Stephanie Verni's Blog, page 8

The Process of Getting to a Book Cover

My newest novel, The Letters in the Books, is just weeks away from launching. I’m super excited about this one, as it was two full years in the making. Writing is a labor of love for me, and I just want to tell a compelling, yet sweet story that’s perfect for a beach read.

This book was heavily influenced by Brené Brown’s research on empathy and shame. I have read her books and watched her TedTalks a million times. Her work on empathy and vulnerability in particular are interesting and worthy of your time. I tried my best to roll her findings into Meg, the empath and bookstore owner at the heart of the novel. Set in Annapolis, I hope you will enjoy this romp through five main characters’ lives and their struggles to find themselves again. The glue that brings them all together, Meg has a backstory as well, and readers learn why she writes the letters that she slides inside books to help them realize their potential, while also bringing them all together.

For fun, I thought I’d share my process of cover creation…where it began, and then reveal to you what the final cover looks like. Many of my Facebook friends were willing to give input, and the process unfolded little by little.

I’ll keep you posted as to when the novel is on sale.

Have a good and safe Memorial Day weekend!

FINAL VERSION!!!!

On the Eve of My Son’s College Graduation…

Well, the day has come. Our first-born child, Matthew, will be graduating from college tomorrow, so if you’ll permit me, I’d like to reminisce for a few moments. (You can also pass me a tissue…)

Matt and Ellie as babies; two years apart.

So many of us are at this point in our lives. They always tell us that time marches on and waits for no one and to enjoy every moment you can. And yet, here we find ourselves embarking on a new chapter in our lives. We have raised kids and are beginning to (or some of you already have) send them off into the world. As I see my friends on Facebook posting graduation photographs, I know many of us are in the same boat.

What a good feeling it is to know we’ve raised such a great a person. Matt is kind and loving and cares about people. He has been through some tough challenges, namely the passing of his very best friend, Luke. He’s navigated his college career during a pandemic. He recently broke his finger and couldn’t play the rest of his golf season on campus. He made lifelong friends in a fraternity. Yes, these are big hurdles and joys and little hurdles and joys, and yet I can’t help thinking about something my grandfather said: “If they can’t manage the little bumps in life, how will they manage the big ones?” This has certainly been true for all of us with children during the last two and a half years. They have learned how to navigate through something tough, for sure.

Last summer on vacation in Bethany/Rehoboth Beach

Tomorrow, Matt will earn his bachelor’s degree from Widener University outside Philadelphia, PA, with a degree in Business Management and with a minor in Marketing. He was in the Business Honors Program, and thanks to a professor on campus who suggested he look into a job, he’s already secured a full-time position that he’ll start in mid-June. He and his girlfriend are moving to Annapolis, and truthfully, we are just so pleased.

All these things are just great, but I always harken back to what my husband has said about raising our children from day one. Our job was to raise happy, healthy, kind, generous, and self-sufficient children. This has been most important to us, not the grades or the accolades. All of this was possible because of all the love and support he has received over the years from his grandparents, aunts and uncles, his sibling, Ellie, and all of his dear friends and colleagues.

Tomorrow we will raise a toast to Matt; we will remember Luke; and we will wish Matt and Reana all the best as they begin new chapters in their lives.

After Two Years, We Almost Have Lift Off

Just a few more days of the semester, and then I’ll be making my final edits to this book on the actual proof.

The synopsis from the back of the novel.

If you want to know my process, the steps go something like this:

1-Come up with the idea

2-Brainstorm the characters and plot

3-Begin drafting

4-Keep working on it until you type “The End,” which is not really the end, but more like a beginning

5-Begin combing through each chapter

6-Make changes (I tend to make a lot of alterations during the first round; more on the second round; and even more on the third round +)

7-Give it to beta readers when you think it’s decent

8-Get feedback from beta readers; really take into consideration what they think

9-Edit again

10-Proofread it all the way through as a reader

11-Typeset the book

12-Craft a cover

13-Receive a proof

14-Proof the proof *** This is the stage I am in now

15-Edit the final proof; clean up anything on final draft

16-Order another proof

17-Read it through one last time

18-Hopefully, it’s clean; if not, make any changes

19-Give it to ARC readers

20-Publish the damn thing

I really hope you’ll like it. I have agonized over it a lot.

How it started…The original title was called FOUR IN A YEAR. That changed to THE LETTERS IN THE BOOKS. Additionally, some of these initial aspects have changed as well. A lot can changed over two years, that’s for sure!Holding the proof.

