sit back and prioritize what I needed to do for recovery, family, and work, but also it made me think why writing is important to me.  The most simplistic reason is that I love the feeling I get when my ability to string words together, like in my earlier blogs “Maybe I Should Hug You” or “My Daughter is in Love,” articulate emotions and thoughts that my readers resonate with.  I like hearing that I’ve expressed exactly what they feel, but haven’t been able to say.  There also is satisfaction in embellishing a funny moment or memory into a short story or novel.


In some ways, my writing is exactly like arthroscopic surgery.  For example, the surgeon made some small incisions in my knee and then inserted a small camera so as to get a clear view of the extent of the damage.  I take an idea and zero on it until I get a clear view of what in the idea would make a good article or story.  After getting the entire picture of my knee, the surgeon inserted another tool to hold, remove and shave the damaged medial and lateral meniscus tears.  Once I know my general theme, I use paragraphs to build my thoughts in an orderly manner from a topic sentence to the concluding point I want to make.  The surgeon did a last check for rough edges and then removed the tools and bandaged my knee.  I take the written piece I create and proofread it for glaring errors.  Then, I read it aloud to see if the words flow smoothly.  Based upon my observations, I make my final corrections and save the piece.  My surgeon sent me home with a walker, pain pills, instructions to tether myself to an ice machine, and a prescription for physical therapy.  I wait a day or two and read the piece again.  If it needs a little support, I make the changes to strengthen it.  Two weeks later, my surgeon assures me my knee is healing well and I soon will be back to my normal routine.  I submit or post the article or story not knowing whether it will be published or how readers will react to my work.


The only thing I know for sure is that after a few days of rest, I will have to write again.  The act of writing has become a part of my soul and very being.



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Published on December 13, 2012 11:02

November 12, 2012

Guest Blog: Sheila Webster Boneham – Dog Hair and Mysteries

DOG HAIR and MYSTERIES


by Sheila Webster Boneham


A few days ago I popped into a local department store to look for a sweater. I found what I wanted, and headed for the check out. When I handed my credit card to the cashier, a rather prim older woman, I noticed the pained look on her face. Then she said, “There’s hair all over your shirt. What is that?” Granted, I was wearing a black pull-over and had cuddled my yellow Lab, Lily, earlier, but from the woman’s tone, you’d have thought I was spattered with blood!


I have killed people, but only in my books. Blood is not always involved. Hair (or technically in some cases) has always been a big part of my life, though, and it’s a big part of Drop Dead on Recall, my newly released Animals in Focus mystery. Not my hair, you understand (I’m barely interested in it anymore), but animal hair. Dog hair, cat hair, horse hair. My protagonist, Janet MacPhail, is a professional animal photographer, amateur dog-sport enthusiast and cat lover. She isn’t me, but we do have a lot in common. I’ve been active for more than two decades in canine activities, competitive and not – sort of a down-sizing of my younger days showing horses (hunters, jumpers, equitation). For me, as for Janet, animal activities are a hobby, although my professional life is also critter-centric. Janet takes pictures, and I write books (seventeen non-fiction books about dogs and cats and rescue), focused on animals.


At first glance it may seem that showing animals and writing are completely different sorts of pursuits, but they have more in common than you might think. I’ve considered the similarities in my passions before, but a few months ago I entertained myself as I languished in an airport after judging a dog show by jotting down a few parallels. Assuming that I’m a reasonably consistent human being (potentially a topic for another time), I figure that dog sports and writing must have elements in common to keep me so passionate about them for so many years.



The first element that comes to mind is aesthetic appeal. Beauty, yes – a well-turned phrase, a gorgeous head. But there’s more to aesthetic appeal than beauty. There’s rhythm, function, timing, and all the other things that come together to stir us to respond emotionally and intellectually to the thing before us. A dog may be beautiful in itself, or in its performance, or – ideally – in both, just as a piece of writing may be beautiful for its language and rhythm, or the way it moves us, or – ideally – both. That’s me, by the way, with my beautiful Reno at a show several years ago.


Then there’s the challenge of doing well in either arena. Training a dog to compete successfully is a lot of hard work for trainer and dog alike. Learning to write well is also a lot of hard work. This is, of course, true of anything we want to do well. To the casual observer of the finished product – the book, the competitive performance – it may appear to be no big deal. Trust me, it is. In fact, novices in both fields are often amazed to discover that they have to work, and work hard, if they want to make what they do look effortless.


Of course, no matter how good you are, you don’t win every time. Editors say no thanks. Judges put you and your dog at the end of the line. Reviewers write bad reviews. Dogs and people trip and fall and make dopey mistakes. Rejection is part of both games, and rejection sucks. But here’s the thing…. the people who win a lot – with book contracts and in canine competitions – have also lost a lot. You just keep playing, and learning to play better, and eventually you win more often.


