Emilie Richards's Blog, page 30

Sunday Inspiration: Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there.

Today’s gift to all of us is this moving poem “To The Moms Out There Who Love Someone On the Autism Spectrum,” by Kerry Magro, an autistic man who grew up with a mom who supported and challenged him as a child and adult.

A lot of what Kerry says about his mother is true for most mothers, whether they are biological, adoptive, foster or simply loving women who help the children in their lives who need them. Though our children may not be on the autism scale, all  children are unique and none are easy to raise, especially during these challenging times. To be a good mother requires a diverse combination of talents and skills and an unending sense of commitment and dedication.

No matter what kind of “mother” you are, I hope your Mothers Day is filled with gratitude for your amazing accomplishments. I hope you are filled with a deep satisfaction and pride for your achievements. And I hope you forgive yourself for any perceived mistakes or shortcomings that may lessen your joy.

Today is a day to celebrate. Enjoy it.

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The Fabulous Jayne Ann Krentz Chats With Yours Truly

Jayne and Emilie on their way to the Canary Islands

Some of you will remember that Jayne Ann Krentz and I met about 18 months ago on a Mediterranean cruise.

A reader told me she was on board, too, and our mutual agent told me to find her. So I did. Here’s our first meeting in a lounge during, well, happy hour! More about that here. 

Now although we’re on different coasts, we have fun through email.  Today, as Jayne’s  CLOSE UP, written as Amanda Quick debuts, we’re sharing one of those conversations with you. Enjoy.

JAK: So, Emilie, how is this whole Stay Home/Stay Safe thing affecting your writing? Personally, I have discovered I’ve developed some sort of obsession when it comes to sinks. I can’t pass one without stopping to wash my hands. Also, I should probably invest in Lysol because we’re using so much of it. I worry about people who are living in very small spaces — studio apartments, for example — and people who are living alone. But, then, I’m claustrophobic so I may be projecting. Oh. Wait. None of that has anything to do with writing, does it?

EMILIE: Actually, as sad as it is, this has everything to do with writing. First, we have all the time in the world to worry-hence the handwashing. And being writers, who constantly fantasize the worst or best-depending on our genres-we can’t help ourselves from imagining multiple scenarios a minute about what’s going to happen next. Even if we can shove that aside, at night time, it comes out to play. Result for some? Nightmares and at best, very colorful dreams that keep sleep at bay.

JAK: Yes, the dreams and/or nightmares are very strange and sometimes disturbing. I am dreaming much more intensely these days and I’ve heard a lot of other people say they are, too. Unfortunately I never get any useful plot ideas from my nightly journeys. But on the flip side there is the thrilling excitement of the InstaCart deliveries during the day!

EMILIE: And Instacart. Wow. The highlight of every day is creating my next list. And food? Dinner menus have taken the place of cruises, weekend jaunts, movies, and sitting down at restaurants

JAK: Yes! Menu planning! And figuring out how to stage the fresh veggies so that they don’t go bad before I get to them. As for my freezer, it has never been so stuffed. I have also learned to appreciate the wonders of technology. Zoom Happy Hours with friends have become one of the great joys of my life.

EMILIE: I was wondering today how this is going to show up in our books. I blogged recently about the way I had to change the entire time frame of one of my books in the midst of writing it because of 9-11. And now I have to do it again. I was sure I’d be okay because the book is set right now-or I should say was, because once again, time traveling back a year to Pre-Covid-19.

Have you had a similar problem? Are you wondering how you can work in this strange time in your future contemporary novels? It makes me want to write historicals. If I could just find a time without war and pestilence.

JAK: Good question. It so happens that at the moment I’m working on one of my Burning Cove novels which I write as Amanda Quick. They are set in the 1930s so I’m locked into that history. As for my contemporaries, I have always tried to make them feel “timeless”. I almost never reference politics or political figures or major world and national events. But I have sometimes been run over by technology. The arrival of cell phones is a glaring example. Modern forensics has also complicated plotting. One of the reasons I love working with the psychic/paranormal vibe is because I have an excuse to skip the police procedural stuff. The futuristics, which I write as Jayne Castle, give me the most freedom but they have their own rules and history, too.

EMILIE: Switching genres a bit clearly keeps your writing fresh, too, and more fun. There’s something for everybody.

