James R. Callan's Blog, page 7

Summertime—and the Livin’ Is Easy

Today’s guest post is from Deborah Dee Harper. She’s lived in Alaska, where she chased bears and moose.  Now she lives in Murfreeboro, Tennessee and writes inspirational, humorous books for children and adults.

Recently, my six-year-old granddaughter “graduated” from kindergarten. I remember having to complete thirteen years of education before graduating from anything at all, let alone kindergarten, but then I was born closer to the Middle Ages than my grandchildren. At her ceremony, which was full of excitement and accomplishments, I recalled the anticipation I felt whenever the school year came to a close—the freedom from structure, sleeping in, no homework, the anticipation/fear of the report card coming in the mail (would I pass on to fourth grade?), and the thought of three whole months of playing outdoors with nothing in particular to do.

That lasted about a week. First of all, my mother wasn’t one to let us sleep in very late, so there went that fantasy. And structure? Oh yes, there was some of that too in the form of chores before playing—cleaning up the breakfast table, making my bed, and brushing my teeth and hair among them. There were times I swore my mother stayed up late figuring out jobs for us kids to do, and while I eventually figured out it was to keep boredom at bay, at the time it seemed cruel and unjust punishment for … for what? Summer vacation? Not having a job? Being seven years old?

I live with my oldest daughter and her little girl. Now that my granddaughter is home for summer vacation, I am reminded that when my children were little I did the same thing to them, and I’m doing the same thing with Molly while her mother works. It didn’t take me long to realize my mother wasn’t trying to punish us; she was trying to keep from going out of her mind. No sleeping in because she’d never get us to sleep that night. There were chores because 1.) we were little slobs, and 2.) it ate up some of the time of those long summer days and kept us from saying “I’m bored. What can I do?” After a few answers from her like, “Bored, eh? Well, I’ve got a little job for you to do then,” I clammed up and dealt with it.

About two weeks into our summer break, we started to do something that would’ve shocked me on that last day in my classroom. We started playing school. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I started checking the mail five times a day for my copy of the Weekly Reader and scrounging around for anything to read. My parent’s Reader’s Digest condensed books were fair game even though a lot of them were over my elementary-aged head. But my favorites, by far, were the Nancy Drew mysteries.

And that’s why I wrote the Laramie on the Lam adventures series for kids. Six books tell of 11-year-old Laramie Wyoming’s antics and adventures as he and his family and worst enemy/foster brother cross the United States in a motorhome so his mom can gather information for her travel books. Trouble is, Laramie got tangled up with some bank robbers back in their hometown of Laramie, Wyoming (which he is obviously named after), and those robbers aren’t about to give up the $30,000 they slipped into Laramie’s backpack—even though Laramie long ago gave that money to the police. They visit lots of historical, scenic, and just plain interesting and fun places across the nation while the robbers chase them the whole way. They learn lessons, have lots of adventure, solve mysteries, encounter wildlife, bad guys, earthquakes, and lots of other cool stuff.

And yes, I did pass into the fourth grade!

Deborah can be reached at deborahdeetales@gmail.com

You can find Laramie on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2HNs6Zq

And leave a comment if you have a moment.  Thanks.

The Circuitous Path to a Cover

I’ve gotten a lot of good comments on the cover for Political Dirty Trick.  Last week, one reader asked me how I came up with the cover. In all honesty, I had to say I had a cover designer who came up with it.

But as I thought about it, I realized there was much more to it than that. In fact, there were more than a dozen designs that came and went before we settled on this final cove. Most of these were not from Adrijus, who created the final cover.

Before he ever got involved, I worked with some designers and we tried including some of the key items in the plot.  For instance, some special boots, Eight Second Angel, red fringed, short boots are important in the book.  So, we tried incorporating them into the cover.

Beautiful sexy blond woman with big breasts in black lingerie. Big boobs, slim body.
black and white photo

It was a nice cover, but didn’t really capture the tone of the book.

The antagonist liked to use a knife, particularly when attacking the protagonist, Crystal Moore.  So we tried working a knife into the cover. Here was one of the proposed covers.  But again, it didn’t really capture the tone of the book.  Yes, a knife figures into the book prominently. But, it was an instrument.  It didn’t speak to the theme of the book.

