COLLABORATION BY MARGARET TANNER

THE MANY SHADES OF COLLABORATION BY MARGARET TANNER

Collaboration. – The dictionary defines this as

Working together or working with another.

To co-operate with an enemy of one’s country.

I have collaborated.

I have worked with other authors on a Western anthology (Rawhide ‘N Roses), where there were fourteen of us who each supplied a short story. The proceeds all go to a horse rescue charity.

I also joined with nineteen other Western Romance authors to produce a book of short stories as a Christmas fund raising venture for a Texas charity. Then there was the American Mail Order Brides series (fifty brides from fifty states), so it can be seen that I have collaborated a few times.

Thankfully, I have never been put in the position of having to co-operate with an enemy of my country.

Now, forgetting the dictionary version, there are variations on collaboration. I have found that many of the characters in my novels collaborate with others, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil.

Two female workers may collaborate to try and have something done about a fellow worker who may have sexually harassed them. We all know the type, the guy who accidentally brushes our breast, stands too close to us in the elevator and is always making smutty jokes when no-one else is around.

Then there are the criminals who plan a bank robbery together, working for weeks on the layout of the bank, the personnel required, which bank to hit, getaway cars, somewhere to stash the cash until the heat is off etc. This planning might take weeks before the deed is done. Surely that is collaboration.

In my award winning novel, Falsely Accused, the hero, Jake Smith, is convicted of a crime he did not commit. His aristocratic father wants to get rid of him, so with the help of paid criminals, the father has Jake framed for a murder he did not commit. In my mind, the father collaborated with these men by planning his son’s demise with their help.

So, in my opinion, there are many shades of Collaboration.

FALSELY ACCUSED

On board the convict ship taking them to the penal colony of Australia, Maryanne Watson and Jake Smith meet and fall in love, but Jake hides a terrible secret that will take him to the gallows if it ever comes out.

On arrival in Sydney the lovers are separated. Maryanne is sent to work for the lecherous Captain Fitzhugh. After he attacks her she flees into the wilderness and eventually meets up with Jake who has escaped from a chain gang.  They set up home

in a hidden valley and Maryanne falls pregnant.  Will Jake come out of hiding to protect his fledgling family? And how can love triumph over such crushing odds?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEXEVES

Margaret Tanner writes historical romance.

http://www.margarettanner.com/

GRATITUDE - MARGARET TANNER

BEING GRATEFUL FOR SMALL THINGS - MARGARET TANNER

 

I am grateful for many things. Good health, happy family and fond childhood memories. The thing that really sicks in my mind when it comes to gratitude is the garden of my childhood home, and the produce grown there. To say it was life-saving would be an understatement.

My parents didn’t have much money when I was young. I didn’t really think that much about it at the time, but as I grew older I suddenly realized that my mother was a genius when it came to running the household on meagre amounts of money. She was also a great cook.

My father returned from the 2^nd World War carrying injuries, the physical ones we knew of but not the psychological ones. He had a heart attack in the early 1950’s when I was very young, and he could no longer work. Things were tough as we had to survive on a small military pension. He should have received a much larger pension but somehow never did.

No matter how bad things got, we were never hungry or dressed in ragged clothes, and we had a roof over our heads. Luckily my parents had paid off our house before Dad got sick.

Dad had a wonderful garden and we were very thankful for the produce he grew there. Tomatoes were his speciality. He loved them and grew heaps of them. I can still remember the tomatoes, we ate them raw, in salads, cooked, fried, steamed. Green tomato pickle, tomato sauce, chutney, tomato relish. You name it, mum cooked it. She used to preserve tomatoes so we could have them all year long. 

Looking back on things now I realize I should be grateful for the humble tomato, it certainly kept our bellies full.  I can’t even recall how many different dishes mum used to make with tomatoes as a base.

Apples were another thing Dad grew well. We had about six different varieties of apple trees growing in the garden. Once again Mum, baked them, stewed them and preserved them. We used to pick them green sometimes and store them in the roof cavity of the house and they would ripen up there. They lasted for months. Potatoes were another one of his specialties. I firmly believe to this day that it was the garden that kept Dad sane. He used to spend hours there.

So, I am grateful for my mother’s cooking expertise and other housekeeping skills and my father’s gardening skills, otherwise life would have been grim.

My early upbringing has stayed with me and I think that is why I mainly write about heroines who are poor and doing it hard. I can’t remember ever having written a rich heroine in any of my stories. As for my heroes, well they are always rich, arrogant and tough men who are redeemed by a gentle heroine who is strong because she has survived the tough times.

In my novel, Falsely Accused, the heroine is exiled to the penal colony of Australia for a crime she did not commit. She has to survive the degradation and desperation of the convict ship, and once she disembarks, her problems increase a hundredfold.

Available in print and e-book format.

 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEXEVES

 Also available in e-book format at Books We Love Store

 

 

 

 

PLOTTING AND DEVELOPMENT - HISTORICAL ROMANCE - MARGARET TANNER

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(Also available at any of your online retailers)

HOW DO I COME UP WITH  A PLOT AND DEVELOP MY CHARACTERS

Because I love Australian history, in fact all history, plots abound in my fertile imagination, but I do seem to get my best plot ideas in the middle of the night. I write them down, (pen and paper by my bed), so I won’t forget them. I usually take a historical event to use as my main background and then manufacture some catastrophic, life changing event for the main characters. What could they do to stop it? How will it change them and those around them?

