P.D. Workman's Blog, page 131

Excerpt from The Undaunted

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, read the rules at A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along!

Not much time to write this week, but I can’t leave you without a teaser! I am nearly finished The Undaunted by Gerald Lund, historical fiction about a group of LDS pioneers.

“What?” He stretched, then feigned a huge yawn.

But she knew him too well. “You cahn’t fool me, young man.” It was her finest London accent. Her hand shot out and found that spot beneath his armpit that she had discovered years before. In an instant he was writhing on the bed, screeching with laughter.

Gerald Lund, The Undaunted

The journey was impossible.

But they had no other choice.

At the call of their prophet, they left well-established farms and businesses to strike out yet again into the untamed wilderness. A small band of men, women, and children formed the 1879 pioneer company.

Their mission: stand as a buffer between lawlessness and civilization.

Their road: only what they created themselves, blasting out a perilous trail over slick rock and through desolate cliffs.

Their hearts: UNDAUNTED

Excerpt from Spark

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, read the rules at A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along!

Flipping through this week’s reads, trying to decide what to give you a teaser from… I just finished Spark by Brigid Kemmerer. It is book two of a series, and I read it without reading book one. She very quickly fills you in on what you missed in book one, so there is no problem understanding what is going on, even though it is paranormal. My only caveat against a wholehearted recommendation it is the language. It had me wincing too many times.

A girl on the cheer squad had once asked Gabriel if having a twin was like looking in a mirror all the time. He’d asked her if being a cheerleader was like being an idiot all the time—but really, it was a good question.

Brigid Kemmerer, Spark

Gabriel Merrick plays with fire. Literally. 

Sometimes he can even control it. And sometimes he can’t.

Gabriel has always had his brothers to rely on, especially his twin, Nick. But when an arsonist starts wreaking havoc on their town, all the signs point to Gabriel. Only he’s not doing it.

And no one seems to believe him. Except a shy sophomore named Layne, a brainiac who dresses in turtlenecks and jeans and keeps him totally off balance. Layne understands family problems, and she understands secrets. She has a few of her own.

Gabriel can’t let her guess about his brothers, about his abilities, about the danger that’s right at his heels. But there are some risks he can’t help taking.

The fuse is lit. . .

The eternal question — plot or not?

It seems like every writer’s forum eventually ends up with an animated discussion of whether it is better to plot your novels or write by the seat of your pants. (Are you a plotter or a pantser?)

Image from Pixabay

 

So I decided that rather than addressing the question superficially when I encounter it, I would address it in detail here, and then just link to it when necessary! Sort of like the question of “Where do you find the time to write?”

For me, it has been a journey of three decades of writing (so far).

When I started, there was no outlining whatsoever. I would start a book with no idea where it was going. It was an exploration of a character or a situation, and it unfolded (or didn’t) over time. I had difficulty ending a story; most of my early books ended by killing off the protagonist once I was done with the character or situation. Some stories wandered for a long time, or a shorter time, and I got bored/frustrated with them and didn’t finish them. Other books were great! And sometimes I would go back to an unfinished story and finish it years later.

At that point in my writing development, if I knew how a story was going to end, I either wouldn’t finish it, or I would go somewhere else with it. I felt like if I knew how it was going to end, it took the fun/creativity out of writing, and I was no longer interested in the story. Writing a mystery was impossible, because if I knew the solution, I was no longer interested in the story, and if I didn’t know the solution, I would paint myself into a corner, making it so that there was no possible solution.

I had one character that I loved and wanted to write more about. Of course, I had killed her off in the first book. So I wrote what happened to her during a period of missing time in the first book. I still wanted to write more about her, so I wrote an alternate “she’s not really dead” sequel. I still wanted to write more about her, so I went back to her childhood and wrote a prequel. And more missing scenes. All of this was over a period of years, between other books or while writing other books. It occurred to me that even though I knew the ultimate ending, I was still able to write more about her. Knowing the ending did not take the joy out of writing more about my favourite character.

 

Flickr Creative Commons Dwayne Bent

 

I managed to write one book that had a plot twist that I knew ahead of time that the reader would not be able to anticipate. Even knowing the plot twist ahead of time, I was still able to complete the book. (Okay, I did still kill off one character at the end… but not until after the big reveal… still have to rewrite that one…)

Around that time, I started writing for Nanowrimo. I experimented a little bit with writing for Nano knowing how the story was going to end before I started, reminding myself that I could still enjoy the creative process even if I knew how it was going to end. And it was only 50,000 words. Practically a short story. I also tried writing out of order, jumping forward or back through the timeline, including flashbacks or backstory, etc. As long as I was writing something to do with the story.

Then I wrote my first book outline. I think for a Camp Nano novel. I was finding that I was floundering mid-Nano, knowing that I had to meet a quota but not knowing where the story was going was causing me a lot of grief. It was a pretty general outline. First, second, and third act. It was a mystery and I knew the protagonist was going to find the solution in the third act, and generally knew who the perp was, but not why or how he would find the solution. Some of the scenes in the first act were outlined, but not all. I finished the book (100,000 words or so) in lots of time, without getting too bogged down. And it was a great plot!

In between Nanos, I started using the Snowflake method to help identify problems and replot/rewrite some older stories. Soon after that, I used it to plot a story for the first time.

Plotting in Scrivener

I have been (mostly) plotting since then. Some of the plots are more detailed (100 scenes/plot points identified before beginning), and some of them are less detailed (A, B, and C happen, and it will end with protagonist either turning his life around or not and ending in tragedy.)

I still do some free writing, discovery writing, or pantsing, whatever you want to call it. When I get stuck, I’ll mindmap, do a Snowflake outline, or whatever. Most of my new novels are being plotted before I begin writing. I am still experimenting with what level of plotting works best for me, but I think it may vary from book to book. There are some where I have 20-30 scenes identified per act before beginning, and others where I have 5-10 plot points per act. But I am finally comfortable with both plotting and with knowing how a story is going to (or probably going to…) end when I begin writing and still feeling happy and creative. There is always reworking and reordering to be done along the way; I am pretty flexible with changing my outlines as I go. I’m okay with skipping a scene or going back and inserting one afterward. I’m okay with writing back story at any point, and working it into the story later, or not.

For me, outlining helps to keep the momentum going, so that a first draft is wrapped up in a month, instead of wandering around or being abandoned over a period of years. But I’m still okay with writing other stuff that isn’t on my production schedule without an outline or plan.

Excerpt from I Become Shadow

Did you miss my new release?

Lion Within is available now!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, read the rules at A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along!

This week I read I Become Shadow, the debut novel of Joe Shine. Be warned that it is book one of a series, and book two is not out yet! But it was a very satisfying read with a full plot arc, not just a teaser. I Become Shadow is a bit of a thriller and a bit of sci-fi. Young adult. Young girl trained to be a lethal weapon. Good relationships and character development. Cheeky, fun voice.

I zoned out. Zoning out is something I could do really well. Easily a top five skill. You know what? Scratch that, it’s number one by a mile. I’m really good at zoning out.

Joe Shine, I Become Shadow

I’ve copied less than the full Amazon description, because I think it was too much of a spoiler. Here is the shortened version:

When Ren Sharpe was fourteen, she was kidnapped by a shadowy organization called FATE and trained to be a human weapon.

Now, four years later, she receives her assignment: protect Gareth Young at all costs. Currently a student at Texas A&M, Gareth will someday change the world. FATE calls people like Gareth “FIPs”—future important people—and they’re everywhere, each with a FATE-trained shadow.

 

New Release: Lion Within

Lion Within is now available in Kindle and paperback! You may have noticed that it snuck into my Reading List of Fiction About Personality Disorders a few days ago, even though it wasn’t officially out yet.

It is the first non-Young Adult book that I have published since Looking Over Your Shoulder, though there are a few more in the pipeline right now.

Leo is a troubled young man, constantly on the brink of disaster. In the midst of his own emotional turmoil, Leo meets Elizabeth, single mom of a newborn, with a lot on her plate and a past that she won’t acknowledge.

Leo has always been driven to rescue others, and Elizabeth becomes the newest project to help him forget his own troubles.

Can Leo reach Elizabeth, and at the same time, come to terms with his own past? Or is he messing around with something beyond his ability to manage?

[Warning – contains disturbing scenes of abuse]

—A riveting page-turner that deals with mental health, physical abuse, and the lasting effects the two can leave upon a person, touching many lives in the process. It’s hard to think we all have a little bit of the lion inside us, and PD Workman deals with that in a captivating manner.

—I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It was a page turner that I didn’t want to put down.

—A very intense story line… Lion Within, hooked me in the first few pages… it opened my eyes to the awareness needed to see beyond the outer shell of a person’s situation.

—This is a book that I will be thinking about for some time.

 

Excerpt from Gambit, a Nero Wolfe Mystery

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, read the rules at A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along!

This week was a re-read of a classic hard-boiled detective mystery. Gambit, by Rex Stout, features Nero Wolfe, the gourmand detective and Archie his faithful assistant. I read all of my dad’s Nero Wolfe books growing up, along with his Louis L’Amour and Max Brand westerns and Farley Mowat.

She was staring up at me. “He’s burning up a dictionary?”

“Right. That’s nothing. Once he burned up a cookbook because it said to remove the hide from the ham end before putting it in the pot with lima beans. Which he loves most, food or words, is a toss-up.”

Rex Stout, Gambit

A private club is the setting for murder when Paul Jerim, playing chess with twelve opponents, is poisoned. When her father is accused of the murder, beautiful Sally Blount calls on gourmet detective Nero Wolfe to find the real killer.

Reading List: Fiction about Personality Disorders

This is the third book in my series on reading lists about mental illness. Previously published:

Young Adult books about Psychosis

Young Adult books about Depression (including Bipolar)

This one is the toughest so far! I have not limited it to young adult fiction, or the list would be even shorter. There are plenty of memoirs and biographies about personality disorders, and of course lots of non-fiction self-help or diagnostic type books, but very very little that is pure fiction.

As usual, I also tried to stay away from books that sounded so incredibly depression or gory that I wouldn’t read them. These books generally involve one of three personality disorders:

Borderline Personality Disorder
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder/Traumatic Amnesia

I will again start with my own books featuring main characters (or their caregivers) with Personality Disorders:

My books that include main characters who may have personality disorders are:

June & Justin

Justin had made a mistake. A big, life-changing mistake.

He already failed June once. He wasn’t there when she needed him, and because of him, their lives will never be the same. June is everything to Justin, and he must be everything to her. He must protect June at all costs. Justin is prepared spend the rest of his life keeping her from getting hurt again.

But it seems they are always falling behind, barely keeping one step ahead of the nightmares.

There is always one more hazard, just around the corner.

By-Pass, Breaking the Pattern #3

It’s better when she’s happy.

Bobby is a geeky teen who is convinced that his new foster home is everything he has ever hoped for.

His foster mom Katya is so different than any he has ever had; but as her behavior becomes more and more unpredictable and disturbing, he comes to realize that both he and Katya’s daughter Zane are in trouble.

The crazy thing is, Bobby doesn’t want to leave her, and new revelations from Bobby’s own forgotten past throw his quest for a real family into further turmoil.

Don’t Forget Steven

He never told what went on behind closed doors. But this time, he can’t remember.

Things never have been easy for Steven. He accepts that, and just makes the best of things. He might not have parents or a happy home. Or enough to eat most days. But at least he has a couple of loyal friends who stand by him and help out when they can. At least he has school, someplace he can go to escape the abuse.

But just when he thought things couldn’t get much worse, they did.

Steven is accused of murder. But that isn’t the worst part. The really bad part is not even knowing if he did it.

Lion Within

Leo is a troubled young man, constantly on the brink of disaster. In the midst of his own emotional turmoil, Leo meets Elizabeth, single mom of a newborn, with a lot on her plate and a past that she won’t acknowledge.

Leo has always been driven to rescue others, and Elizabeth becomes the newest project to help him forget his own troubles.

Can Leo reach Elizabeth, and at the same time, come to terms with his own past? Or is he messing around with something beyond his ability to manage?

The other books that I have picked out are:

Other People

Painfully shy and socially awkward, Ginny avoids engaging in a world filled with “other people” as best as she can. After a failed suicide attempt, Ginny is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and begins a journey towards improving her distraught life. In her quest to fit in among other people, Ginny studies the behaviors of her picture-perfect new neighbors, Jim and Nina, and tries her best to mimic their life skills. But, will Ginny’s attempts to be one of the other people help her fit into their world, or send her crashing back deeper into the dark, isolated world she is desperately trying to escape?

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

An intriguing combination of fantast thriller and moral allegory, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde depicts the gripping struggle of two opposing personalities — one essentially good, the other evil — for the soul of one man. Its tingling suspense and intelligent and sensitive portrayal of man’s dual nature reveals Stevenson as a writer of great skill and originality, whose power to terrify and move us remains, over a century later, undiminished.

 

Both of Me

It was supposed to be just another flight, another escape into a foreign place where she could forget her past, forget her attachments. Until Clara found herself seated next to an alluring boy named Elias Phinn—a boy who seems to know secrets she has barely been able to admit to herself for years.

When her carry-on bag is accidentally switched with Elias’s identical pack, Clara uses the luggage tag to track down her things. At that address she discovers there is not one Elias Phinn, but two: the odd, paranoid, artistic, and often angry Elias she met on the plane, who lives in an imaginary world of his own making called Salem; and the kind, sweet, and soon irresistible Elias who greets her at the door, and who has no recollection of ever meeting Clara at all. As she learns of Elias’s dissociative identity disorder, and finds herself quickly entangled in both of Elias’s lives, Clara makes a decision that could change all of them forever. She is going to find out what the Salem Elias knows about her past, and how, even if it means playing along with his otherworldly quest. And she is going to find a way to keep the gentle Elias she’s beginning to love from ever disappearing again.