An expensive piece of Mondrian art was involved. So why not try all of the above.  The art is important. The red Eight Second Angel boots are important. And certainly Crystal would think the knife is important. (Actually, she might like to see it “cut” from the book.)  Let’s get all the elements in.

This produced a colorful cover that certainly had a lot to do with the book.  But it also produced a cluttered cover. At one point, we even had a “VOTE” sign in it. But finally I had to admit a cluttered cover was not the answer. The cover did not have to include every element of the story. I mean, where is the sheriff’s badge?

We decided this is, after all, a plot set during an political election. And in fact, it is an election for the governor’s office in Texas.  Why not incorporate an image of the state capital building? We could even get the knife in as one of the letters in “Trick.”  And while it is not really a dark book, there is murder. So we could make it a dark scene.

Crystal Moore is the antagonist.  It is, after all, a Crystal Moore Suspense.  So, it made sense to get a woman’s image in with the capital.  This produced the following cover.  And we managed to get the knife and the red boots in.  Wow!  If only we could manage to get in …  No. Let’s not get any more stuff in. Adrijus thought it was too dark. And he agreed the boots and knife had to go.  Not out of the plot, certainly.  But off the cover.

And with that, we moved (in stages, of course)  to the final cover.

There were probably six or eight other designs considered – some considered for seconds, some for minutes, and some for days.  I presented the last two pictured here to a number of friends and followers and ask them to vote on the cover they thought best. There was considerable support for each of these, but in the end, the one on the right , the final cover I am presenting, captured the most votes.

So, getting a good cover was not – and perhaps never is – a simple thing. But I am very happy with this one and it has received a number of comments as a great cover.

My thanks to all who participated in this process.

A Slippery Slope

For some time, I had been thinking about writing a book where the antagonist was initially a good person.  This  good person stepped over “the line.”  Why or how would that happen?

There are many ways. Perhaps by accident. Or maybe he or she got tricked.  Certainly a person could yield to the temptation, cross the line, then regret it.  Of course, someone might talk the person into the action, make it sound not so bad, perhaps even a good thing, or for a good cause. And fifty other reasons.

Then what?

In my newest book, Political Dirty Trick, a thirty-five-year-old woman gets talked into an illegal act by George. Recently divorced, Ginnie is looking for something to occupy her dull and empty life. She joins an election committee as a volunteer.  George,  an experienced volunteer, relates to her in private that their candidate doesn’t have a chance at winning.  But, a good dirty trick on the opponent, Ron Drake, could drag down his support amongst the voters. Ginnie gets enthusiastic about the possibility. The problem is, the opponent is such a straight shooter, they can’t find anything to expose about him.

Ginnie laments there is nothing they can do and they are just backing a certain loser. George says they could manufacture something. He suggests they could steal a valuable painting from Drake and put it in a storage unit rented under his name. When later they let it be found, Drake will get lots of negative publicity.  And if he had already collected the insurance money for the painting, his poll numbers would definitely tank.

Ginnie says stealing is wrong. But George convinces her that they are not really stealing.  They are putting it in a storage unit under Drake’s name, so they aren’t keeping it. They are just moving it from Drake’s house to his storage unit. Ginnie is reluctant, but eventually gives in and says she will “relocate” the painting if George can rent the unit under Drake’s name.

But things don’t go as planned and a man is killed during the robbery. While it was an accident, it occurred during the commission of a felony. That can carry the death penalty. When Ginnie finds she could be tried for capital murder, she decides she will not be caught, whatever that takes.

Ginnie has stepped over the line, and the slope on the other side is slippery. Each thing she does makes the slope steeper and slipperier. Now, she will do whatever it takes to avoid being caught. Anyone she perceives threatens her freedom will pay dearly.

Political Dirty Trick follows Ginnie’s progress on the slippery slope. Crystal Moore, the protagonist, is just trying to help her friend, Ron Drake. But that puts her on a collision path with Ginnie.