I’m so glad you had time to visit my readers today.

JAK: Thank you so much for inviting me to chat with you. It was great to catch up with you. I love your books — A FAMILY OF STRANGERS was such a compelling read. You do the best family drama! Stay safe, my friend.

Emilie: And to you, Jayne, a huge thank you for the hours of reading pleasure you’ve given all of us. Nothing beats a book to take us away from real life for a little while so we can rest and these days, recover. I look forward to your new books and to more Jayne Ann Krentz, Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle in the future. I really appreciate you joining me at Southern Exposure today. It’s always so much fun.

Readers you can find Jayne’s brand new books and older ones, too, at her website with links to bookstores.

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Author Karen Harper

My author friends are generous people. And none were more generous than Karen Harper, an Ohio author I’ve known since the beginning of my career.

Karen was the first person to tell me about the Buckeye Book Fair, the one person I could count on to send me my PW reviews back before they could be found online, and the author who offered to read and give me a quote for Iron Lace, my first single title. I always looked forward to seeing her when I knew our paths would cross.

For Iron Lace she said “Richly textured and deeply moving, Iron Lace is a break-your-heart love story in the grand tradition.” I suspect that quote says more about Karen than about my book.

In November this year Karen and I sat side by side at the Buckeye Book Fair in Wooster, OH. and talked about our lives and careers. We discovered we had the same editor and made sure to have our photo taken together to send to our terrific Emily. She told me she had two books coming out back to back this spring, something that had never happened to her before. We talked about this one and all the research she did. She was looking forward to seeing it in print.

Unfortunately Karen Harper passed away this month, so she won’t be here to see how well her books will undoubtedly do. But her friends want you to know this first of the two has just been released and the second soon will be. We hope you’ll look for and enjoy both books and all her works.

You can find Deep in the Alaskan Woods at Amazon, at B&N, and at Apple Books as well as other bookstores.

Her next book, The Queen’s Secret, from William Morrow and at bookstores on May 19th, is one of Karen’s fabulous historicals. If you love the television series The Crown, you’ll love this story about Queen Mary, wife of King George VI during WWII. I can’t wait to read it.

Karen will be greatly missed.

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Sunday Inspiration: Hope begins

“Hope begins in the dark,
the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing,
the dawn will come.
You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.”
Anne Lamott

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Mask Maker Heroes: When Help Is Needed.

Thanks to everyone who sent photos of the masks they’ve made.

Today I’ve tried to include all the photos I received, although it’s possible that because some came to different Facebook addresses, I missed adding them. I’ve also sent links to my ebook, The Unmasking, to every mask maker who commented and sent a photo. Some of you non-mask makers wanted to know where to buy a copy for yourself. My website has all the links.

Whether your photo is here or not, please know how much I appreciate your hard work and your willingness to share it for the rest of us to admire. Some people made one mask, others have made more than a hundred and are still going strong. Some made pleated masks, one enterprising mask maker used plastic. Others made a million yards of ties.

For the record I’ve made and distributed 39 to friends and family, which is a drop in the mask maker bucket, but I don’t think I’m done yet.

No matter what you’ve done or can do, your work will be appreciated.

You are the absolute best!

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Sunday Inspiration: Resilience

“I can be changed by what happens to me.
But I refuse to be reduced by it.”
-Maya Angelou

How are you holding up?

These are hard times for so many people. It’s difficult to wrap my brain and heart around the myriad changes in our world and the suffering of so many. We are all challenged in this historic time to be resilient, to be changed by what happens but not to be reduced by it.

A favorite blogger of mine, Eric Barker, recently wrote about this, so I thought I would share some of his ideas in the hope that they might be as helpful to you as they are to me. I strongly urge you to read his complete post, but I’ll summarize a small part until you do.

First we need to give ourselves the gift of positive self-talk. Positive thoughts are not enough. When we can give ourselves verbal messages of hope and strength — such as “I can do this,” “I’m strong and resilient,” “This will get better,” — the words tend to stick. It also helps to verbalize our fears and anxiety if we follow that with mantras of endurance and strength.

Next, to be strong mentally we need to be strong physically. With so many of our usual ways of exercising impossible now, it’s become a challenge to keep moving.  I find walking with Proman every morning both good for my body — “a walk a day keeps the virus away?” — and good for my soul. Having the opportunity to breathe fresh air, to listen to mockingbirds sing, and to move freely makes a big difference in my day.

