Under the Christmas Tree by J. S. Marlo

J. S. Marlo BWL Author Page

December is my favorite month of the year. I love the decorations, the lights, and mostly the atmosphere. It seems people are friendlier, more helpful. Despite the larger crowds, I enjoy shopping for that perfect gift that will light up someone's eyes.

When my kids were little, I followed my own rule of thumb when it came to Christmas gifts: a pajama, a puzzle, a toy, a stuffy, and a book. They were allowed to open one gift on Christmas Eve: the pajama, which they wore that night. Then on Christmas Day, they either started the book or the puzzle. They are grown up now, but that same rule of thumb now applies to my granddaughter. It wasn't something I'd read somewhere or that was passed down from generations, but then a few weeks back I saw that  post on Facebook.

My curiosity was piqued, so I browsed the Internet to see if I could find out more about this delightful Christmas tradition.

"Jólabókaflóð" or "Yule Book Flood" originated during World War II when foreign imports were restricted, but paper was cheap. Iceland’s population was not large enough to support a year-round publishing industry, so book publishers flooded the market with new titles in the final weeks of the year.

Icelanders open their presents on Christmas Eve, so most of them end the evening by settling down with one of their gifted books. According to Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurðardótti, books remain the number one Christmas present in Iceland and it’s considered a total flop Christmas if you do not get a book.

Fun & interesting facts:

- Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country

- One in ten Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime

- In Iceland, the holiday season officially kicks off with the delivery of the Bokatidindi—a catalogue of every new book published in Iceland

 - In 2011, Reykjavík (Iceland's capital) was designated a UNESCO City of Literature

While giving books is not unique to Iceland, the tradition of exchanging books on Christmas Eve and then spending the evening reading is becoming a cultural phenomenon... a relaxing and charming tradition, even more so when it's cold and snowing outside.

So this Christmas Eve, I'm contemplating getting a new book, a box of chocolate, a cup of hot cocoa, and spending the night reading by the fireplace.

Happy Holidays from Canada!

JS

http://www.readitforward.com/essay/article/jolabokaflod-meet-favorite-new-holiday-tradition/ 

https://www.readitforward.com/essay/article/what-jolabokaflod-means-to-me/

 J. S. Marlo's Website

Spring IS Coming! by J.Q. Rose

Welcome to the BWL Publishing Insiders Blog!

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard by J.Q. Rose

Mystery, paranormal

Click here to find mysteries by JQ Rose at BWL Publishing

Shocking. That's what it was. Snow! A thick, six-inch layer of snow covered the lawns, heaped up in piles along the cleared (thank goodness) roads, and blanketed the tender leaves of spring flowers tentatively breaking through the unfrozen soil to face this wintry spring weather. We drove from Florida back to Michigan last week through rain, wind, snow showers and black ice only to discover our part of the world was still smothered with that white fluffy stuff!! 

So, for all of you (including me) still dealing with winter in the middle of April, I'll share some of my spring photos from years before to give you a taste of what surely WILL come. Don't give up. Spring is on its way.

Hyacinths

Forsythia bush

Pink tulips

Flowering crab

Tulips and creeping phlox

Let's party!!

One good thing I can find about this extended winter weather is the fabulous opportunity to stay in and read a book! Then, this summer, you can read a book at the beach. Anytime, anyplace is perfect for reading.

Wishing you a wonderful spring!

Click here to connect online with mystery author J.Q. Rose.

How to be 4 years old in a modern world

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/claydon-sheila-romance/

If you have read my books you will know that they often include children. Sometimes the hero and heroine are their parents, sometimes not; sometimes they are integral to the storyline, sometimes not; but whatever their role, writing about them is a joy. While I frequently have to wrestle with the main characters, children are more straightforward. Portraying their emotions is easy. It doesn't matter whether they are happy or sad, excited or curious, angry or frightened, their language is always simple and direct.  They are not introspective. They live in the present and rarely worry about what other people think.

I was thinking about this the other day as I worked on the as yet unnamed sequel to Remembering Rose, because the same children will feature in that, and while I was thinking my phone rang. It was my almost four year old granddaughter calling from Hong Kong. Why was she calling? Because she wanted a bedtime story! So I dutifully exchanged my phone for my tablet and complied, not once but twice. I read a Charlie and Lola story, and Superworm. The previous week we read Stick Man. Then we said goodnight and I returned to my writing. It was only later that I registered how very different her childhood is to mine and to that of her parents and even her older cousins.

At almost four years old she is multiracial (Chinese/English/Irish), multicultural (she has already lived in 3 countries and been totally immersed in their cultures (England, Australia and Hong Kong). She has visited mainland China, Wales in England, Paris in France and Dubai. She is also multilingual (English, Mandarin and Cantonese) and will soon attend an International School where she will also learn French. She has attended 4 different nursery schools, all of which had a rainbow mix of children  from across the globe, and the wonderful thing is, that to her, all this is normal. Far from confusing her, it has enlarged her world so that she is confident and friendly, and interested in everything around her. What she isn't, is introspective. Just like the children in my books, she lives in the present and very definitely doesn't worry what other people think. Sadly she might in ten years time because that is what teenagers do. Until then may she continue to enjoy her life as a very modern four year old who thinks asking for a bedtime story on Skype is normal, and I'm looking forward to the day when she decides to read to me across the miles instead.