Political Dirty Trick, A Crystal Moore Suspense, Book #3, is available on Kindle now at:   https://amzn.to/2pIHMqs. Next week it will be available in paperback, with the hardcover version following a week later.

I’d love to hear your comments on the slippery slope and how a person might get caught on it.  Thanks. And I’ll select one who leaves a comment and send them a copy of Political Dirty Trick.

The World Ends Tomorrow

Author Laura Muldovan asks several interesting questions.  Give it a read, and then feel free to make your own comments

Where is humankind heading?

First question: Did human consciousness change along centuries and millennia?

Disrespect for our environment, religious intolerance, greed, selfishness… I did my reading, history and religious texts and books.

My conclusion? Not much. Add to all this the unstoppable population growth, the overpopulation and the insane resource consumption.

Second question: Did our life standards improve along centuries?

My take? A lot. For some of us. I would dare say that the average individual in western world lives better than kings few hundred years back. I remember a chronicle about the life during King Louis XIV, the Sun King; the cold and ugly smelling palaces (no toilets), sticks to scratch under the wigs for head lice, health problems…

So, we do better today. All this done because of human technology advances: internet, cars, airplanes, medical assistance, you name it…

So, what is wrong?

Technologies advanced much faster than human consciousness; and technology out of control generates disasters.

Discoveries and innovation based on research in chemistry, biology, quantum physics, information technology, transportation… make our life better, but could be used for destruction in the worse imaginable ways.

Third question: Can our society fix itself, and avoid self-destruction?

Answer: NO.

Why? There are mathematical theories that a system cannot fix itself from inside. The mechanisms to fix the system will alter it, and so, it is different than when the project started, it is a catch 22 situation.

Fourth question: What can be done?

If humankind deserved being saved, it will happen, help from above. Aliens? or gods?

But does indeed human society deserve saving?

My book The World Ends Tomorrow describes such a scenario.

Fracony, a supercivilization that visited Earth periodically, built models forecasting that an apocalypse generated by humans themselves is inevitable.

They discovered a baby girl, Clara, with very special qualities, a research accident from a lab that tried to match man and women for best offspring. Clara was raised and trained all her life to take over the world leadership and prevent or diminish the consequences of an apocalypse.

And the disaster came as a biological apocalypse from a virus escaping from a research lab.

Clara can communicate with Fracony, but her training could not foresee everything, and Fracony might have their plans about what really means saving humanity, or the price to pay.

What is good and bad have different definitions in normal times versus crisis situations, and when the human race was at stake that line between right or wrong was blurry and shifting until became non-existent.  Principles transformed into self preservation, fear in divine punishment transformed into anger. Who could rule such a world?

The action is four hundred years into the future, and only two countries sharing the planet, Gaia and Esperanto. Clara was ruling Esperanto as its Secretary. She had to navigate among centrifuge interests and ideas and take bold and heartbreaking decisions. Will she succeed or collapse before reaching the end of the tunnel?

The World Ends Tomorrow

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BXK259K

Please leave a comment.  Thanks.

Time Travel, Mysteries and Miracles

Today – we look at time travel and miracles, mysteries and romance. Here is author Laura Vosika’s The Battle is O’er, Book Five of The Blue Bells Chronicles.

Shawn means self and Kleiner means centered, one of Shawn’s (many) ex-girlfriends proclaimed.  So begin The Blue Bells Chronicles, a tale of time travel, mysteries and miracles, romance and redemption, in an epic adventure ranging across modern and medieval Scotland against the backdrop of Scotland’s Wars of Independence in the 1300s.

Shawn has it all—wealth, fame, women—until the night Amy, his girlfriend, has enough and abandons him in an ancient tower.  He wakes up in the wrong century.

Two years in medieval times, two years of fighting beside Robert the Bruce and James Douglas, two years of living with and as his medieval twin, the devout and upright Highlander Niall Campbell, working to protect those he has come to love, and perhaps mostly, his growing friendship with Niall, whom he initially despised, all work changes in Shawn.

Throughout their adventures, he and Niall seek a way to get Shawn back across time, to fulfill his desire to ask Amy’s forgiveness and finally be the man she always saw in him—succeeding at last in the middle of a fierce battle for Niall’s home, Glenmirril, against their old enemy, the MacDougalls.

