J. Kenner's Blog, page 106

The Right To Love

I’ve known N.G. (Nick) Osborne several years ago via my various adventures in Hollywood, and I am beyond thrilled that his first book, Refuge, is not only available, but garnering rave reviews!

Please welcome him to the blog today! (And don’t forget about my holiday contest! You’ll find the Rafflecopter entry form at the end of this post!)

When we think of the struggle for women’s rights, the rights we most often think of are the right to vote, the right to property and the right to work and equal pay. These are all phenomenally important rights, and ones that women in the West have fought hard to secure. However I would argue that the most important right of all is the right to love.

 

Many of the novels I’ve been most drawn to in this life – Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, Pride & Prejudice, Middlemarch – have had at their heart these incredibly strong and courageous women; women who’ve battled the popular perceptions of their time and have courageously loved despite the obstacles and scorn flung their way.

 

Now 150 years later, it may seem as if their struggle is antiquated. But what these women fought for in the nineteenth century is exactly what so many women in the Muslim women are struggling for now.

 

20 years ago I spent 12 months as an idealistic, young aid worker teaching in a school and an Afghan refugee camp on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan. It was one of the most eye opening experiences of my life. I had never seen a woman in a burqa before and the only thing more shocking was the fact that most women wore them. In the main, the women there were third class citizens living in a patriarchal feudal system with few rights. Yet the rights they did have were strangely the ones that Western women had fought hardest to secure, namely the right to vote, the right to work (if only in the most menial of jobs) and the right to property (a central tenet of Islam).

 

The one right they didn’t have was the right to love.

 

Here are the facts. The United Nations estimates that 50% of all Afghan girls are forced into marriage before reaching the age of 15. Pakistan is the 3rd most dangerous country in the world for women with 1000 women and girls murdered every year in ‘honor killings’ and 150 suffering horrendous acid attacks. Most rapes go unreported and the reason is simple: unless a woman has four male witnesses it is almost certain that she will be charged with adultery or a ‘moral crime’. In Afghanistan 87% of women have experienced some form of ‘intimate violence’ – i.e. either a forced marriage or physical, sexual or psychological abuse. In many areas of Afghanistan the practice of ‘baad’ is common in which girls are given away to settle disputes between families.

 

This is why of all rights, the freedom to love is the one that should be most cherished and hardest fought for. For when a woman is not allowed to love whom she wants, she is in essence being told that her feelings are worthless and when you cannot act on your feelings you are no more than an emotional prisoner. Conversely if men can control whom a woman marries, they will never respect their opinions or look upon them as anything but their property.

 

On the other hand, if women are free to love (and free to suffer its consequences) they own the essence of who they are and all other freedoms will follow. Further men will come to look upon them as equals – for, if nothing else, in order to gain a wife they’ll have to earn their love and respect. In my opinion, this is the underlying message of all the great novels I mentioned earlier.

 

I am an optimist, as Frankin Roosevelt said in his fourth inaugural “the great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward”. Yet if there is one area in which Western women could stand with their Muslim counterparts, I would argue that this is it.

 

The progress maybe glacially slow in many parts of the Muslim world, however I believe it will come and when it does, when all women are free to love whom they want and their men accept this fact, I believe the world, in turn, will be a more tolerant and peaceful place.

N.G. (Nick) Osborne is the author of Refuge, a love story set in Peshawar, Pakistan in 1991 between Charlie, an American aid worker, and Noor, an Afghan refugee. Called “the discovery of the year” by Henry Fitzherbert at the London Sunday Express, and based on his experience as an aid worker, it is a timeless and unforgettable story about the struggle for love and purpose in a cruel and cynical world.

I hope you check out Refuge — I was lucky to snag an early read, and it deserves the praise it’s been getting! You can learn more about the book and about Nick (and read his blog telling more of the story behind the book) at his website, www.ngosborne.com

I’d love to hear your thoughts on Nick’s post — and by sharing them, you can also enter the holiday contest!



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Spamalot! and NOT the musical!

Okay, folks.  Time to check out your spam folders.  You just may be a winner!

