Priscilla Brown travels by train

 

Gina - lover shopping

Cassandra - out of job and fiance

 None of these ladies travels by train! 

Olivia - love or her career?

sports car, ancient Beetle, motorbike - guess which belongs to which lady?

 (answers at the end!)

http://bookswelove/net/authors/brown-priscilla-romance

Public transport is a rich source of ideas and material for writers; as an author of contemporary romantic fiction,when travelling I always have my notebook handy. I observe people - general appearance, size, age, clothing, body language, and when possible over the train noise, eavesdrop on their conversations. Today I'm on a two-hour train journey, wondering about passengers' reasons for travelling on this particular train at this time on this day.

Some other place

 She's running down the station steps needing to catch the about-to-depart train, her cream coat flapping open over an aquamarine shirt and tight short black skirt and black pantyhose; she knows the smart effect of this ensemble is diminished by her purple running shoes, but then how could she race down these concrete steps in her usual skyscraper footwear? She has this along with her laptop in the cross-body large square bag bouncing against one hip. In one hand she clutches a coffee and a brown paper bag, and in the other a phone which she glances at too frequently for safety while descending at speed.

The station attendant is waving his departure flag as she squeezes between the about-to-close doors. Dropping onto one of the few vacant seats, she opens the paper bag to reveal a brown-bread sandwich from which a shred of orange peel almost falls out. Regarding this with distaste, she screws it all up and stuffs it into her bag. No breakfast again! She got to bed at midnight after singing at the local bar's open mic session, and had trouble getting up this morning. Then Tom spent ages in the bathroom, and for why? He's working afternoon shift and has no hurry. They were out of milk- again! - and cereal, and she hopes he'll remember to go shopping. While she put her face on, he made her a sandwich but the only thing he could think of - or find - was marmalade. Whoever heard of marmalade sandwiches? He could have taken her to the station if their car hadn't been involved in a minor prang (whose fault?) and was being patched up.

She sips her coffee. Ugh! They put sugar in although she specifically said no sugar. Undrinkable, but what does one do with an un-drunk coffee on a crowded train? And she could have saved several minutes by not waiting for this potion made from last week's dregs. She gulps it down, puts her hand over her mouth, and checks the phone. Yes, the meeting she dreads but hopes might be cancelled is still scheduled for ten-thirty, and so lucky she caught this train as she dare not be late. The draft of a major project she's just completed will be workshopped at this meeting, and if they don't approve then her job could be on the line. She touches the aquamarine ring on her right hand which her grandmother gave her as a lucky talisman.

Taking from her bag her dagger-heeled black business shoes, she examines the heel of one. She noticed yesterday it's not quite straight but she didn't have time to take it to be mended. Going into the meeting wearing running shoes when Snake-in-a-Suit big boss will be watching for any lowering of standards is not an option, but she'll wait until inside the building before changing into her now wobbly shoes.

The airport is only a few stops away. An idea flits around her mind...she could get off there, and buy a ticket to some place where she could sleep in, would not have to wait for the bathroom, own an undriveable car, dash for trains or attend challenging meetings, and can go barefoot. She'd enjoy a decent breakfast, drinkable coffee and later, edible sandwiches.

Most importantly, she'd be talent-spotted singing in a bar.


Women talk too much

Sitting by the window is a man reading a newspaper. He's a senior, tidily dressed in brown cord trousers and beige sweater. His wife nags him to wear more colourful clothes, but he hates clothes shopping and what he has on today is quite adequate for a lunch with an old workmate. Even more that shopping, he hates his current hairstyle, though style is not word he can apply to what happened to his hair. He used to have a respectable amount of hair for his age, until his teenage grandson issued him with a dare. This obliged him to get a black stripe centred from front to back, with the grey sides cropped to within a millimetre of their existence. Apparently such an arrangement has some peculiar name, and he berates himself for being stupid enough to agree to it after a few beers at the boy's eighteenth birthday party.

He taps the newspaper with a blunt-tipped clean-nailed finger. Irritated by a political article, he locates a red pen from his small backpack and edits the piece. Not satisfied with this, he takes out his phone, locates the editor's email address, punches in a sharp message and sends. That will teach them to print nonsense. He turns to the crosswords. Today's compiler always makes the cryptic one even more cryptic than on other days. He likes to work on this, as success with more than half the clues reassures him that his brain is in full working order. Last week he completed this compiler's entire crossword, but he was doing it at home when his wife was out, so no talking and he could concentrate.

This morning he can't concentrate. Two women in the seat across the aisle are chatting. Don't they know this is a silent carriage? He leans across to them. No talking. This is a silent carriage. He points to a notice on the door; although this is half the length of the carriage away from where they are sitting, people should notice it as they enter. See that? Now be quiet. One of the women smiles at him. How dare she smile? She's not taking this seriously. Sorry, we didn't know. He scowls. Now you do. She smiles again. Yes, now enjoy your newspaper. He doesn't know if the means this sincerely or if she's being cheeky.




He tries again with the crossword, but the women with their inconsiderate behaviour have wrecked his attention span and it's too difficult. He stares out of the window at the grey industrial sites bordering the railway as the train approaches the city. He's relieved he can look forward to a lunch in a restaurant by the harbour with this friend who doesn't 'chat'. As they always do on their monthly get-together, they will exchange pleasantries, criticise the government, comment on the weather, and enjoy fish and chips with a bottle of chilled white wine.

He hopes there will be no talkative women at the next table.


Don't lose my luggage

Struggling aboard the train is a woman with an enormous wheeled suitcase going to the airport. She's flying to North America or Europe where - now spring in Australia - winter is closing in. On her shoulder she carries a large cabin bag in which she packed a change of clothes - she doesn't trust airlines to route her luggage correctly since last year her bag from Amsterdam had a much longer trip to Sydney than she did, via Vancouver and Honolulu, while hers was a one stop journey via Asia. This bag also contains an e-reader loaded with Books We Love novels, and a plastic bag holding those items security would like to take off you.

She's satisfied with her choice of travelling clothes for her long-haul flight, navy matching jacket and trousers with a scarlet T-shirt, but already doubtful about these new red shoes with their dizzying
heels.  She worries that if she takes them off during the flight her feet will swell and she won't be able to get them on again. She eyes the feet of the young woman sitting opposite her, thinking those running shoes would have been a better option; perhaps she can buy something similar at the airport.

The train pulls in at the first airport station, the International Terminal. She checks the indicator on the train's information panel - oh, not her stop, hers is the next one for the Domestic Terminal. She's going to a wedding on a Queensland island and her wheelie bag contains a wedding present of a patchwork quilt she's stitched herself.  She's feeling a bit apprehensive because her ex will be there. Since they broke up a year ago, they keep in email contact, and lately she's picking up vibes that he's interested in reconciling. Her own reconciliation vibes are screaming for action. They both like red, and among clothes appropriate for a sophisticated tropical resort she packed a scarlet and black silk off-the-shoulder dress that she will wear with the shoes she has on now, and - in the cabin bag - delicious brand-new blush-red nightwear...

Go girl!

Happy reading, Priscilla

 http://bwlpublishing.ca

https://priscillabrownauthor.com

sports car: Olivia    Beetle:Cassandra    motorbike: Gina

 

Checking Resources by S. L. Carlson

http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/carlson-s-l-ya-fantasy/

This week I read something which made me laugh out loud. On FaceBook was a quote from C. S. Lewis about politics, along with the reference. In the comments was something like, “He never wrote this. Check out (this Internet source) for what he actually wrote.”

What I found amusing was, why not send people to the original source? Pointing people to a secondary source certainly isn’t as accurate as reading it as it was originally printed, you know, like in that thing called a book. The quote was allegedly from The Screwtape Letters—a hysterical book on its own.

To me, sending people to a secondary source reminded me of the old game of Telephone, where kids sit in a circle. One person whispers a phrase in the next person’s ear. They keep whispering the phrase around the circle. The outcome is usually nothing like the original, and everyone falls over laughing. Why do the children burst into laughter? Because even if they didn’t know the original phrase or sentence, they know the words spoken out loud by the end of the circle could not have been anything like what the starter had said.

Would that we were as wise as children. And doesn’t this make you want to sit down with friends and play a whispering game ending in laughter?

Writers, as much as you can, instead of clicking for information on Google, please check out the original sources. Also, go find things to laugh about.

I unashamedly admit I checked online for research of the research for children laughing an average of three hundred times a day while adults laugh an average of 10 to find two interesting facts. 1) “Both adults and children laugh primarily during social interactions with others.”¹  So, go interact. And, 2) the 300 times a day for children vs 10 for adults is an urban myth, although that may have come after a game of Telephone.

Lewis, C. S., The Screwtape Letters, HarperSanFrancisco, 1942

¹  https://www.aath.org/do-children-laugh-much-more-often-than-adults-do

All Hallows' & New Covers

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I'm excited about new covers!

Red Magic recently got a re-brand--a new cover and a re-title. It is now Zauberkraft~Red, just in time for Halloween.  It was initially hard to chose a title for this story, back when I was grappling with that. In my long ago 'tweens, I'd been a fan of Baroness Orczy and so it was tempting to try to write that niche-within-a-niche version of "historical romance." Alpine Austria isn't exactly a popular venue and the books are cross-genre.  I'm the first to admit the Zauberkraft series crosses the abyss from Zauberkraft-Red's witchy romance into the fantasy (with a nice red dollop of horror) that is Zauberkraft-Black.