Safely back in his own time, Shawn is steadily regaining all he lost—his career as a world-traveling musician, the son he feared he would never know, and finally, maybe—even Amy’s heart.

He can’t let go of the past, however, or stop agonizing over what happened to Niall and all his beloved friends, left behind in a fight for their lives. In his search for answers, hoping to find that all ended well, he learns instead of the dangers still lurking in fourteenth century Scotland: to Niall who will pay a horrible price for Shawn’s last deed, committed in Glenmirril’s tower just moments before escaping to the safety of his own time; to his own infant son, the subject of prophecy and an ancient letter predicting a fateful battle; even danger to the whole world as Simon Beaumont, known to history as the Butcher of Berwick, seeks to use his knowledge of the future to destroy it.

In this gripping conclusion to The Blue Bells Chronicles, Shawn faces the ultimate test.  His selfishness once cost him everything.  His newfound selflessness may do the same.

Find The Battle is O’er on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2tU67Or

And leave a comment and tell us what you think about time travel.

Use Your Sense(s)

Today’s guest blogger is John Lindermuth, author of sixteen novels, including eight in the Sticks Hetrick series.  John is a retired newspaper editor who now serves as librarian for the county historical society, assisting patrons with genealogy and research. He is a member of the International Thriller Writers and past vice-president of the Short Mystery Fiction Society.  Today, he talks about using the five senses to engage the reader.  And he previews The Battered Body, featuring Sylvester Tilghman, one of his most popular characters.

Are you using your senses?

We all perceive the world around us by the use of our senses–sight, sound, touch, smell and taste.

Utilizing these senses in your writing can convey the reader into the world you’ve created and make the journey into this place more convincing and memorable. But it’s important to go beyond a mere description. Make it “real” by calling on your memories/experiences and expand on it with the help of metaphor and simile. Be creative.

As E. L. Doctorow, one of my favorite writers, put it, “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader–not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

Opinion about the ranking of the senses varies. Most of us would probably rank sight and sound first. But Rudyard Kipling, for one, gave precedence to one less often considered. “Smells,” he wrote, “are surer than sights or sounds to make your heart-strings crack.” Kipling contended odor lingers longer in our memory than things we see or hear.

There’s a writing cliche about “a dark and stormy night” and we’re all familiar with the rule about not starting a story with weather. Yet, weather is an important feature in all of our lives. Everyone can relate to it and, used properly, weather can add to setting and mood in your story.

Weather has an important role in The Bartered Body, my latest mystery. A blizzard of epic proportion actually did occur in the eastern United States on the dates mentioned in the story. I hope I’ve employed my senses so readers will relate to Syl and Cyrus as they trudge through drifts and battle the biting wind while attempting to solve the mysteries facing them in this adventure.

Please leave a comment and tell us how you use the senses in a novel.  Or which is your favorite?  Do you ever think about using the sense of smell?  Thanks.

Here’s a blurb for The Bartered Body:

Why would thieves steal the body of a dead woman?

That’s the most challenging question yet to be faced by Sylvester Tilghman, the third of his family to serve as sheriff of Arahpot, Jordan County, Pennsylvania, in the waning days of the 19th century.

And it’s not just any body but that of Mrs. Arbuckle, Nathan Zimmerman’s late mother-in-law. Zimmerman is burgess of Arahpot and Tilghman’s boss, which puts more than a little pressure on the sheriff to solve the crime in a hurry.

Syl’s investigation is complicated by the arrival in town of a former flame who threatens his relationship with his sweetheart Lydia Longlow; clashes with his old enemy, former burgess McLean Ruppenthal; a string of armed robberies, and a record snowstorm that shuts down train traffic, cuts off telegraph service and freezes cattle in the fields.

It will take all of Syl’s skills and the help of his deputy and friends to untangle the various threads and bring the criminals to justice.

Buy links: https://www.sunburypressstore.com/The...

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/book...