Mr. Wang Shu, for example, wants me to keep his proposal top secret. Apparently, he would like me to contact him about “details as regards to the transfer

of $6,500,000.00 to you. This money initially belongs to

a client who died and had no next of kin in his account-opening

package.” Man, that poor client. And $6.5M to open an account. And now I have the chance to have all that money transferred to me. I’m overwhelmed. Truly. By Wang the wanker’s generosity.

Mr. Charles Brown, Esq. was more, um, thorough in his vetting of me before offering to send me the big bucks:

I am Mr. Charles Brown, a Canadian attorney based in United Kingdom .I am reaching out to you in respect of an investment opportunity.

I am soliciting your assistance in repatriating the funds and property left behind by my late client before it is declared unserviceable by the bank where the huge deposit is lodged and confiscated by the government.

On the 3rd day of January 2004, my client and his wife along with their two children were among the victims of Boeing 737 Egyptian Airliner that crashed into the Red Sea. You can read more about the crash by visiting this website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/po...

Do note that your identity or country of origin does not matter. I will give you more information upon your response.

If this proposal is acceptable to you, kindly email your following information to me:

A. Private telephone and fax numbers.

B. Your postal/residential address.

C. Identification/Occupation.

Yes, indeed, Mr. Brown, sir. I’ll be getting right on that.

Of course, not all my spam is financial. There’s quite a bit of medical related spam, too: Apparently I can get codeine and viagra without a prescription (presumably, having one doesn’t mean you require the other), and if I really, really want, I have just a whole multitude of options for enlarging my penis. (I’ll be getting right on that, too….)

Then again, some are slightly intriguing. Emery Cat, for example (yes, my cat could do with having her nails trimmed). And the Mystery Shopper spam. I could be a mystery shopper. Oh, yes. I could….

And the spam that really cracks me up: the messages from myself. Legit messages that I’ve bcc’d myself on. Hello? THAT’s spam?

So how about y’all? What’s your funniest spam message? Most persistent? Most freaky?  This post originally appeared at The Whine Sisters.  Recycled post, just like recycled ham product!   Pop over there and check out what’s going on today!

And don’t forget to enter my holiday contest!

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The Best and Worst Things About Being a Writer

Leave a comment below to be entered in Melinda’s giveaway for a copy of She Can Tell!

I hope everyone is having a fabulous holiday season! As we count down to 2013, I’m thrilled to have Melinda Leigh guest blogging today about the best and worst things about being a writer!

If you haven’t read Melinda’s breathtaking romantic suspense novels, now’s your chance! She’s giving away a kindle or print copy of She Can Tell (winner’s choice) to one lucky commenter! So be sure to leave a note below!

The 5 Best things about being writer:

1. Working at home. I have the best possible commute: coffee machine to desk. It doesn’t get any better than this.

2. Every day is casual day. PJs and slippers is A-okay with my boss (me).

3. Flexible schedule. I can work anytime. I have the flexibility to be available when my kids or other members of the family need me.

4. I get to hang out with my dogs and cats all day.

5. I get paid to make up stories. Seriously, how cool is this? The overactive imagination that plagued me in my childhood has become a viable career. I’ve had plenty of jobs that I hated. Loving what I do is truly a wondrous thing that I appreciate right through to my soul every single day.

The 5 worst things about being a writer:

1. Working at home. Everyone knows I’m there. Can you…?

2. Every day is casual day. This is a particular problem during the final stages of writing a book, when it becomes all consuming. It’s 5:30 p.m. I haven’t showered or gotten dressed. My husband and kids are giving me the sniff test, and I realize all I’ve eaten today is coffee, 6 bowls of Frosted Flakes, and a Hershey bar.

3. Flexible schedule. I can work anytime, remember? Which is why I’m up at 11:00 p.m. still working. Being a writer means doing a lot of things other than writing a book. Promotions, web site maintenance, accounting, etc. Plus, I still have all the home/mom stuff to do. It makes for some long nights.

It’s a really good think I love writing because I spend a lot of time doing it.

4. I get to hang out with my dogs and cats all day. When I’m working 12 hours a day (like this week and probably next), sometimes my longest conversations are with my furry housemates. By the end of next week, they might start talking back. They’ll probably criticize my manuscript, especially the cats.

5. My overactive imagination takes unexpected vacations now and then, and sometimes it generates some truly awful story ideas.

So, there you have it. Being a writer is the BEST job in the entire world. It is. A day doesn’t go by, even the most frustrating one, when I don’t wake up and worry that the last two years are a dream and that someone is going to pinch me. Or, even worse, that I am currently writing the worst book in the world and it will bring my dream crashing down on my head.

Writing is also hard work, much harder than I imagined back in the days before deadlines and multiple projects and promotion and copyedits. I work 7 days a week. I have taken only a handful of days off in the last 6 months.

 

Are there things you both love and hate about your job?

 

Melinda Leigh is a fully recovered banker, wife, mom, lifelong dog lover, and second degree black belt in kenpo karate. She is the author of SHE CAN RUN, a 2012 Thriller Award nominee and a 2012 top 100 Kindle Bestseller. Her latest book, SHE CAN TELL, released December 4th. Find out more about Melinda at her website, on Facebook and on Twitter!

J.K. here … I can SO identify with everything Melinda says!!!  

Thanks again to Melinda for blogging today! Be sure to leave a comment for her contest! And don’t forget about my December holiday contest–enter that one using Rafflecopter!

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Twitter for Newbies (Part 1: Set-up, Following, Tweeting and Responding)

I recently set up a Twitter list for a group of traditionally published authors (myself included) who are selling new and backlist copy in digital format. (You can find us at https://twitter.com/juliekenner/kindleklatch-authors - come on, follow along! You may find an author you love!)

In the process, I learned that Twitter is a confusing little birdie for a lot of folks. And I figured if there were a few people who were still finding their way around Twitter in my very small sampling, then there are probably a lot more people out there in cyberspace who want to figure out this whole Twitter thing, but are still a bit baffled by it.

So this series of posts is for you! I’m starting with the basics and I’ll move on to cover more complicated stuff (like using apps like Hootsuite to organize hashtag searches and lists — don’t worry if that doesn’t make sense yet. It will!)

Right here is a video I did on how to set up a Twitter account.  I, however, hate blogs that put all the information in a video, so I’ve also set it out with text and pictures below.  So if you’re a video person, fab.  Enjoy!  But if, like me, you want to strangle instructional videos posted without transcripts, then read on.  It’s not a transcript, but the information is the same!

Getting Set Up On Twitter

First of all, you need a Twitter account. Go to http://www.twitter.com and set one up. Right now, the page looks like this (see where it tells you to set-up a new account? Just follow those instructions.

Once you have a Twitter “handle” (mine is JulieKenner) then you’re ready to rock-and-roll.

Put in all the info and it will take you to another page that lets you pick your userID.  I just created a silly one (Me_And_My_Id) but you want to use the Name You Publish Under so that readers can find you.  (An exception to this is if you have multiple pen names.  I do, and for a while I tried to manage multiple twitter accounts.  It’s a pain in the butt.  I finally decided that I tweet as me (Julie Kenner) about all the names I write as (Julie Kenner, J.K. Beck, J. Kenner).  MUCH easier.  And, hey, I call it cross promotion!

This is the screen you’ll see when you’re setting up your Twitter username

Once you have your username set up, you will go to a screen that will walk you through the next few steps.  First of all, it’s going to suggest some people for you to follow. (You have to add a few people before it will show a grayed out box at the bottom of their suggested list.  Then you can — finally — skip to your profile).

The Profile Section

When you get to the “Add a Character” page, let’s pause.  There, you want to upload an image.  If you’re a writer, upload a nice, clean image of yourself (not your book).  Twitter’s about hanging out.  Selling your books is a nice side-benefit, but mostly you want to think of it as hanging out at a cocktail party.

The page where you add your website.

Your bio is important.  You only have 160 characters. Make it entertaining, but also make it be about who you are and what you do.  I did a silly one for My Id, but my real bio on Twitter is Author. Mom. Homeschooler. Love film, coffee, wine, chocolate, books. I also write as J.K. Beck & J. Kenner. My erotic romance, Release Me, is coming soon!

But you want them to get to your website, right?  And learn more about you!  So you need to add the website link.  Go to the little gear-looking thing in the top right of the screen.  Click the arrow and pull down to “Settings”. Once there, you can add a link to your site (see the image above for what the page looks like).

This is where you set up your profile

Here’s a tip, though, that I took from Michael Hyatt. Instead of leading to my site’s main page, I created a specific landing page for Twitter traffic. That allows me to expand the 160 character bio to something longer and more engaging. You can see my About J.K. Twitter landing page here.  (And there, you can also see that I’ve blinged up the background for my Twitter page.)

Now, this post isn’t going to delve into doing special wallpaper for Twitter (it’s easier than it sounds, but I’ll save it for later), but you do want to pick a design. Again, use that pulldown menu to modify the various elements of the look of your twitter site.

There you go! You have a basic Twitter site! Congrats!

Yeah, well, so what? What now?

Well, that is the question of the day, isn’t it? There are a lot of topics to cover ranging from how to follow people, how to Tweet, how to reply, how to insert links and pictures, how to follow a list of people, how to create a list, how to use an application such as Hootsuite to make all that easier, how to organize and find things using hashtags (#), how to interpret all the acronyms such as RT and DM.

Never fear, it’s not as overwhelming as it sounds. We’re going to take the easiest ones today and save the others for later.  On board right now:

how to Tweet
how to follow somebody
how to “talk” to somebody specific
how to reply
how to share Cool Stuff with your Twitter world using “retweet”

First off, Twitter makes a lot more sense if you think of it as a giant cocktail party that is so big that even though you know a decent number of people there, you probably aren’t standing right next to them.  You want to move through the party and get your buds within earshot distance.  Keep that analogy in mind as we go through this.

How to Tweet

You arrive at the party. You’re so thrilled, you just want to shout out “Hello, everyone!”

You do that by “tweeting”.  Folks who are “following you” (near you at the cocktail party) will hear you.

At the party, you holler.  On Twitter, you click on the little box in the upper right that looks like a piece of paper.  A box opens.  You say your hello in 140 characters or less.  You click the button that says Tweet.  (On some pages on the Twitter screen, there is also a “Tweet here” box.  You can use that, too.  But the blue paper is always in the top right of your screen.

How to get involved in the conversation:  Follow somebody!

Folks are friendly on Twitter.  Many will follow you back if you follow them.  You can use the search box at the top of the page to find friends (or celebrities or anybody) and follow them.  Once you’re following people, all the tweets from all the people you’re following show up in your “twitterfeed”.  (I follow a lot of people; it’s too much.  I can’t keep track of the folks I want to know about at any particular time without using lists.  We’ll talk about those in the next post in this series.)

To follow somebody, just click on the button on their profile that says “Follow”.  Try it for me.  Put Julie Kenner or @juliekenner in the little search bar at the top of the page.  See my profile come up?  Now click the box that says “Follow” (after you do, Twitter will helpfully recommend other folks for you to follow!)  (I do not autofollow people, so I won’t see that you’ve followed me unless you Tweet to me, which I’ll show you how to do below. Tweet me with something like: Hey, @juliekenner. Liked the blog post.  Follow me?

Once you are following folks, your stream can get crowded.  The image is what my twitter stream page looks like:

This is what your Twitter feed looks like

 

How to Talk to Someone or Reply to someone:

So, once you have followers, chances are you want to engage them in conversation.  (This is even more detailed in the video, so if any of this doesn’t make sense, try that route before you pull your hair out.)

All you need to do is hover over a tweet by someone in your timeline.  Options pop up beneath.  You want “reply”

Click that.  See how Twitter fills in @Person for you?  Don’t delete that!  That’s they’re address on Twitter (mine is @juliekenner.  yours is @YourUsername)

Leave that at the beginning and type your short message.  Click to send.  Voila!  Technically you are replying to their tweet, but you can also use that opportunity to start an entirely new conversation.

If someone you want to talk with isn’t in your stream, use the Blue Box Up Top to simply start a conversation:  Hey, @juliekenner.  What’s up?  (The @juliekenner means the message will come to me).

So where do you find the messages that come to you?

See the list on the top of your page?  There is Home, @ Connect, # Discover, and Me

Home: Your twitter stream (everything from everyone you follow).  In otherwords, all the folks at the cocktail party that you’ve bumped into.

@Connect: Stuff folks are saying to you.

# Discover: specific conversations at the party that you can eavesdrop on.  Maybe #amwriting or #ameating or #ebooks or #vampirediaries — the list is huge (and we’ll talk more about hastags later)

Me: essentially everything that you’ve posted.