Friday Fodder: My Obsession with Letters & Journals

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, first, THANK YOU. Second, you may have read previous posts about writing letters and letter writing, because I’m obsessed with the notion of letter writing. And, you’ve probably also read many posts here about keeping a journal, most recently the one I wrote about keeping a journal during a pandemic.

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I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: Are you going to print out a text feed or email chain and save it in your memory box? The likelihood of that is slim to none.

The Letters in the Books…coming in June.

The lost art of letter writing is truly a loss of records. When someone takes the time to write a letter or a love note, it’s so much more meaningful. You know that the person has taken the time to do this…taken time to put their thoughts on paper for you. Likewise, keeping account of your family’s history in a journal is an important thing to do. Write down all you can about your family so that you can pass it down from generation to generation. Interview your living relatives and record it. It’s not wasted time.

We wouldn’t have the historical records we have today if people had not put their feelings, emotions, and happenings of the day down on paper. It’s an incredibly romantic gesture to pen a letter. It’s also a keepsake.

I have a several letters that I’ve kept over the years that mean a lot to me. Among them include a letter from my father’s Aunt Mil, who wrote to me after we vacationed together one summer; a letter from an ice skater I liked and admired as a kid; a letter from a ballplayer who was in the minor leagues in Peoria who kindly took me to a sorority formal when I needed a date; letters from my husband when we were first dating; and letters from people who wrote to me after I helped them with something when I worked in community relations at the Orioles. I treasure all of these letters.

When I was younger, I took ice skating lessons, and we got to see Vern Taylor skate in person. I left him a note, and he wrote me back. I kinda still love that he did that for a young fan. As someone who worked in sports for a while, it’s pretty impressive when an athlete pens his own letter to a fan.

This obsession has made its way into many of my novels. In Beneath the Mimosa Tree, Annabelle finds a letter Michael had written to her from London but never mailed; in Baseball Girl, Frankie keeps a journal that we hear excerpts of throughout the novel of her time with her late father; in Inn Significant, Milly finds a journal that belonged to her late grandmother where a secret had been kept; in Little Milestones letters find their way to Nan; in Anna in Tuscany, her mother writes her a funny letter from America while she’s in Italy finding her footing; and in my upcoming novel The Letters in the Books, empath and bookstore owner Meg Ellis slips letters to customers who need to hear inspiring words inside their purchased books.

Just as inspirational quotes have the power to lift us up, so do sentimental and meaningful letters. I enjoy writing books with letters and journals as a part of the story, primarily because letters and journals can give us further glimpses into character motivations and backstory.

You may want to keep a journal to record your own story that will someday provide a backstory into your life; as well, letters as keepsakes are a great way to record history, share sentiments, offer love to the unloved, or express a love to someone you care deeply for.

Writing things down still matters, even in this extremely digitized world.

Lots of News & Updates to Share :-)

Hello, my friends. I hope you are all well.

I know it’s been a while, and I apologize for that. I also apologize that my podcasts have stalled. They will be back, but the semester has gotten the better of me. Three more weeks, and we can close the books on the Spring 2022 semester! I know the students are happy.

Because I’ve been absent for so long, I have a lot of cool news to share with you today!

First, I was honored to receive the Distinguished Teaching Fellow Award at the Eastern Communication Association Annual Convention! It was such an honor to represent Stevenson University, and I was so touched to hear what nominees wrote in their letters of nomination. A special thanks to my colleague, Dr. Leeanne Bell McManus and several others, for putting my name forward for the award. Leeanne also received the Ecroyd Excellence in Teaching Award, and I’m so proud of her. We had a great time at the convention in Philadelphia, and even got to explore Philadelphia a little bit. We also toured Widener University’s Communication Building to see what they had going on.

At the Eastern Communication Association Convention in Philly.

My husband joined me in Philly, and we visited the Eastern State Penitentiary. If you enjoyed touring Alcatraz in San Francisco, you will also enjoy touring this former prison. Left as a relic, it housed criminals of all sorts, including Al Capone for a year. While not as dark and ominous as Alcatraz, it was still nonetheless haunting. I learned a lot about prisons back in the day, and will be using some of that knowledge to help inform Rosa, a character I am writing in my work-in-progress called Dodging Love. She is a mafia boss who finds herself serving time in jail; the protagonist is a journalist who has to cover her story. I’m looking forward to finishing the first draft of this story this summer.

The haunted halls of the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA.The hospital wing of the Eastern State Penitentiary.An artist’s interpretation of the victim’s who were murdered by those in the Eastern State Penitentiary.

Also, after much ado, I have decided once again to self-publish The Letters in the Books, my current novel that has been complete for over a year. I had started to shop it out, but then decided to pull that back. I am quite happy being an indie author, and would love to spend more time working on my writing career. It’s such a passion of mine, I’m looking forward to pouring my heart and soul into it this summer. The proof of the novel will be in my hands tomorrow (yippee!), and I am looking for ARC readers at the moment. Just one more read through, and I’ll get it into some people’s hands.

The Letters in the Books — COMING VERY SOON! A little bit about the novel here.

Finally, tonight I will be attending the Maryland Bards Poetry event in Annapolis, where I will be reading my poem Cracking, A Sonnet, that was selected for the anthology. I have never shared my poetry orally, so this will be interesting. Congratulations to all the poets who were selected to be included in the Maryland Bards Anthology!

Maryland Bards Poetry Anthology

That’s all for now. Have a wonderful weekend!

Stephanie Verni is the author of contemporary fiction, all available at Amazon.com and BN.com, as well as at Park Books in Severna Park and Bethany Beach Books in Bethany Beach, DE.

Why I Stopped Having Oscar Parties

This could be the shortest post in the world, or the longest, but for your sake, I’ll make it as succinct as possible.

I stopped having Oscar parties because I stopped caring about Hollywood. That’s it. That’s the truth. I no longer cared, after being that person who cared a lot and was a film lover. Other things took over my life, namely my family, my job, my writing, and the occasional bit of travel we could fit into the mix.

In Hollywood a few years ago.

Don’t get me wrong, I still watch movies, I just don’t care to “hear” too much from celebs. Sometimes when I know too much about a celebrity or their opinions, I get turned off, and then I refuse to watch their movies. It’s better for me to not know too much about them. When they get too full of themselves or become overly preachy, I’m out. I don’t always want to hear their opinions. I know they have their passions, and that’s cool. Let other people who love them hear about them. I just wasn’t going to be one of them.

Plus, to be honest, I started missing the feeling of old Hollywood—of when it was classy and electric. There used to be glamour and glitz and decorum associated with the Academy Awards, and as we learned from this year’s Oscars, that came to a shocking halt and had the internet churning. When I saw the clip from the “slap heard around the world” (that sounded more like a punch), I was appalled, as many were. I was glad I wasn’t watching it live and only saw the clips because you couldn’t avoid it on Twitter.

To put into perspective what a big deal it is that I no longer have extravagant Oscar parties would be to equate it to my husband giving up watching The Masters or the World Series or the Super Bowl.

Hollywood isn’t what it was, in my humble opinion. In fact, with streaming services like Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime among others, people aren’t revering cinema as it once was. We don’t have to go to the theatre to watch a movie. We can stream them right into the comfort of our own living rooms. Additionally, I think we can all probably agree that some of the best entertainment we are finding today are on these platforms. Shows like Game of Thrones, Broadchurch, Call the Midwife, After Life, All Creatures Great and Small, and The Chosen have captured my heart.

Furthermore, here’s the best part: I have actually survived not watching the Oscars for the last four years. Nothing tragic has happened to me because I decided not to watch. I have just decided to put my energy elsewhere. For those of you who still enjoy the awards show, more power to you.

You see, that’s the beauty of freedom of choice: we can watch or not watch. The decision is entirely up to you.

My Favorite Villain

The other day in class, one of my students told me that he decided to re-watch Game of Thrones. We’ve talked about this show before in class. He then told me which characters he would like to play in the show, if he ever had the opportunity. Of course, he picked some of the good guys.

He almost fell out of his chair when I told him that I would want to play Cersei Lannister. “She’s my favorite character on the show.”

“You’re kidding! She’s so bad!” he exclaimed, wide-eyed and surprised.

“I know. Wouldn’t it be fun to play someone like that? She’s just so darn rotten.”

And she is.

The truth is, in all of the fiction I’ve read and in all of the movies and television shows I’ve seen, Cersei is my absolute favorite villain. George R.R. Martin knew what he was doing. Additionally, selecting her as my favorite villain has to do with the way Lena Headey played Cersei in the popular series. Her voice, mannerisms, choice of words, pride, narcissism, poor choices, thirst for power, and her disregard for others—even the ones she supposedly loves—make her one of the best villains ever. In the second to last episode when the two key women in the show, Cersei and Daenerys Targaryen, go head to head in their quest for power, Cersei quickly becomes the underdog. We worry for her safety even though we hate her with a passion.

Because that’s the thing about a really good villain. She has to have some redeeming qualities, be it only a few, to relate to her in some way. There are moments when you think she’s normal—a loving and kind mother, perhaps—and other times that she is so ruthless you are left with your mouth agape at her actions (remember what she did to the sept?)