Please leave us your thoughts on the use of the senses in a book.  Thanks.  jim

 

A Slippery Slope

Political Dirty Trick

For some time, I had been contemplating writing a story about a basically good person who is convinced to step over the line. Once over that line, the slope gets slippery. And it only gets slipperier as he or she moves.

I had intended to name the book, The Slippery Slope.

After watching national politics, I thought I might write a story about a political dirty trick. Please note, I was not, and am still not, taking sides. There were questionable activities on all sides. I had, and have, no political agenda in any of my writing. But authors need a background for the stories, and a real one works well if you are not writing fantasy.

Asking the important question for writers (What if?),  what if something went terribly wrong? There was an unexpected outcome.

Eventually, these two ideas came together to form the basis for Political Dirty Trick.

A woman who is a very law-abiding citizen gets talked into participating in a political dirty trick, or a podirt as they call it in the book. And then something goes wrong. She has crossed the line with this podirt. She is on the slippery slope. And it is so much more difficult to hold your ground, your normal behavior, when on a slippery slope.

In keeping with this theme of unexpected things, as I neared completion of the book, I discovered that an author I know was also completing a book and she had titled it, “A Slippery Slope.”  She assured me she would have no problem if I named my book the same.  But after some thought, I decided I would not do that. Rooting around for a title, I eventually came up with Political Dirty Trick.

It is set in Texas politics because all of my Crystal Moore suspense books are set in east Texas. Even when Crystal goes into the jungles of Mexico to rescue two young girls held captive (A Silver Medallion), much of the book takes place in east Texas. I doubt any political dirty tricks are ever employed in Texas politics. But, this is fiction, so I can take those liberties.

Political Dirty Trick will be released May 14, 2018. It is a nice suspense book with no basis in truth. But I believe you will enjoy the colorful characters, the suspense of keeping Crystal alive, and discovering what a dramatic affect this podirt had on a number of lives and an election.

Political Dirty Trick is on NetGalley, a site where readers can get a copy of the book with the expectation they will leave a review on Amazon and/or GoodReads.  NetGalley expects you to be a blogger, librarian, teacher, or what they call a “professional reader.”  That is, someone who will report on books to their readers. If you are interested, here is the link:  https://www.netgalley.com/widget/137928/redeem/f7beb8ab2448a2ffc3585a6b6b346f1fe652d229ebee86c662ca849d1a568266

The Kindle edition of Political Dirty Trick can be pre-ordered now on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2pIHMqs

Cover decision this week – between:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please comment on the covers, what you like and do not like.  And, feel free to leave a comment on the danger of stepping on a slippery slope.

 

The Story Behind the Story

Today’s guest is Donna Schlachter. She writes historical suspense under her own name, and contemporary suspense under her alter ego of Leeann Betts. She is a hybrid author who has published a number of books under her pen name and under her own name. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers and Sisters In Crime; facilitates a local critique group, and teaches writing classes and courses. Donna is also a ghostwriter and editor of fiction and non-fiction. Today, she tells us about the story behind her latest book, A Train Ride to Heartbreak.

The idea for this story came from a love of a movie and a friend with a great story to share.

The movie was “The Fugitive”, both the original series pilot and the more recent remake. I loved the idea of a train ride leading to a second chance.

My friend had recently taken a train ride from Denver to San Francisco, and she shared several delightful stories. I wondered if a train ride might be like a cruise in that it would provide an insulated environment where the travelers might do something they’d never done before. If so, this was perfect fodder for a romance, much like the old TV show, “The Love Boat”.

And then I saw “Murder on the Orient Express”, and as a lover of anything Agatha Christie, decided to incorporate a few of the details in my story.

The result? A chance meeting, two characters with integrity, and a way for God to reach both of them.

Leave a comment for the chance to win a print (US Only) copy of Mail-Order Brides Collection.

1895, Train to California

John Stewart needs a wife. Mary Johannson needs a home. On her way west, Mary falls in love with another. Now both must choose between commitment and true love.

October 1895

Mary Johannson has scars on her body that can’t compare with the scars on her heart. She is alone in the world, with no family, no prospects, and no home.

John Stewart is at his wit’s end. His wife of three years died in childbirth, leaving him with a toddler and an infant, both girls. Theirs was the love of fairy tales, and while he has no illusions about finding another like her, his children need a mother.