I develop my characters to fit in with the era I am writing about. I normally don’t write character profiles, except for the briefest of outlines, but I try to walk in their shoes so to speak, and to get inside their head.

My heroines are resourceful, not afraid to fight for her family and the man she loves. I want my readers to be cheering for her, willing her to obtain her goals, to overcome the obstacles put in her way by rugged frontier men. For my heroes, I like them to be dark and tortured. They might be seeking revenge, trying to consolidate their fortunes, but all of them will have something in their backgrounds, some dark deed that has tainted their lives. As for my villains, I like them to be evil with no redeeming features. I want the reader to dislike them like I do.

If a reader contacts me to say how she despises some villainous beast of a man in one of my stories, it pleases me. I don't know why, but the villains in my stories are mostly men. Perhaps it is because men in the eras in which I set my books, had total control over their daughters, sisters and wives, and many of these men used their power to dominate the women in their lives. Sad but true. But, never fear, in my stories the hero always comes to the rescue of the damsel in distress.

FALSELY ACCUSED

1820’s England. Robbed of his birthright and falsely accused of murder, American Jake Smith, is exiled to the penal colony of Australia.

Margaret Tanner’s Website:  http://www.margarettanner.com/

http://bookswelove.net/authors/tanner-margaret/
           

YOU CAN'T ESCAPE THEM - DEATH, SEX AND TAXES - MARGARET TANNER

SEX, DEATH AND TAXES – MARGARET TANNER

Everyone has to pay taxes; no government on earth is going to let their citizens get away without paying taxes. Taxes on your salary, business tax, death taxes, you name it, they will tax it. Even the humble hamburger doesn't escape the clutches of the tax man.

In romance novels, we don’t talk about taxes. I don’t recall ever having read anything about tax collection.

Sex – yes in all its forms, sweet and tender, just a kiss or two. Hot and spicy, no shutting the bedroom door here, and the really hot stuff that Margaret Tanner doesn’t write. I do commend the talented authors who do, and pull it off so successfully in their erotic romances.

Death – In novels, I consider death to be a great tool in creating emotion and upping the drama. I don’t mean having the hero and heroine die, but the villains and secondary characters. Of course, near death experiences for heroes or heroines is always good.

I have been thinking about this in regards to my stories. I write historical fiction with romantic elements, so death is probably easier to include in these stories. Harder to justify in contemporary romance, unless it is some villain who is hell bent on harming the heroine and to save her life, he has to go.

In bygone days, death in childbirth was quite common. People died of snakebite/disease/illness because they were miles from medical assistance or could not afford to pay for it. Bank robbers, stage coach robbers, cattle rustlers etc. the sheriff could quite legitimately shoot these criminals down without fear of reprisal from their peers, or condemnation from the public.

In war, on the field of battle, soldiers die or are wounded, so we happily accept this in historical romance. We probably shed a tear or two for the gallant warrior and the staunch heroine who waits in vain for him to return. We wouldn’t throw the book against the wall because of this. We just sigh with contentment when another dashing soldier rides into the life of our heroine and she finally gets her happily ever after ending.

I have to confess that in all my novels there is some sex of the medium to hot variety and someone must die. Never a main character, of course, but someone invariably has to go, usually a baddie, but not always so.

As for taxes, I never mention the word in my novels unless it is to say – the heat became very taxing.

My Links:

http://www.margarettanner.com/

http://bookswelove.net/authors/tanner-margaret/

My novel, Falsely Accused, published by Books We Love, has recently won the Historical Section of the Easy Chair Writing Competition. Yes, there is a death or two in this story, but hey, the 1820’s were wild and violent days in a young colony.

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEXEVES

 

DE-CLUTTERING - TO DO OR NOT TO DO - MARGARET TANNER

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THE PERILS OF NOT DE-CLUTTERING – MARGARET TANNER

I am a clutter collector from way back. I figure why throw anything out; you never know when you might need it. I inherited the hoarder gene.

“Waste not, want not” was my mother’s motto and she lived by it the whole of her life. Maybe it was because she lived through the great depression of the 1930’s and World War 2, that she would use and re-use, save and squirrel away stuff. Our house was never untidy, because most of the hoarded items were well out of sight. 

I should have learned my lesson after my dear mother died about 20 years ago and my sister and I had to clear out her house. To say it was a nightmare was an understatement. It took weeks. My mother had kept receipts from the 1940’s, even her World War 2 ration book. And speaking of books, she had hundreds of them. Then there were the ornaments, pretty little knick-knacks that reposed on every shelf or level surface in the house. Boxes of china. Well, you get the idea.

Now you would think that after all this trauma and angst, I would have dashed home and gone through my own cupboards.  I didn’t, but I did take a lot of my mother’s stuff with me.  Well, how could I let it go?  All those little treasures.