I used to think the green witch in The Wizard of Oz was my favorite villain. Growing up watching this film over and over and over again, she was pure wickedness. However, there’s no backstory for her. How did she become wicked? What drove her to wickedness? What, if any, redeeming qualities did that witch have? In the original story, these questions cannot be answered.

Cersei Lannister, from Games of Thrones on HBO.

The same is not true for Cersei. We understood what caused her to become vicious. We understood her family dynamic, her connection to Jamie, her twin, and her father’s love for no one. We understood her complicated relationship with her other brother, Tyrion. The bigger picture is told to us drip by drip, and we get why she turned out the way she did. Which is why there are moments along the way where we stop and think: maybe she can be redeemed.

Luckily for us, she never was. She remained the perfect villain throughout the series. Arya Stark announces to the guards as she approaches King’s Landing that she has “come to kill Cersei,” and we all rejoice, thinking Arya will be the one who will take her down. We’re rooting for Arya—and anyone else who wants to punt Cersei from the Red Keep.

But it’s not Arya who does the deed. It’s another character who we think is all goodness, and then changes at the last minute, her thirst for power too great to overcome. (Truthfully, we saw signs of this character’s dark turn throughout, but it was nonetheless shocking when it actually happened).

All this to say, and we know this to be true, villains are fun to dissect. Moreover, as the great Simon Sinek says and I’ve found this to be true in all I do and write, you have to know the “why” behind anything to make it valuable. Cersei’s why was clear. So was Arya’s. So was Daenerys’.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I’m writing a book set in the late 1950s with my first female villain in it. I have to construct her carefully so that you feel both empathy and detestation for her and what she will do to her own sister. She’s ruthless in her own way. Perhaps we know people like this in real life that can play into how we craft our characters?

There’s a lot to learn from deconstructing bad guys. Or in this case, bad girls.

Watch Your Step, Distracted Walking Can Cause an Injury

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Yesterday on my ride to work, I learned some startling statistics about distracted walking. The ironic part of the study are the statistics, that go something like this:

In the United States, 78% of adults believe that distracted walking is a “serious” issue. But the humorous part is that they believe it’s the “other people” who are committing this hazard.

Only 29% of those polled said that they, themselves, do it, too.

From AAOS.ORG

Additionally, 4 out of 10 people say they have watched a distracted walking incident happen, and 26% of people admit to having been in a walking accident themselves.

Truthfully, this is no laughing matter. In fact, pedestrian deaths have risen 35% between 2008 and 2017.

The moral of hearing these shocking statistics—and I was shocked to hear them yesterday—is that we need to pay attention, people. We need to get our faces out of our phones.

How can you prevent an incident? Here are some quick tips compiled from aaos.org:

Use your headphones responsibly. Don’t turn the volume up so high you can’t hear outside noise.If you need to talk on the phone or write a text, “pull yourself over” to do so.Pay attention to your surroundings as you walk.Avoid jaywalking (you should do this anyway, but here’s a reminder to do so).Look up. That’s it. Look up. Be aware.

So, be smart, my friends, and try not to become one of these statistics.

Sunday Positive Thoughts (Post The Chosen)

It’s been nice to hear that many of you were inspired by my recent post about how moved I was by the The Chosen, a series about the life of Jesus Christ from the perspective of his disciples. I’m so glad that you have decided to watch it. Certainly, with what is happening in Ukraine right now, combined with it being the Catholic Lenten Season, as I often say out loud, we could all use some of Jesus’s teachings of kindness and love right about now.

Additionally, instead of giving something up for Lent, I decided to focus on doing positive things. The first is that I downloaded the Hallow app onto my iPhone. It’s an amazing and wonderful (truly) app, and it is filled with gospels, homilies, music, psalms, meditations, and more. Jonathan Roumie (who plays Jesus in The Chosen) and Jim Caviezel (who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ) are two of the many narrators who read scripture, including Father Mike Schmitz, who shares the most beautiful homilies I may have ever heard (seriously, these homilies are directed at us today; they are contemporary and very relatable. I mean, Fr. Mike even references Brené Brown and Simon Sinek, two people I quote often in my college communication courses)! This app has everything you could possibly need to help you become more prayerful.

Second, while I do own a lovely Bible, I decided to get another, more interactive one. I bought the Tyndale NLT Inspire PRAISE Bible in purple hardcover. Inside, the Bible offers the opportunity to color and journal your thoughts. My idea is that I will make it my personal Bible journey and leave it behind as an heirloom to my children down the road. They say coloring helps alleviate stress, so what better way to feel at peace than with a Bible that you can write and color in; for $30.99 on Amazon, it’s a great price for a (very) large book with places to scribe your thoughts, prayers, or even journal special moments you are thankful for in life.