How to share cool stuff using Retweet

Sometimes, neat stuff will come into your stream and you want to share it with your followers (remember, they don’t see your stream).  You want to “retweet”.

Just click on “retweet” instead of “reply” and it goes out from you, so your followers see it!

(There are actually two ways to RT, but we’ll talk about that next time).

So there you have it! You’re no longer a Total Newbie! We’ll move on next time and you’ll be up to Journeyman user…woot!

Feeling full up with the knowledge?  Has it helped?   Got specific questions or comments? Leave them below and I’ll try to address them in the next day or so!



And don’t forget to enter my holiday contest!

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Fab gift idea for the music lover in your family!

According to my husband, this Complete RCA Collection of Arturo Toscanini’s music used to retail for about $1500.

He knows, because back in the day when we were first married, he coveted it. But early marriage finances do not support one-thousand plus purchases.

But now …

Now it’s right at $100! How sweet is that?

Santa? Are you listening? (And, you know, don’t say a word to my husband …)

And speaking of gifts … don’t forget to enter the holiday contest!

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Still of the Night – great holiday suspense!

Looking for something suspenseful for the holiday? Check out Dee Davis’s Still of the Night, only 99 cents for the Kindle!  (I have a paper copy on my keeper shelf, but snagged me a copy for my Kindle.  Score!)

Five Minute Fudge Recipe (this stuff is awesome!)

Recipe time! Five Minute Fudge. One of my faves!

This is the best fudge I have ever had. Swear. I am not a fan of candy store fudge. This fudge has the right texture, the right taste, and it is so, so, so easy to make. (I only make it during the holidays, otherwise I would have to buy new clothes every other week …)

This is my mom’s recipe, no idea where she got it. But I’ve been eating it since I was tiny, and making it since I was allowed to do stuff at the stove.

I’ve added a few of my own comments/tips into the directions below.

Let me know what you think!

FIVE MINUTE FUDGE

2 T. butter

2/3 c. undiluted Carnation Evaporated Milk

1 2/3 c. sugar

1/2 t. salt

2 c. miniature marshmallows

1 1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 t. vanilla

1/2 c. chopped nuts (optional) (**I have never made it with nuts, so caveat eator. ha!)

Combine butter, evaporated milk, sugar and salt in saucepan over medium heat. Bring to boil. Cook 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly. (Start timing when the mixture begins to bubble around the edges of the pan, and lean toward the 5 minute end-I find that works better. This is the crucial step. You really do have to stir the entire time, otherwise the fudge doesn’t set right.)

Remove from heat. Stir in the marshmallows, chips and vanilla (and nuts if you’re using them). Mix it all up well. (Do it fast, as it will start to harden as you’re stirring.)

Stir until it’s all blended (about 1 minute).

Pour into 8 inch buttered square pan.

Refrigerate to cool. Cut into squares. Eat. Enjoy the party in your mouth.

Two more tips: If the mixture wasn’t getting harder as you stirred, put in the freezer instead of the fridge for a half-hour or so to help the hardening process along.

Cut before it’s completely hard. Much easier that way.

And since this is a holiday recipe, don’t forget to enter my holiday contest!

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Scene Rescue: When Collaborators Disagree—And Live To Tell The Tale

I’m so excited that Ruth Harris is guest-blogging today!  Ruth is a New York Times and ebook bestselling author of romantic women’s fiction. With her husband, Michael, she writes thrillers. (How cool is that?)  Coming up soon is The Chanel Caper, a romantic comedy-mystery starring a baby boomer couple.

I particularly love Ruth’s description of The Chanel Caper -”chick lit for chicks who weren’t born yesterday.”  It addresses “the two most important questions of our time: 1) Is there sex after marriage? 2) Is sixty the new forty?” (I hope so, because that puts me back in my twenties!  Whoo-hoo!)

Ruth is blogging about collaboration.  I’ve done a couple of collabs now (novels and screenplays) and my experiences have been great, but not without challenges.  Ruth’s insight is awesome! 

Without further ado … here’s Ruth!

Love doesn’t always run a smooth path (no kidding!) and neither does collaboration. There are inevitably going to be times when you and your co-author—in my case my DH, Michael—don’t see a character, a scene, even a line of dialogue the same way.

