Describe it!

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As a writer, it’s my job to use description well so my readers can see the world I’m creating and feel as if they actually know the characters as people next door, from work, or co-riders on the subway. There are millions of words for describing the taste, smell, feel, look and sound of everything and it really shouldn’t be a problem. Right?


Last week, I asked my niece for her mom’s chicken tetrazzini recipe. I love it and wanted to make it for my family. One of the ingredients is cooking sherry and it’s not something I keep on hand. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever used it in a recipe. So off to the store I go. After wandering the aisles looking in what I thought were the obvious places, I stopped a clerk.


“Can you tell me where the cooking sherry is?”


He frowned, then said, “Describe it.”


Huh? “It’s sherry…that you cook with.”


He had no idea but suggested I go to the front of the store to customer service.


Again I asked, “Can you tell me where the cooking sherry is?” Now mind you, this is a major grocery store chain; not a small back woods convenience store.


The man behind the counter checked his computer then said… “Describe it.”


You would think the name was description enough, but doing better this time, I said, “It’s liquid and comes in a bottle.” Thinking that could be probably 30% of the store contents, I added, “It’s sherry you use for cooking. You could probably drink it but it doesn’t have alcohol in it.” (Misconception on my part, as it’s 17% alcohol by content yet it’s not in the liquor department.)


He said it might be in aisle 3 so we headed that way. As he was perusing the shelves, I pulled out my phone and texted my niece, asking her where the cooking sherry was located. (I’m in Kansas and she’s  across the country in New York, but I figured … well, I’m not sure but the odds were she knew as much as my store clerks as she had used it before.) Just as she answered the clerk came from the aisle next to where I was standing with a bottle of cooking sherry.


I’m not sure there’s a morale to this story unless it’s to have someone else do your grocery shopping because in the time I spent wandering the aisles, I picked up several food items that looked good but I didn’t really need. All this for 4 tablespoons of cooking sherry.


****

Describing characters in my novel “An Interlude” was easier because Peter and CJ were so real to me. Stuffy, uptight New York businessman Peter didn’t like his need for southern bred, New Orleans contractor CJ, but she was in charge of the restoration of his great-aunt’s house and he would put up with her. Except that meant being around her on a daily basis and he soon began to feel the pull of what could only be bayou magic.


Grab a copy of “An Interlude”, as ebook or in print at my favorite publisher, Books We Love. http://bookswelove.net/authors/baldwin-barbara-romance/


Visit my website for more great reading with contemporary, historical and time travel romantic stories. http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin


Thanks for reading,
Barb

The Sequel to my best seller! How I had to create one.

Diane Scott Lewis was born in California, wrote her first novel at five (with her mother's help), and published short-stories and poems in school magazines. She had a short-story submitted by my High School to a literary festival when she was seventeen. She joined the navy at nineteen. Married her navy husband in Greece, had two sons. She now lives in Western Pennsylvania.
  
She had her first novel published in 2010. That novel is now the reworked Escape the Revolution.
But today we discuss the sequel, Hostage to the Revolution, due out July 19th.

What do you do when a book grows too big?                        

When I started writing, I had no idea there were word count restrictions. I'd read huge, lumbering books numerous times. But the fiction world had changed, especially for a new author.

The answer to this problem is you cut the story in half, or in this case, the last third, which was the perfect place to break the flow. When I wrote this first novel, originally titled The False Light, renamed Betrayed Countess, and now Escape the Revolution, it grew to nearly 700 pages. I suppose I didn’t want the adventure to end, but the novel was unwieldy, and out of control.

I had to shave off the last third, plump up that part of the story, and create a sequel: Hostage to the Revolution.

Below is the blurb to explain the first book ESCAPE THE REVOLUTION:

Forced from France on the eve of the French Revolution, Countess Bettina Jonquiere must deliver an important package to further the royalist cause. In England, she discovers the package is full of blank papers, the address false and she’s penniless. Bettina toils in a bawdy tavern and falls in love with a man who may have murdered his wife. Tracked by ruthless revolutionaries, she must uncover the truth about her father’s murder—and her lover’s guilt—while her life is threatened.