Emotional Involvement in a Story by Connie Vines

Check out Connie Vines Books We Love author page for her books http://bookswelove.net/authors/vines-connie/

Are you ever emotionally drained by writing certain scenes, and how real are your characters to you?

For romance novelist the emotional involvement is the 💖 of the story.  Whereas fear would be the emotional of a horror story, etc.

So, like so many other romance novelists of my era, I have one key movie and one key television series which spelled out emotion in capital letters.

• The opening of the movie Romancing the Stone, where author Joan Wilder (played by Kathleen Turner) is bawling because she has finished her book with a very emotional scene in her book. 
• The television series,  Beauty and the Beast, starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Pearlman (as Vincent, the beast).  The opening music was enough to make my throat thick and my eyes teary.

 I've read meany books that brought me to tears (Jane Eyre, to name my favorite), and I must admit, I still cry when I re-read scenes in my own novels, too.  Talk that dark moment in Lynx, Rodeo Romance, Book 1, when Rachel turns down Lynx's proposal.  Or in Brede, Rodeo Romance, Book 2 when my heroine is willing to sacrifice her life to save Brede and his daughter.  Well, you get the picture , ,

I plot my novels and short stories, however, I emotionally live my scenes.  Since my settings are places I have lived or visited, I have memories and sensory reactions. In real life, since  I can feel other people's emotions, which is difficult at times, and it helps for me to write it out through my characters.

Emotional draining? Yes.
Rewarding?  Of course.

Please stop by and see what these wonderful authors have to say by clicking on the links below.

Happy Reading!

Connie

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?query=Connie%20Vines&fcsearchfield=Author

https://www.amazon.com/Connie-Vines/e/B004C7W6PE

https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/156-5294435-2337610?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Connie+vines

The books I've stopped reading by Sheila Claydon

Although I love to read I'm becoming more and more picky with age. I no longer read books where too many words get in the way of the story. Ditto books where the author shares every detail of every bit of research ever done. Recently I read a book that listed all the tools a thatcher uses together with a 'how to' guide, while another one described an autopsy in such detail over several pages that it read like a medical text book. Although I'm never going to thatch a roof or become a pathologist it doesn't mean I'm not interested. What I don't want to do, however, is waste time reading pages of badly disseminated research that add nothing to the story.

I didn't need to know about shearing hooks, legatts, crooks and pins and nor did the police sergeant in the story, who was told apropos of absolutely nothing. The detail, which took up 3 pages, was not only entirely irrelevant, it came out of nowhere. At first I thought the conversation held a hidden clue  but no, the victim was shot, not sliced open with a shearing hook.

I have another bugbear. If, after a paragraph or two, I find myself editing some of the author's convoluted and wordy sentences in my head, I know the book is not for me.

Facts are fine, so is descriptive prose if it adds to the story, but I'm of the Stephen King persuasion. Write the book. Put everything in it and then take out half when you first edit it, and more again the second time around.

Then there's the plot. A good plot keeps me guessing almost to the final page while a bad plot bores me to death. This happened last week and halfway through the book I did something I've never done before, I turned to the end. It was a crime novel by a well known author who has had work translated into a very successful TV series, so my expectation was high. The only downside as far as I could see was that it comprised 650 close typed pages, a bit long for a 'Whodunnit'. Sadly the author let me down. I worked out the entire plot as well the outcomes of quite a few of the side stories within the first half dozen chapters. When I also found myself continually re-writing some of the sentences in my head I gave up, turned to the end, confirmed what I already knew, and then chose another, very much more enjoyable and well written book about the young Australian war brides who were transported to Britain at the end of WW2.

That TV series thing gets to me too. Although I've read some good ones I've also read a number of poorly written books by different authors that have been turned into very successful TV series.  Is the success of the TV version down to a very talented script writer and director or have I missed something? I'd love to know how producers choose their stories. Do they actually prefer a book they can tinker with,  look for characters who need to become more rounded, a plot that needs tightening up? I wish I knew.

My attitude is a personal one of course. Some readers enjoy lengthy prose and I have one friend who can't abide modern literature and just re-reads all the old classics. There's certainly a place for those in our literary lexicon but fashions change, and some of the old stories I once enjoyed now seem wordy and contrived, although others have stood the test of time to an admiral degree, so yes, I'm picky about the classics too.

Am I like this because I'm becoming more selective as I grow older, or is it because I'm a writer? It's probably a bit of both, but what I do know is that life is far to short to waste time reading a book I'm not enjoying. What about you?

For a great many very readable books go to http://bookswelove.net

For my own (I hope) readable books, go to amazon.com/author/sheilaclaydon or http://bookswelove.net/authors/claydon-sheila/