Most of the time while we were writing our thriller, Hooked, Michael and I were in synch but there was one scene about which we had radically different opinions. I hated it so much I deleted it. Michael, appalled, retrieved it from the trash.

The scene occurs midway through the book and involves two characters. One is Gavin Jenkins, the brilliant and charismatic doctor who is at the center of the story. The other is Adriana Partos, a world-famous concert pianist who retired at the request of her lover, billionaire tycoon, Nicky Kiskalesi. Now, however, Nicky misses Adriana’s fame and celebrity and wants her to come out of retirement.

The problem is that a severe arthritic condition has made it impossible for Adriana to play. Nicky, who didn’t get rich by giving up, suggests she consult Gavin Jenkins, a miracle-working celebrity doctor who, it seems, can cure almost anything. Adriana, reluctant but also afraid of losing Nicky, agrees to meet with Gavin.

As the scene was originally written, Adriana dislikes Gavin for intuitive reasons: she finds him slick and cold although no specific reasons are given. The scene, based on her instinctive dislike, seemed weak and unconvincing to me: ergo, the delete button. Michael convinced me the scene was necessary and could be made to work.

The question was: how? I trust Michael’s opinions so we had several conversations about why I hated the scene and why he thought it essential. We finally got to an agreement point when we decided that “something” specific had to happen in the scene to validate Adriana’s dislike and distrust of Gavin, a dislike so intense that she slaps him and walks out of his consulting room.

Having no idea of what the “something” was, I went to the computer to rewrite the scene. I took out the language referring to her “intuitive” dislike of his “coldness” and “hidden” personality. When I got to the exact lines that describe Gavin taking her arm in an intimate, almost caressing way & giving her the shot for which he has become known, the words, coming straight from my unconscious to the keyboard, emerged on the screen: “You’ve never felt this good, have you?” he whispers as he presses down on the syringe and the fluid enters her vein.

That brief line of dialogue—completely unanticipated—was a result of our previous conversations about the characters and the scene and gave us the “something” we needed.

In response, Adriana slaps Gavin, he calls her a bitch and tries to give her a second (different) injection but, by then, she has left. The scene ends with her standing outside his office and remembering the bulge in his pants. Had she been seeing things? Imagining things? Or had he had an erection as he administered the shot?

Since we already know about Gavin’s sexual kinks from earlier scenes, we now had a compelling scene that advances the plot, creates conflict between Adriana and the gifted doctor whose help she will need and adds a new dimension to Gavin’s intriguing, mysterious character.

Sometimes disagreement is the friction that produces the pearl. You just have to get from there to here.

J.K. here again:  Thanks so much Ruth!  I’ve had the same experience collaborating — does it make me weird to say that I actually love that disagreement process?  Some of the best scenes come when you push yourself even further, and I think that collaborating often facilitates that.  You’re forced to look at scenes, characters, whatever from a different angle, and that often leads to a new and better perspective!

Readers, you can visit Ruth (and learn more about all of her books!) at her lively blog,  http://ruthharrisblog.blogspot.com/

So tell us, for you writers out there, have you ever tried to collaborate?  For that matter, even you non-writers have probably collaborated on projects (heck, even buying a house is a project between spouses that requires collaboration!  i.e., do you or do you not need that extra bathroom?  hint: the answer is always yes!).  How did it go?  Good experience?  Bad experience?

And don’t forget to enter my holiday contest!

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Flowers in the Attic and other Guilty Secrets

Yeah, I read this book waaaaay too many times!

What do incestuous ballerinas, demons, and erotica have in common?

Well, that would be me!

Yes, it’s true. I spent much of my youth reading (and re-reading) the Flowers in the Attic series. (I even took the series as my pool-side reading on my honeymoon!)

My movie guilty pleasures run more towards the romantic-cry-at-the-ending kind. Pretty Woman, anyone?

But, hey, why not come on over and check out my interview at Scenes from a Chaotic Mind and see what other oddities are rambling around in this head of mine!

One of my favorite holiday performances!

I never get tired of Straight No Chaser’s rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas. It always makes me smile!

Still sharing holiday songs as we countdown to the new year!

Enjoy!

And don’t forget to enter my holiday contest!

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