I thought of a few other parallels before we started boarding the plane, but the one that stood out – that has stood out for me for many years – is that I write and I show dogs because they’re both so darn much fun. In fact, despite the hard work and disappointments and frustrations that come with the territory, I’ve found some of my best friends through both writing and through my dogs. I’ve laughed until I cried, and cried without laughing, and I’ve experienced profound and moving and really silly moments. Janet MacPhail, the protagonist of Drop Dead on Recall, experiences similar joys and disappointments, albeit through photography rather than writing. And that’s not all we have in common. Janet’s Australian Shepherd Jay and her orange tabby Leo are nothing if not furry, and I suspect that Janet has horrified a cashier here and there, too, with her fur-spattered clothing.


Drop Dead on Recall is available in print and ebook formats through the usual sources. If you would like an autographed copy, please consider my Drop Dead for Healthy Dogs benefit event. Your purchase of a personally inscribed book will support canine health research and small business. Visit http://www.sheilaboneham.com/dropdeadforhealthydogs.html for information.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


DROP DEAD ON RECALL        


When a top-ranked competitor keels over at a dog obedience trial, photographer Janet MacPhail is swept up in a maelstrom of suspicion, jealousy, cut-throat competition, death threats, pet-napping, and murder. She becomes a “person of interest” to the police, and apparently to major hunk Tom Saunders as well. As if murder and the threat of impending romance aren’t enough to drive her bonkers, Janet has to move her mother into a nursing home, and the old lady isn’t going quietly. Janet finds solace in her Australian Shepherd, Jay, her tabby cat, Leo, and her eccentric neighbor, Goldie Sunshine. Then two other “persons of interest” die, Jay’s life is threatened, Leo disappears, and Janet’s search for the truth threatens to leave her own life underdeveloped – for good.


 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~


Sheila Webster Boneham is the award-winning author of Drop Dead on Recall, the first book in the Animals in Focus mystery series, and seventeen nonfiction books about animals, including the highly regarded Rescue Matters! How to Find, Foster, and Rehome Companion Animals. Sheila earned her doctorate in folklore from Indiana University and has taught writing at universities in the U.S. and abroad. Knowing there’s always more to learn, she is currently completing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in the Stonecoast MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.


Sheila has been deeply involved with animals most of her life and is a strong advocate for both responsible rescue and responsible breeding. In the past two decades, she has trained and competed with her own dogs in several sports; bred highly successful Australian Shepherds under the kennel name “Perennial”; organized rescue organizations and fostered dogs; trained, handled, and assessed therapy dogs; judged dog shows. She has also given millions of belly rubs and flicked countless dog and cat hairs off her clothes!


Sheila would love to hear from you. You can follow her news and events or contact her at the following places: Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sheilawrites Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/sheilaboneham or @sheilaboneham Website at http://www.sheilaboneham.com Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/author/sheilaboneham



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Published on November 12, 2012 06:04

November 5, 2012

The Next Big Thing

The Next Big Thing by Debra H. Goldstein


A few weeks ago, author Linda Rodriguez, whose book Every Last Secret won the 2011 St. Martin’s Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition, invited me to participate in The Next Big ThingThe Next Big Thing is a tag blog post idea from She Writes that is intended to help female writers promote their works in progress by answering ten questions about their WIP.  The blogger then tags a group of other female writers for next week.   I’ll be talking about my present WIP (that two agents just requested to read), but for now, although it isn’t a work in progress, I heartily recommend reading Linda’s Every Last Secret and visiting her website, www.LindaRodriguezWrites.Blogspot.com  .


 Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing



What is your working title of your book?   The working title is JavaTime, but I need to come up with a catchy three word title that the Candi Martin series can be built around.  Quirky, perhaps dealing with a female sleuth, maj jongg, citizens who range from 6 to 86, corporate intrigue, the law…….good ideas are being sought????
Where did the idea come from for the book?  Candi Martin washed out of the police academy and is a young corporate attorney … I have a writer friend who once was a police officer and prior to becoming a judge, I was a litigator.  As a child, my mother always played maj jongg and as she has aged and I have observed the changes in her friends and her in terms of self-censorship and interacting with others, I couldn’t help juxtaposing their traits and abilities into a fictional work that also features children and grandchildren who are young enough to know it all.
What genre does your book fall under?  JavaTime is a mystery.  It will appeal to readers who enjoy cozy mysteries, female sleuths, and geezerlit, and, most of all, people who enjoy a fun read.
What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?  This is such a hard one!!!!!!   Candi is young, strong, vulnerable, bright, and has flaming red hair (perhaps Dallas Howard? Or better yet an unknown?)  The two men who come through her life have Irish jet black hair looks and nebbishy Jewish looks…..the latter could well be played by Ben Stiller while the first?…I leave to your imagination.  The maj jongg group screams for Betty White, Debbie Reynolds, France Sternhagen, Angela Lansbury and others we have grown to love for their wit, humor, grace, and style.
What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?  Okay…it is two sentences:  Police academy washout and junior corporate attorney Candi Martin must add murder-solver to balancing her legal career and regular visits to her father, who is slipping deeper into dementia at the Sunshine Village Retirement Home in Wahoo, Alabama after her estranged mother reappears, but is found a few hours later at the retirement home stabbed to death wearing another woman’s clothing.  Her parents’ secrets, corporate intrigue, interference from the Sunshine Village maj jongg game and leftover feelings for the detective assigned to her mother’s case complicate her efforts.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?  An agency, I hope.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?  About six months.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?  After my publisher for Maze in Blue, my 2012 IPPY award winning murder mystery set on the University of Michigan’s campus, ceased operations, agents told me they would like to see a new series.  I had written a short story, “Legal Magic,” (www.alalit.com 2011) that had a male protagonist and some great retirement home characters who played maj jongg and I was working on a story about a female sleuth, who had become a lawyer after deciding the police academy wasn’t right for her, and all of a sudden, it seemed like they belonged together.  Some writers say their characters talk to them, and in this case, they invaded my sleep and my waking hours until I brought them together on the page.  Now, they are drumming a sequel into my brain!
 What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?   Besides being an enjoyable read, my still to be named work in progress mixes a good plot, fun characters, and issues readers will identify with.