My mother-in-law passed away, same story, I kept a lot of her things too. I was a hoarder.  It came as naturally as breathing or eating.

Well friends, retribution did come. The youngest of our sons finally left home, so hubby and I decided it was time to downsize. We bought a smaller house, and put our larger house on the market. “We’ve got a lot of stuff here, we’ll have to get rid of it,” hubby says.

Over my dead body. “No, we won’t do anything rash,” I said. “There’s plenty of time to work out what we want to keep.”

A week before the auction of our house, my husband had to have heart by-pass surgery, so I had to go on with the sale alone. After the auction and hubby’s successful operation, I had to start packing, because when he came home he couldn’t do anything for eight weeks. I really hit the panic button because we had a short settlement. Forty days to clear out all our stuff, that of my mother and mother-in-law (things I had kept, and shouldn’t have). Well, it was a nightmare. I did most of it on my own.  I don’t know how many trips I made to donate all these “treasures” to the second hand thrift shop   And I did help the less fortunate - big time.  The thrift shop manager must have thought I was Mother Teresa re-incarnated.

It was terrible. I cried because I had to give away my ‘treasures, mum’s treasures and my mother in-law’s treasures’. Worse still, was the time it took to pack them and deliver them to the thrift shop. 

With the clock ticking, I had to be ruthless – and I was.

If you are even contemplating moving house, start to get rid of your surplus stuff early.  In fact, don’t collect it in the first place.  A lady once told me that if she didn’t wear a dress for a year, she was probably never going to wear it again, and she got rid of it. Smart lady. Wish I had such courage.  I still cling to my favourite dresses, hey I might lose weight and they will fit me again???

The moral of this story is -  don’t hoard. De-clutter as much as possible, because one day you will have to sort it out, or your children will have to sort it out.  

The same goes for your writing.  Be ruthless. If the manuscript you have expended blood, sweat and tears over isn’t working, discard it.  Temporarily cast it into your bottom drawer is what I mean. Don’t destroy it, because you might be able to resurrect it at a later date.  Start on something fresh and new. Once you get your writing tastebuds tingling again with a new premise, a feisty heroine and a spunky hero, the words will start flowing until they become a torrent.

Never give up. It is a steep climb to the top of the publishing mountain, but oh what a view once you get there.

http://bookswelove.net/authors/tanner-margaret/

Margaret Tanner writes spicy historical romance set in Australia.

FALSELY ACCUSED

1820’s England. Robbed of his birthright and falsely accused of murder, American Jake Smith, is exiled to the penal colony of Australia.

MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH ROSES - MARGARET TANNER

 

ROSES - MARGARET TANNER

Housekeeping and tidying up. Not my favourite topic or occupation, unless we are taking about tidying up my garden. In particular my rose garden, which I tend with loving care, because roses truly deserve special treatment. No chore to tidy up here. I banish any weed the moment it rears its ugly head near my “lovelies.”

Roses are my favourite flower. My husband thinks I am obsessed with them.  I always wear rose perfume, Bush Rose, Musk Rose. The Yardley (English company) Rose has a lovely perfume, as sweet and fragrant as its namesake. How many wonderful people have you met who are called Rose, Rosy, Rosemarie, Rosemary?

I have to confess that my garden is full of roses. Hubby hates them with a passion because he thinks they deliberately jump out and stick their prickles into him.

I love the old fashioned roses the best. They may not be quite as colourful as the modern day varieties, but they always have a gorgeous perfume.  Just Joey, a beautiful large bloomed orange rose with a delightful perfume is one of my favourites.  Another favourite is a blood red rose named Oklahoma, the perfume is as heady as wine. My garden has recently acquired a rose called. The Chocolate Rose. I have to say that although the bloom is pretty, it isn’t stunning, but it certainly has a chocolate perfume, and you can take that observation from a chocoholic. If there is one thing I know, it is the smell of chocolate.

It amazes me how often I seem to give the characters in my novels a floral name. It must have been an instinctive thing because I don’t recall actively trying to do this.

A few examples. In Haunted Hearts, the heroine’s daughter is called Rosie. In A Mortal Sin, the heroine is named Daphne. Iris is the wicked mother-in-law in Make Love Not War

I have also written a short story with the title Call Of The Apple Blossom.  Can you see a pattern here?

There is rarely a novel of mine that doesn't have at least one rose garden scene.
                       
So, there you have it. I wonder if there is such a thing as a roseaholic?

http://www.margarettanner.com/

http://www.bookswelove.net/tanner.php

 

Falsely Accused has recently been released  by BWL and is available on Amazon.
On board the convict ship taking them to the penal colony of Australia, Maryanne Watson and Jake Smith meet and fall in love, but Jake hides a terrible secret that will take him to the gallows if it ever comes out.
On arrival in Sydney the lovers are separated. Maryanne is sent to work for the lecherous Captain Fitzhugh. After he attacks her she flees into the wilderness and eventually meets up with Jake who has escaped from a chain gang.  They set up home in a hidden valley and Maryanne falls pregnant.  Will Jake come out of hiding to protect his fledgling family? And how can love triumph over such crushing odds?

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEXEVES