Helen B. Henderson's Blog, page 77

Out and About - Chatting with Ally Shields

One of the more enjoyable parts of marketing is being out and about. Here's my visit with Ally Shields. We both like fantasy and to hang out mages. Her specialty is contemporary fantasy.

Hope you'll stop by and visit. And while you're there check out her books.

~till next time, Helen

Out and About - Chatting with Abby Shields

One of the more enjoyable parts of marketing is being out and about. Here's my visit with Abby Shields. We both like fantasy and to hang out mages. Her specialty is contemporary fantasy.

Hope you'll stop by and visit. And while you're there check out her books.

~till next time, Helen

Reading...read...read again #MFRWauthor

This weeks challenge topic is a tricky question--your favorite books.

I want to answer with the title of one of my books--or all of them. But that would be tacky. I could say the Chronicles of Storn by the wandering sailor or the romantic suspenses of Carol McPhee, but then a certain company might pull my reviews.




I've always been a voracious reader. Thank goodness we had a county library. Even if their stacks were supplemented by lots of auction box lots. I went through my mother's Cherry Ames series, then the young adult books of the time such as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. I devoured the science fiction of E. E. Doc Smith, Isaac Asimov, and many more. The Executioner adventure series by Don Pendleton and its spinoff, Able Team, filled a different interest before I worked my way through my father's boxes of western books.

Those trends have stayed with me. A short list of my favorite books follows, but I won't reveal how many times each has been read.

5) The Virginian, Owen Wister
4) Chronicles of the Lensemen, E. E. Doc Smith
3) The Shadow Riders, Lois L'Amour
2) The Adept, Kathryn Kurtz
1) Pegasus in Space, Tower and Hive series, Anne McCaffrey

~till next time, Helen

And be sure to visit the other posts in the challenge to see what books other authors claim as their favorites.

Last Meal? What Takes Forever to Cook #MFRWauthor

Saw the topic and a line from the television series, Air America, just leaped from the pen, "Peking Duck." Now that might seem to be a strange choice for a meat and potatoes kind of gal, so I'll give you the background. After being captured by South American revolutionaries, Lorenzo Lamas, aka Rio Garnett, and his co-pilot/friend were offered a last meal before their execution by firing squad. The friend said, "Peking Duck." After their captors went away, Lamas inquired why. The buddy explained it takes 3 days to make, I was trying to buy time."

Besides lots of time for a meal to be prepared--and later, and even greater amount to eat it, here's a few items for a last meal.

First, the appetizers: shrimp cocktail and stuffed mushrooms.

Then there are several entrees. Filet mignon with sweet potato, loaded with cinnamon brown sugar, and freshly churned butter. A heaping side plate of lobster tail with drawn butter, and fried scallops. Hot dinner rolls, fresh out of the over, with lots of butter to help things go down.

Where's the vegetables you asked? Not for this gal's final forging.

The final course took a little more thought. Going with the delay approach, rice putting. For those with a lactose intolerance, that would guarantee at least 3 hours in the bathroom. On second thought, the captors might think it funny to hold off the toilet run. Note to self, no pudding, no ice cream. Boston cream pie, chocolate eclair, (no make that 2 eclairs, properly chilled) and a slice of death by chocolate cake. Notice the theme? Chocolate - my favorite food group.

I almost forget the drinks, which unlike James Bond's preference is not a shaken vodka martini or champagne. For the appetizers and main course, a large bottle of a white sangria built on a Pinot Grigio. The desert drink to complement the heaviness of the chocolate is my favorite steakhouse drink, a Wallaby Darned. It is described as a “Down under frozen wonder with peaches, DeKuyper Peachtree Schnapps, champagne, Smirnoff Vodka and secret mixers.”And to add more time, it has to be prepared in the land down under. A slow boat ride to Australia should provide enough time to come up with a jail break -- or a tall, dark, and hansome rescuer.

The final item of the final meal --top shelf whiskey to toast things left undone. 



Well, there's my list. Check out the other authors in the challenge to see theirs. Until next time. Helen



 

~till next time, Helen

I'm Not Counting #MFRWauthor

Besides being highly regimented, most of my time is not my own. On a good day calling it erratic and chaotic is kind. So for me, I don't track or even think of word counts as usually defined in a writing life.

One reason is there are so many more aspects to creating a book than just writing. The tally doesn't take into account writing blog posts on both mine and others sites, and notes on facebook or other social media. Then there is also editing. And 'to pay it forward,'I've been honored the last year to contribute to the Romance University blog. Then there is helping other authors in a more personal means with the reading, critiquing, and editing to their works. Such things hone a skill but don't necessarily contribute to a word count.

So as you can see, the goal of writing a specific number of words per day or per week doesn't work for me. I'm too busy doing rather than tracking and counting.

That said, something else is associated with a word count--the number of words as it relates to the length of the books. That number does matter, if only as a guideline. I won't go into a depth explanation of short story, novella, novel and epic novel. Nor into the differences in word count expectations between genre and format.

No, I don't write a number of words per day. But I do try to dedicate a certain amount of time to writing, editing, and marketing. And I track the chapter lengths of a work-in-progress to give me a running idea of how far along I am.

Do words counts matter to you? Leave a comment below.




Hope you'll visit the other authors in the challenge to see their take on word counts.

~till next time, Helen

Pet Peeve? Wrong Ending #mfrwauthor

There are a lot of things that can impact a reader's enjoyment of a book. Lots of misspelled words, facts that aren't accurate, and just plain bad writing are all things that make me as a reader put down a book. But this post will center on one pet peeve--the wrong ending.





Not all genres require a happily-ever-after ending or even a happy for now. While the following examples are from movies I saw recently, the same applies to a book.

In the first one, a husband fought for his wife's freedom from a medieval curse placed on her family when an ancestress was burned as a witch. He survives multiple attempts on his life and the reader is led to believe in doing so the curse was broken. The husband returns home to his wife. HEA right?

The movie ends with him holding her in his arms. Then she reaches behind the couch, pulls out a knife. The camera pans out as the knife plunges downward. You know she just killed him. My disappointment in the tomato surprise was heightened by having invested two hours in watching the movie and rooting for the husband to win back his wife.

The second example had a realistic ending, but again not what I as the viewer wished for. A pair of lovers survived combat in the gladiatorial arena and imprisonment. Against the background of an erupting volcano, and minute after minute of flaming rocks exploding around the city, they searched for and eventually found each other. The hero defeated the evil emperor in combat and the hero and heroine galloped through yet more explosions to get clear of the city. They are near the sea, can escape off the island. HEA right?

First the sidekick is shown facing the pyrocastic flow and being overwhelmed by it. The exhausted horse carrying the hero and heroine to safety stumbles in a grassy field tossing the lovers from the saddle. Instead of the heroine leaving on her own, she sends the horse off and the lovers embrace. The hero forces her face away from the approaching cloud and kisses her. The movie ends with the pair forever together, encased in volcanic ash.

Again, after investing more than two hours and having the volcano eruptions go on forever, I wanted the hero to win. He survived multiple gladiatorial fights, defeated the bad guy (twice), defeated the bad guy's champion(twice), and saved the girl from a burning building. He deserved a reward. Instead he falls to the volcano. Tear jerker ending? Yes. Romantic? Yes? Satisfactory? No. It wasn't Shane riding away so the woman he loved could be happy. The movie built it up so that the hero had a chance to escape the intended fate, had a chance to enjoy his love, then yanked the rug out from underneath him--and us. Even happily for now has to have the potential of forever. It is not the length of a kiss.


~till next time, Helen 



Instead of having the hop list here, I apologize but I have to end you to the master post. Hope you'll endure the extra click and visit them.

If the above link didn't work, here's the direct link to the blog controlling the challenge rather than the post.

Memorial Day Tribute

A tribute to those who served and made the ultimate sacrifice for home and hearth.


The Statue

There is a statue in our town
Of a man with his fist in the air.
I never really understood
Who he was or who put him there.

Until one day my grandmother
Took me to the park.
She stopped before the statue
And stood quietly in the deepening dark.

Her head was bowed as if in prayer
Yet no words did she speak.
Then she whispered quietly,
Father, meet my granddaughter, Marie.

Your great-grandfather was a soldier
She said quietly to me.
This statue honors all like him
Who fell in battles far across the sea.

Although the light was fading fast
From the plaques she read these words,
"Remember the Fallen Heroes"
In a voice that was barely heard.

I pointed to the other plaques --
Where World War II, Korea, and Vietnam appeared.
Grandmother answered simply,
"The dead of other battles are also honored here."

For the first time I really saw him,
The statue in the park.
His youthful face was grim.
As he stood amidst barbed wire.

Now I'm explaining to my daughter.
And I hope she understands.
About the sacrifices of the soldiers.
And why, in the park is a statue of a man.

To all those in the armed services, to our veterans, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice, thank you for your service.

~Till next time, Helen

Whoa...Too Fast. A childhood memory. #MFRWauthor

I've already shared a few reflections from my misspent youth. Chasing an errant steer, swinging on a tire hung from the ancient willow tree, or hanging out on the porch at the grandparents are nothing to hide. Then there is the wilder side, learning to drive amongst the strip mines and herding sheep while posing as a hood ornament. But the memory I'll share in this post relates to a time when a large Shetland pony graced our farm.



If not ridden every day, you could swear the pony had mustang blood in his veins. He could buck and spin with the best of the mounts in a rodeo. Well, this one time he'd had a longer than usual hiatus from the saddle. My father had already done the re-break to the saddle and the pony was acting as docile and well-behaved as one could want so I decided to try something new, Indian-style riding, no saddle, just a blanket.

Things started well. At a walk no problem. Then kicked up him to a slightly faster pace, still no problem. Then by mistake, I signaled a gallop. I've been told all that anyone heard was the sound of hooves on the clay dirt, then whoa, whooa....whoooa. Let's just say I found the one piece of shale rock in the entire plowed field and decided to land on it. A visit to the local country doctor resulted in no horseback riding until the arm healed and the cast came off.

That's the tale of my one attempt to ride Indian-style and I'm sticking to it.

Be sure to see what fond--or not so fond--childhood memories are shared by the other authors in the challenge.


~till next time, Helen 

Page to the Lens #MFRWauthor

This post is short, barely more than a list. At first I thought I'd discuss what I liked about one version or the other. For example, Sam Elliott and Tom Selleck in The Sacketts and Shadow Riders version the imagined characters in the books. Or a discourse on why one form of the tale is better than the other. Sometimes the movies don't do justice to the original story, and other times the special effects and characters bring the tale to life. But no, I decided to just go with a list.

The main criteria was that the book came first, then the movie. And both the movie and book had to be recent enough in my memory. Cases where the books were derived from the screenplay or where I hadn't both read the book and seen the movie did not rate consideration in the list. Books on the shelves in my office, either in paper or video form, got preferential consideration.

You might notice a tendency on the list towards one author. Many of my other favorite authors and books were never made into a movie or failed the other selection criteria.

The Sacketts (Louis L'Amour)
Shadow Riders (Louis L'Amour)
The Quick and the Dead (Louis L'Amour) 
High Noon (The Tin Star, John W. Cunningham)
The Virginian (Owen Wister)

Colossus: The Forbin Project (Colossus, Dennis Feltham Jones)
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (R. A. Dick)
Logan's Run (Logan's Run William F. Nolan, George Clayton Johnson)

An interesting tidbit I did find when verifying which came first, book or movie, related to Louis L'Amour. According to one filmography, some of his books or short stories were used as the basis for two of my favorite television programs when I was growing up: Sugarfoot and Maverick.

You've seen my list. What's your favorite movie made from a book you enjoyed equally well? Leave a comment below. And be sure to visit the other authors. Just because the link says it's closed, doesn't mean "no visitors are welcome." Only that new stops can't be added, so go on and visit. The other authors would love to see you.

~till next time, Helen

 

 

On the Couch

I had an interesting session on the couch. Stop by and see what secrets were revealed and a snippit from the upcoming release, First Change.

The interview is at:  abbieroads.com/2017/05/author-couch-helen-henderson/ #amreadingfantasy #romance #giveaway



Hope you'll stop by. Leave a comment and be entered into giveaway of Windmaster Legacy.

~till next time, Helen