Follow exercise with humor. Humor is the emotional equivalent of washing your hands to protect yourself. Every time we can find humor in a difficult situation we become stronger. Mark Twain wrote, “Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.” These days our television is often tuned to comedy specials on Netflix. It’s so cleansing just to enjoy a belly laugh every day.

And last—for this summary—foster meaning in your life. During a crisis we might ignore all the ifs, ands, and buts of religion and get down to the big questions of why we suffer and what is our purpose. The answers are many and varied, but in this time of uncertainty we have the opportunity to wrestle with the questions and form the answers that are right for us.

I hope this critical time in all our lives helps us develop resilience, and when better times are on the horizon, we can look back and feel glad and even proud that we learned how to pick ourselves up and move forward.

 

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The Best Laid Schemes

“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” Robert Burns

Plans or Schemes?

While we often talk about best laid “plans”, today I like “schemes,” from the original quote by Robert Burns, especially as it pertains to today’s blog.

Novelists are schemers more than planners. After all we tell lies for a living, and most of the time we get away with it. Unless our novels veer so far from reality that nobody can believe a word, we’re usually okay. Of course we try not to make errors, and most of us do careful research to be sure we don’t. I spend hours, maybe weeks, researching anything I don’t know first hand. Sometimes, though, things slip by, usually the things we thought we knew and didn’t need to check.

Research Gone Astray.

I’ve told you before that my novel Dragonslayer (now more aptly titled Hold Back the Night) revamped the centuries old liturgical calendar so that Ash Wednesday and Easter were in the same week. For those of you who fast or give up something important like chocolate during Lent, that year was a piece of cake–unless you gave up cake.

After my first book, Brendan’s Song, was purchased for publication the copy editor wrote to say she wished that all days had 40 hours, like the first one in my book, but since they don’t, I’d need to change that.  I love it when editors find mistakes before publication.

Another kind of mistake was harder to avoid, and guess what, I’ve made it again. So here’s my confession.

The Scheme That Backfired.

When I wrote Prospect Street in 2001, I set the novel during that year. After all the novel’s timeline began before I sat down to write, and I figured that nothing much could happen to upend my carefully orchestrated calendar.

Prospect Street takes place in Georgetown in Washington D.C., just ten minutes from my then home in Arlington, VA. Politics of sorts permeates the air in the story, the way it permeates everything in real life. And although politics is not a major part of the story, one major character is a senator.

I knew my setting and I was all set. Prospect Street was two-thirds of the way completed when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th. The attack changed everything for everybody, but particularly for people near the explosions. The attack on the Pentagon came very close to home, so close that a minister who was interning at our church was driving in for the day when American Airlines Flight 77 flew over his car and crashed into the building seconds later, killing 125 people.

In an odd twist of fate (and an aside) my father, right before or during the early days of WWII, was on the crew that installed the slate roof on the Pentagon, which delayed his draft notice. For weeks after the attack, the Pentagon smoldered. The slate roof, which had done an amazing job of keeping water from the building, actually hindered the firefighters efforts because… they couldn’t get water into the building. More best laid schemes.

After 9-11, I called my editor and talked to her about my book dilemma. Was it okay if I set my book in the year 2000, so that I could avoid weaving 9-11 into the story. First, the terrorist attack didn’t belong. That would be a completely different book. Second, I didn’t want to exploit what had happened. We agreed setting it back a year would be the best bet.

Of course 2000 was also fairly momentous, and I did have to rewrite and mention Y2K and other happenings when and if they were relevant. But 2000 was safer to write about, and best of all, over. I knew what had happened. 2001 was still unfolding.

How Far Can We Stretch History?

When I began my new book last spring, I considered my experience with Prospect Street.  I decided to set the book in 2019 and 2020, which was unfolding while I was writing it. I’d almost reached the point where I would be writing in real time “after” the end of the book in fiction time. What could go wrong in those few weeks?

The best laid schemes, right? I can’t begin to tell you in how many ways Covid-19 would affect my plot if I set the book when I had planned to. The book “almost” ends when the quarantine begins in real life. But no, it just won’t work.

So now I’m tasked with going back and changing everything that matters.