Her

In many ways, Kristen Elliott is a normal, seventeen-year-old girl. Kristen loves her family. She works hard academically, and tries to please her mother. She takes on the additional responsibility of caring for her twin siblings, Nick and Alison. She idealizes her best friend, Lexus, who not only seems to lead the perfect life, but also catches the attention of John, the boy Kristen secretly loves. However, as is the case with many teenagers, Kristen feels frustrated, isolated, and confused.

In other ways, Kristen is not like other kids her age. She knows something is wrong with her. Kristen feels like an utter failure. She is unable to please her abrasive mother, and scared to confront Jack, her abusive stepfather. She is also unable to protect Nick from Jack, making her fell all the more helpless. Adding to her problems, she knows she will never be as beautiful as her best friend Lexus. Kristen finds solace in self-injury, and the company of Mr. Sharp, her imaginary friend who encourages her feelings of self-loathing.

After a failed suicide attempt, Kristen is placed in the Bent Creek mental hospital, where she is diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. While in the hospital, she meets a group of peers suffering with their own mental illnesses, and a compassionate staff of doctors and counselors. From there, Kristen begins her journey to survival. She discovers the circumstances that brought her to this breaking point, struggles to understand her mental illness, and fights to be a survivor against her own worst enemy: her self-blame.

Kristen’s tale of endurance illustrates the complex illness of Borderline Personality Disorder. Readers – including those suffering from BPD and their friends and family – can glean insight into the illness from Kristen’s humanity. Her story is an example of how, if we try to push the past away, we are either doomed to repeat it or let it haunt us to our graves.

Beautiful Disaster

The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

 

Excerpt from Dog Tags

Don’t miss my $0.99 promo on Those Who Believe or Goodreads Giveaway of an autographed copy of Cynthia Has a Secret!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, read the rules at A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along!

Do you like dogs? Do you like them better than humans? Andy Carpenter does. I read Dog Tags, the eighth book in David Rosenfelt’s Andy Carpenter series, and it was great. Funny, engaging, a legal suspense/private eye story with lots of emphasis on dogs. Very engaging characters.

I take out my cell phone and point it in the general direction of the dog and the officers surrounding him. “I’m videotaping this,” I say. “Anything happens to that dog, it’s going viral.”

Of course, I barely know how to use the cell phone, and I can’t imagine it has video capabilities, but it’s dark out, and the officers would have no way of knowing that.

David Rosenfelt, Dog Tags

A German Shepherd police dog witnesses a murder and if his owner–an Iraq war vet and former cop-turned-thief–is convicted of the crime, the dog could be put down. Few rival Andy Carpenter’s affection for dogs, and he decides to represent the poor canine. As Andy struggles to convince a judge that this dog should be set free, he discovers that the dog and his owner have become involved unwittingly in a case of much greater proportions than the one they’ve been charged with. Andy will have to call upon the unique abilities of this ex-police dog to help solve the crime and prevent a catastrophic event from taking place.

First Draft Complete and Upcoming Promo!

It’s been a busy week!

I got back Lion Within from my editor, so I am putting the finishing touches on it and will be releasing soon!

I got the Portuguese translation of Stand Alone back from the translator. I have turned it around to beta readers for comment.

3. I just put the final words on draft one of In the Tick of Time, my current CampNaNoWriMo project! Woohoo! Approximately 75,000 words, written in 17 days (less two Sundays, so 15 days in reality). With all of the family events and meetings I have had the last seven days, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to meet my daily word quotas. But thanks to Chris Fox, via his new 5,000 Words Per Hour app and his timely interview at Rocking Self Publishing, I managed to sprint through them, even on the days where I had to give up several hours of writing time.

News: I have set up a Goodreads Giveaway for Cynthia Has a Secret starting on Monday! If you would like the chance to win an autographed copy, be sure to stop by to enter!

Excerpt from Chop, Chop

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, read the rules at A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along!

I haven’t posted a lot in the last week, as I have been busy writing away for Camp Nano!

I wasn’t sure what to think of the cover and description for Chop, Chop by L.N. Cronk, but I found the reviews and ‘look inside’ intriguing and picked it up. I am only 15% of the way through it, but enjoying it so far.

“I love lasagna,” I said. I would have told her I loved liver and onions if she’d asked because my mom had been harping on me for three days about minding my manners, but I really did love lasagna and practice had left me hungry.

L.N. Cronk, Chop, Chop

It seems to David that both Greg and Laci are a bit . . . out there. Between each of them constantly chopping off their hair for charity and Greg’s clandestine hand signals, neither of them seem likely to develop friendships with reserved young David. Despite their differences, however, all three grow closer to each other and – as they do – David grows closer to God as well. Nearing adulthood, David finds himself content in every way . . . but when tragedy strikes, David must struggle to find his way back to God.