Though separated by thousands of miles, they commit to a mail-order marriage. But on their journey to Heartbreak, they meet another and realize the life they’d planned would be a lie. Can they find their way back from the precipice and into the love of God and each other, or are they destined to keep their word and deny their heart?

Buy link: http://amzn.to/2Cur1I4

www.HiStoryThruTheAges.com Receive a free ebook simply for signing up for our free newsletter!

Other Books: Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ci5Xqq and Smashwords: http://bit.ly/2gZATjm

The Vault

Today, Brian Harrison give us a glimpse into his latest book, The Vault, released this week. How’s that for news hot off the presses.  A Michigan native, Brian has had seven books published.  He writes because he loves to write. Here’s the good on his latest.

The Vault

Why would a multibillionaire create a customized vault that is controlled by watch mechanics inside and have a self-destruct mechanism inside to destroy the billion dollars worth of artifacts inside?

Simple, because he can.

On paper, Sam Montgomery is your typical eccentric philanthropic pharmaceutical billionaire who has literally mailed five dollars to everyone in the US so they can “pay it forward.” But what people didn’t know when made a rare public appearance was that he was announcing he had leukemia. And more shocking was that when he said, “I’d rather die than give my sister the opportunity to save my life,” no one even knew he had a sister.

Elena Diamante nailed the sit-down interview – at his small home on the tiny island of Antikythera in Greece. She was only planning on getting the scoop about Sam and his apparently estranged sister but she was also going to be the first journalist to see inside Sam’s custom-made vault. It was built using watch mechanics, so it was completely self-sustained, and only opened once a year. It was even rumored that if it were ever tampered with, everything inside would be destroyed in a custom acid.

Come to find out for Elena, there would be one item inside Sam’s vault that could save his life, or end it even quicker, it was just a matter of whether or not the vault would open in time.

The vault explores Sam’s family dynamics and how they inspired him to become the successful man he is. The story is also told using Sam’s own family photos growing up, as well as text messages and Facebook/Twitter. There are even hyperlinks within the novel as “Easter Eggs” for those readers that want to explore even more of Sam’s personal life, further blurring the lines of fact/fiction.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this book.  Please leave a comment.  Thanks

 

Once More on Short Stories

First, a quick commercial.  March 4 – 11 is Read an Ebook Week sponsored by Smashwords.  If you click on this link https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/528083

and enter the code  RS64W  you can get a copy of Cleansed by Fire for free. It has 99 reviews with an average 4.6 star rating.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Two weeks ago, we had a blog on short stories and several people wrote in to talk about the advantages of writing short stories, even if you normally write novels.  So, today, let’s look at a new book just out – a collection of sixteen short stories by Clayton Graham.

SILENTLY IN THE NIGHT

A collection of tantalizing tales with more twists than braided hair:

Here you will find mystery, murder and mayhem – plus a moment of romance. All the stories will make you stop and think, even question your role in the world and the universe. Just what are we doing here, and where are we going? Easy questions with problematic answers.

This anthology of sixteen short and thrilling tales of unusual, extraterrestrial and conspiratorial stories is the latest compilation from Clayton Graham, the author of science fiction novels Milijun and the soon to come Saving Paludis. The characters in this eclectic collection are mostly ordinary people whose reactions to their fears and to unexpected events will have you guessing at every turn of the page.

This collection is intriguing reading which, among many other things, encourages the reader to:

Sympathize with a doomed husband and connect with an altruistic robot. Explore an isolated Scottish isle and touch down on a far-flung asteroid.

From the light-hearted to the darkest depths of the human psyche you would be hard pressed not to find something to like about Silently in the Night.

Many different visions of the future are within these pages. And as a bonus, there is an excerpt from the soon to be published Saving Paludis, which introduces the reader to two of the principal protagonists in this tale from the edge of mankind’s known universe in the year 3898AD.

If you love mystery with a hint of the paranormal, and the interplay of human foibles, grab this smorgasbord of short stories then get yourself a copy of Milijun, the mind-bending sci-fi novel by Clayton Graham.