Do Readers Really Care?

Do readers really grab their calendars to make sure that every day I mention works with a meticulous timeline they’re keeping? Well, no. But I do mention a few events and days of the week. So I have to make sure all that is accurate. The biggest change will probably be the Greek Epiphany celebration, which will now be a year earlier. I’ll have to research to see exactly what was different in January of 2019 and make the changes. Considering that I attended in 2020 and did the research up close, that’s a bummer.

Every day I learn about some truly monumental changes occurring in daily life due to a killer virus. The changes I have to make in a work of fiction are not monumental. At most, they’re mildly annoying. But how will other novelists handle their books in progress?

It’s going to be interesting to watch and see. In the meantime, let’s guess how many new novels will be published about the pandemic? Or will those authors have to wait until the worst is over? Because I can tell them right now, writing about unfolding history is a gamble. I, for one, won’t be joining them.

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Sunday Inspiration: A Different Easter

Happy Easter Friends!
Even though this is a different Easter,
May the renewal of life at this holy time of year
bring new blessings of love, hope, peace, good health, and happiness
to you and your loved ones.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever your religious convictions,
May you embrace renewal and joy.
And with the help of cyberspace, may you stand hand-in-hand, heart to heart, with people everywhere.

 

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The Unmasking: A Special Gift For Mask Makers

Making progress on making masks.

I’ve now made about two dozen masks. I’ve figured out how to streamline the process, working on a few each morning before I start writing.  I’m almost out of interfacing, but I’ll never be out of fabric. I’ve been adding to my fabric stash for years, buying fabric on sale and bargain tables sometimes, and others just grabbing a bit of this or that I can’t live without. I also save scraps. Lots of those, just the right size for masks. I even managed to find elastic.

Many of you are making masks, too. I’m so proud of you when I read how many you’ve made and where you’ve sent them. I knew I hung out with a lot of good people, so I’m not surprised. But I am in awe.

A gift for hard working mask makers.

Of course sewing is my hobby, but writing is my profession. Sometimes they can come together.

As a thank you to everyone who’s making and giving masks away, I’d like to give back a bit. If you comment here this week and include a photo of a mask you’ve made and given away–or many masks you’ve made–then I’ll send you a code to download one of my very first novels, The Unmasking, which was published by Harlequin in 1985 and updated just a bit when I received my rights back. The Unmasking was one of my first books to be published, a romance about second chances. And yes, the heroine is a mask maker!

***Unfortunately right after I published this, I discovered you can’t post photos in comments here, a sad state of affairs. Instead pop over to my Facebook Page and post your photo there.  Or you can send it to me at emilie at emilierichards.com (use @ and no spaces. I wrote it that way to fool spambots.)

So comment here, post the photo there or send it to me, and same result. Sorry about the two-steps. Technology can be a bear.

To me this seems like exactly the right book to read right now. It’s an escape into the world of professional mask making in New Orleans, where masks are a big part of the local culture. It was written back when masks were made and worn for fun and not to avoid germs.

The book takes place in pre-Katrina New Orleans, and I fondly remember taking a real mask maker to lunch as part of my research. Who knew I’d be making dozens of a very different kind of mask years later?

So what are you waiting for?

Comment.
Show us a photo on my FB page or in an email to me of one or more of your beautiful masks.
In return I will send you a code from Book Funnel to download The Unmasking on your e-Reader, tablet, or computer to enjoy. Book Funnel is the perfect tool for authors to send readers books, and they will help you through the process.  I promise it’s not a bit difficult to use.

Nothing to it, right? Nothing except the thrill of helping others, working with fabric, and finally settling in with a good book after a job well done.

Disclaimer: I’m an Amazon Associate and if you click on one of my Amazon links and buy, I may receive an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny royalty.

 

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Sunday Inspiration: A Universal Golden Rule

I can’t think of a better time, while we’re in the middle of a global pandemic, for us to rededicate ourselves to the golden rule. I’m thankful that the golden rule is not for Christians only, but as you can see from the image above (thanks to Scarboro Mission and Resources for Life.com), it’s at the heart of religions around the world.

I’m incredibly inspired when I see doctors and nurses and first responders risking their health and their lives every day while practicing the golden rule. May they be honored for the heroes they truly are, and may we follow their example.

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