Next week, watch for blogs from:


T.K. Thorne — www.tkthorne.com


Gail Handler — writefromthesoulvisualeyes.blogspot.com/


Karen Cunningham – karencunningham619.wordpress.com



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Published on November 05, 2012 13:00

October 8, 2012

Guest Blog: T.K. Thorne – How Do You Know If You Are A “Real” Writer?

T.K. ThorneAuthor of Noah’s Wife – “2009 Book of the Year for Historical Fiction – ForeWord Reviews


How Do You Know if You Are A “Real Writer? by T.K. Thorne


HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE  A “REAL” WRITER?  This question has plagued me for a long time, and I saw it recently on a writing web site, so I am not the only one who has asked it. For a long time, I was unpublished and wrote in the “closet.” I was afraid if I admitted to doing it (writing, folks) I would have to face that dreaded question: “Oh, what have you published?” To which, I’d have to say, “Well, nothing… but my mother loves my stuff.” And then go crawl under a rock.


I’m sure there are people out there for whom this would not be a problem, people who have lots of self-confidence and don’t care what anyone thinks of them. I tip my hat to you. For the rest of us, what to do? Should we go to the writer’s conference and expose ourselves as wanna-be’s or should we just stay home?


Now that I have a novel published, I have the perspective to return to this perplexing question. How do you know when you are a “real” writer? What is one? Does anyone who picks up a pen or taps on the computer qualify? Do you have to be published? How many times? Does self-publishing count? Does payment in art journal copies qualify or do you have to be paid for it? If you win an award or get an honorable mention, does that jump you to the “writer status?” According to the IRS, a professional is anyone who is paid for their work. My first publication to a magazine netted me $8.48. It was a great feeling to finally reach that milestone, but somehow it didn’t make the question go away.


Is the aspired distinction merely to be found in the eye of the beholder? If I like what you write, does that make you a “writer” in my eyes, but if I don’t care for it, you aren’t? Saying someone is a “good writer” or a “bad writer,” at least slaps the tag on them, but is he/she a “real” writer? If you keep a journal under the bed and scribe in it daily, are you one or not?


Okay, I’ve asked the question, now I’ll share my epiphany. By college, I was quietly writing fiction, but I took a class in poetry because my roommate talked me into it. It turned out to be the best move I could have made. Everyone brought their hearts and souls to class with their poems. And it was brutal. I learned that there was only one rule—Does it work?


Not, does it express what you really want to say? Not, does it use alliteration and rhyme correctly? Only, does it work? You can  break rules; you can follow rules; you can cry big crocodile tears onto your paper, but the only question is that one.


So, it doesn’t matter if you are published or not, have won awards or not. It doesn’t matter what you write or how often you write. It doesn’t matter. A writer wants it to work! If it doesn’t work, a writer is willing to produce it for critique, to listen to criticism, to cut, to add, to change, to ask questions, to learn, to rewrite, to stand his/her ground, to start over, to rewrite again—whatever it takes to make it work.


Of course, you can write without being “a writer.” And there is nothing wrong with writing for your own pleasure or self discovery or for your mother. Kudos to you and keep writing! But if you have a passion to tell a story, to paint in words, to reach people, to move people, then you understand the question—Am I a “real writer?” And if you have that passion and are willing to work to make it “work,” then, in my book, you is one!


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 



T.K. Thorne retired as a captain of the Birmingham Police Department and currently serves as executive director of CAP, a business improvement district in downtown Birmingham.  Both careers have provided fodder for her writing. Her fiction, poetry, and non-fiction have been published in various venues and garnered several awards, including “Book of the Year for Historical Fiction” (ForeWord Reviews 2009) for her debut novel Noah’s Wife.  A short film from her screenplay Six Blocks Wide was a finalist in a film festival in Italy and has shown at other juried festivals in the U.S. and Europe.  She has served on several community boards, including the Alabama Writer’s Conclave.  She writes on a mountain top east of Birmingham, Alabama.  To learn more about T.K. Thorne and her writings check out her website at www.tkthorne.com .





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Published on October 08, 2012 15:29