The Inspire Praise Bible

Finally, as I’ve moved away from listening to depressing radio talk and news shows and TV shows that are not uplifting and positive, I’ve been tuning into The Message on SiriusXM during my commute to and from work (this is not new for me; I’ve been doing this for years). However, on Friday during the noon hour, the show featured acoustic performances by Jon Reddick, Austin French, and Jason Gray. I caught an acoustic version of God, Turn it Around performed by Jon Reddick, and it was so powerful, it gave me goosebumps. Additionally, on the Hallow app, you can hear music that ranges from choirs to instrumentals to more contemporary groups. I happened to fall in love with the song I’m sharing below by The Vigil Project called Lord Have Mercy.

So, my friends, I’m leaving you with two songs to enjoy on this Sunday, if you are inclined to listen.

Podcast 5: What I’ve Learned From Reading Other Authors

The Things I’ve Learned from Reading, Podcast 5

The Podcast:

The Transcript:

When I was a child, my mother says I was always on the move and didn’t really have the patience to sit and read a book. I would read, but as I moved into my teenage years, other things were occupying my time, and reading wasn’t one of those things.

Fast forward to high school and Ms. Susek and my creative writing class I took. It was the one class I could really sink my teeth into. I loved that class, and it fostered a love of creative writing that I still hold today. As you heard in last week’s podcast, I went back to school in my forties to earn an MFA in Creative Writing. From high school on, I wanted to be a published author, and we’ll get to that discussion sometime down the road.

But it was around the time of Ms. Susek’s class that I began to read, especially in the summer. I started picking up novels that may not have been considered literary works of art, but I was enjoying them. I remember reading The Valley of the Dolls, and I couldn’t put it down. I read some Jackie Collins novels for fun, and then I found Rosamunde Pilcher and The Shell Seekers, and my life began to change. Reading Rosamunde Pilcher’s books made me want to write even more, and I ended up taking an elective course in my first master’s degree in professional writing with the late, great Dr. George Friedman called Writing Short Fiction. Again, I fell in love with reading and writing all over again. It was then I knew I wanted to try my hand at writing a novel. Again, a conversation for later.

But what I learned from reading, besides the obvious, is to attend to the writer’s style and manner of storytelling. I think this is why we love to read a variety of writers; different writers have different styles, and those styles can help inform our own writing. This is not to say that we may want to try to imitate another writers’ writing style, but the ways in which they go about storytelling intrigues me.

Pilcher’s books are character driven, and I love that. I love getting to know characters so well that I don’t want to leave them—I want the books to continue. Figuring out how to make your characters that intriguing and interesting takes time, but by studying the great writers (and what I mean by the great writers is this – those writers who pull you, personally, into their stories), we can learn a lot about how to develop characters that we like to write. Another one of Pilcher’s books called Coming Home, is probably my favorite, and I loved reading her books because you are drawn in so effortlessly.

Reading is a way to escape, we all know this. It helps us feel less alone. But as someone who is trying to build up my own base of readers, understanding the nuances of storytelling is a must. Reading allows us to be both entertained by the writers we choose to read and be educated by them in the art of storytelling.

Reading Books – one of my favorite things to do.

Of late, my favorite genre-specific writer I enjoy dissecting is Jojo Moyes. Her stories are very much like the ones I tell—character-driven, dialogue heavy, and (hopefully) entertaining. Enjoying contemporary storytellers invites us to pull up a chair and dissect the ways in which they work to deliver a narrative that is appealing enough to become a bestseller. It’s always interesting to see what sells.

Admittedly, I’m not a big fantasy reader. I like a little bit of it, but it’s not typically my genre. However, Erin Morgenstern’s book, The Night Circus, had a huge impact on my writing. Reading her book pushed me to be creative in ways I hadn’t before, and I tried a new way of storytelling after seeing how marvelously Morgenstern constructed her story. It’s magical and whimsical; it’s poetic and literally beautiful. Sometimes I think we should push ourselves to read something that’s not typically in our wheelhouse, just to get a glimpse into something different that could potentially be eye-opening.

I could talk about this subject for hours, but I promised these podcasts would be short. So, let’s end today by simply stating a true fact: Reading can take you places you’ve never been, offer insights on things you’ve not considered, and entertain you in ways that other mediums cannot, because you must rely on your own imagination to fill in the blanks.

I’d say that’s a pretty powerful thing.

Stay positive and bright,

Stephanie