The Historical Novel Society called it: "Simply brilliant."

For the reviewers who lamented that this novel has no Happily Ever After, that’s because you need to read the sequel for the true ending. For those who haven’t read the first book, I hope you’ll download both novels.

Here’s the blurb for HOSTAGE TO THE REVOLUTION:

Sequel to Escape the Revolution. In 1796, ruined countess Bettina Jonquiere leaves England after the reported drowning of her lover, Everett.  In New Orleans she struggles to establish a new life for her children. Soon a ruthless Frenchman demands the money stolen by her father at the start of the French Revolution. Bettina is forced on a dangerous mission to France to recover the funds. She unravels dark family secrets, but will she find the man she lost as well?

This last book on Bettina’s story will be available July 19^th.

I hope fans will enjoy both of these novels. I think readers will be satisfied with this surprise ending.

For more on my books, please visit my BWL Author page

Or my website: dianescottlewis.org

 

Vacation, Coffee, and Me By Connie Vines

'A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.'  

From the Urban Dictionary:   

Coffee snob

1- An individual who cares about what coffee or coffee mix drink they put in their mouth. A coffee snob is not okay with Starbucks, or Tim Hotrons, or Dunkin Doughnuts, or McDonald's (including McD's--my clarification)...etc.

2- A coffee snob would rather drink water than drink old coffee. An anal coffee snob will not drink the coffee if it needs milk and anything more than 1 tsp of sugar.

3- A coffee snob supports local roasters and refuses to drink Folgers, Maxwell House, or any other pre-ground non-fresh coffee--including instant.

"Hey, you want some coffee?" 

"What do you have?"

"Instant and Folgers."

"Umm... You got water?" 

"Oh. You must be a coffee snob, huh?"

"Yes, sorry."

While on most family vacations my ‘purest’ stance was a bit of a pain for my two children and husband (who doesn't care what the blend the coffee is as long as it’s throat burning hot).   However, when we vacationed in Louisiana (my husband’s home state), to his amazement, I never once voiced a complaint or dumped a full cup of coffee on the asphalt outside of a fast-food establishment (near the shrubbery—I am not without sensitivity) after being served a cup of coffee.

I savored.  I sipped. I was thrilled the morning I was awaken by the fragrance of hot, rich coffee. My husband and children walked over the Café de Monde at sunrise and brought coffee and beignets (still warm in the trademark paper bag) to our hotel room.

And at that moment, sipping coffee and munching on warm beignets, I became a New Orleans, French Quarter, coffee snob. Think: steaming mug, lazy strains of jazzy trumpets and the scent a gulf breeze, and powdered sugar.

Unless you have been to New Orleans and experienced café au lait, it’s difficult to understand why a cup of coffee could equal such bliss.  Unlike the coveted slice of French bread from San Francisco (yes, it really is unique when dining on the bay), or stone crab in Florida, or Montana huckleberries—these flavors can’t be packaged or frozen, or duplicated. The French Quarter coffee, however, can be purchased in supermarkets, or online. 

However, French Quarter coffee is cut with chicory. 

So what the heck is chicory?  Chicory, the knobby core at the base of an endive plant, roasted and ground (it has a sweet tobacco-smoke aroma) and mixed with coffee. When mixed with fresh ground coffee, the chicory adds that same dried-fruit sweet-sourness to the cup up front, and lightens the body with a "mellowing" effect.

Like countless writers before me I found New Orleans inspiring, magical, and seeped with history.  Jackson Square, a paddle boat ride up the Mississippi, St. Charles Street, surrey rides, walking the Quarter at night, dining, music and talking to residents of the city—it is wonderful to see how the city has re-emerging from the tragic consequences of Katrina.   And like many authors who have visited or lived within the city, a story that’s root inside your physic—a story which demands to be told.

And while I plot and polish my anthology that is set in New Orleans, I listen to jazz on Slacker radio and slip hot chicory coffee from my Café du Monde mug.

My home brew may not quite obtain the ‘perfection’ of a mug of coffee I sipped on vacation in New Orleans, I can console myself with a visit to the Blue Bayou Café at Disneyland when writer’s block nips at my heels.  There, seated at a waterfront table set with: white linen table cloth, china, goblets and ornate silverware, I watch the “Pirates of Caribbean” boat passengers as they float by.  I can hear croaking frogs and the soft strains of jazz trumpets from Jackson Square while twinkling fire-flies enhance my illusion of ‘bayou darkness’.  And for one magical moment, I am back in New Orleans.

Cafe du Monde

Steel Magnolias
Motion Picture
(not taken in New Orleans--this is near my husband's home town)

·        Author’s note: I do enjoy and indulge in Starbucks coffee.

Happy Reading,

Connie

Research or Over-Research – Where Does a Writer Draw the Line?

Every writer knows even when writing a nonfiction novel: making it up requires research.

Like storytelling, the mind of the writer to research never stops. Isaac Asimov once said he was writing every minute he was in the shower; in the shower, he was only thinking about his writing. In the same way, research for my novels has become a part of me.

Romantic Suspense requires its writers to be reliable witnesses. Contemporary Romance requires its writers to pay special attention to details which enhance the emotional connection. Biting humor/chick lit requires the writers to take contemporary events and spin them off kilter.  While young adult/tween fiction requires a lighter touch-- with a connection to the teachable psyche and the future of humanity.

Most writers try to strike a happy medium when conducting research, leaving enough wiggle room with reality to spin a good yarn. Yet research has a cumulative effect. Once you start, you don’t stop.

You can already where I fall on the research graph: once I start, it’s difficult, if not impossible, for me to stop conducting my research.

So, here are few of my research questions (Gumbo Ya Ya: for women who like romance Cajun & men Hot & Spicy):  can a true gypsy (real medium/fortuneteller type) foretell her own future? What does a television producer do during the course of her day—when she’s key suspect in a murder investigation? What does it feel like to be on a pirate ship during the 1600s? Does time travel hurt? Bachelor Auction--what goes on during a Bachelor Auction? How does one concoct an accidental love potion? And, lastly, from my next “Fun and Sassy Fantasy” series: do gargoyles really know how to fly?

Remember research is not story. Trivial facts gathered from a variety of experiences can change the course of a future narrative.

Growing up in a career naval family gave me an almost inherent knowledge of the sea and maritime history. While residing in San Diego, California I visited the “Star of India” (16^th century sailing vessel) moored at the harbor. My husband, being from Louisiana, made Cajun country and New Orleans frequent vacation destinations, and gave me ‘instant atmosphere’ for my setting. While I reside within driving distance of Hollywood, Universal Studios in the like, aside from a short internship in theater makeup technique, I am not a ‘go-to-person’ in all things Hollywood.

What am I to do?

I went to a local Starbucks, ordered a tall Pikes blend (1 Equal, nonfat milk), selected a table by the window and plopped down my iPad, pulled a chair near my table and conducted a Google search. Alas, Google is not the Oracle of Delphi. My next step was to log on to the local library Web site where I selected related research materials and reserved them for front desk pickup.  This I knew, would not quench my search of knowledge.  

With a heavy sign (knowing what weekday traffic was like) I decided to participate in a SoCal tourist day at Universal Studio (tour and City Walk).  I paid careful attention to all things visible during the freeway drive, my impression of the back lot and studio history.  I also interviewed employees and tour guides, and park visitors. Later, while grabbing a quick snack and the “Hard Rock Café” I spied the red carpet being set-up for a movie premier.  

Yay, pay dirt! 

A few more questions, observations, and a few interesting true stories (no names mentioned) told in passing, and I was good to go.

Will everything I discovered end up in my Anthology?  Most likely not.  Have I completed my research on the above mentioned topics?   Since my husband frequently asks if my office is a satellite branch of the public library, I know if I’m not researching this topic I will find another point of interest.

Reading isn’t a spectator event. 

You experience life.  The more knowledge you have, the better-equipped you are to tackle any challenge you’ll ever face.

No matter know much stress you have at work, in your personal relationships, or daily life, it all just slips away when you lose yourself in a great story.

May your holiday season be filled with joy, peace, and love.

Connie Vines

http://www.novelsbyconnievines.com

http://bookswelove.net/connievines.php