Zauberkraft-Red began because I had a character who wouldn't stop talking. This was Constanze Mozart's lover from Mozart's Wife (now titled The Intimate Mozart.) This guy was already a tall, dark, handsome and rather dangerous leading man type, who, however, turned out to be have unexpectedly decent, warm-hearted center. By the end of the Mozart story, he is indeed The Rake Reformed. 

When this fellow's property-minded family insist upon his marriage to a pretty, horsey, immature cousin who is just sixteen, he, now on the rebound, decides his roving days are over. She, however, doesn't believe a word he says--as well she might. As you can imagine, there is a book's worth of relationship work ahead for both of them.

At his alpine estate, the young woman finds her surroundings decidedly creepy and lonely. The jagged, snow-capped mountain behind the manor is a palpable presence. The freeman peasants who work the estate celebrate the older, weirder holidays as well as the newer Christian ones. Sighting these, she begins to anxiously ruminate upon a frightening experience from her childhood.

On the day of her arrival, the heroine is given a house tour which ends with her husband's bed chamber, separate from her own. After getting over the shock of his Height-of-Fashion 18th Century French pornographic bed curtains, she finds someone she did not expect lounging on the pillows--a cat, who is large, black and fluffy.

As a proper 18th Century lady she is now surprised to discover that her hunky new husband has such a "feminine" pet. The cat's name is "Furst," which is German for "First," which was often the short-cut title for a leader. I'm not sure where the inspiration for Furst came from, except that I wanted to slightly blow up the image of a romance's leading man with a "wussy" fondness for cats.

Furst is not completely based upon an actual animal companion, as many of the other cats in my books are. He's most like my own over-the-rainbow Katter Murr, who was named for E.T.A. Hoffman's (of The Nutcracker fame) illustrious pet. Hoffman's cat was a gray tiger, but our Murr was a barn-found Maine-Coonish sort of feline.

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Zauberkraft~Black  is is a no-holds-barred All Hallows' Eve story. Here, twenty+ years on from the first book, the now grown soldier son of the original couple returns to his childhood home, just after the last violent gasp of the Napoleonic Wars.

Goran has just left Vienna after discovering that his fiance has run off with an older and far wealthier nobleman. Not only that, but he's wounded from a decade's experience of the brutality of war. He's only twenty-seven, but he's grown utterly cynical about politics. His leader, the Austrian Emperor, switched sides when Vienna was threatened by Napoleon's forces. As a result, he, like other  Austrian military men, had been forced to fight first against Napoleon and then for him, a political decision which is firmly stuck in his craw.

As Goran arrives at at this rural estate where he grew up, he sees that things are in a bad way. Men left for the wars and many did not return, so barns and houses, left empty, are falling into ruin. Not only that, but here, in the mountainous back of beyond, there have been attacks by bandits and roaming gangs-- rogue soldiers for whom looting and killing has become a way of life.

Within hours of Goran's arrival, while he is taking a self-pitying ramble around the land, bottle in hand, he finds a May Day party being celebrated. He decides to party for a time with his tenants, and then, numbed with drink, begin the dreary task of listening to the old men complain about the state of things. Later that night, however, the celebrants let their young master into an ancient secret, one which brings all manner of bizarre changes into his life. Goran discovers that he has even more responsibilities and ties to this land--and to the people who live here than he--or even his parents before him--have hitherto imagined. 

Happy Halloween or Samhain or All Hallows' 

--your preference!

~~Juliet Waldron

See all my historical novels:

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/search?Query=Juliet+Waldron

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http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004HIX4GS

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Juliet+Waldron?_requestid=1854149

Flash Fiction/ Story Bites by Connie Vines

What exactly is Flash Fiction?  What the heck are story bites?

Flash Fiction: Stories under 2,000 words. ... Part poetry, part narrative, flash fiction–also known as sudden fiction, micro fiction, short-short stories, and quick fiction—is a genre that is deceptively complex. At the same time, writing these short shorts can be incredibly rewarding.

Why my sudden interests in Flash Fiction?

My writing career began in monthly publications.  I wrote children’s and YA fiction for the magazine market.  I also wrote a monthly column about the budding tech industry and nonfiction articles on various subjects.  This is why Flash Fiction intrigued me.  I knew I could use my Flash Fiction stories to tease my readers, much like my book trailers.  I also knew it would be a simple way for me to keep me from developing writer’s block.

Also, I knew I would be able to write in a new genre, or write about a subject which might not hold my interest long enough to write 60,000+ words.

Here are a few specific tricks (yes, it’s almost Halloween) and also a writing exercise about how to write flash fiction.

1. Take out all unnecessary words.

Practice on Twitter.  I speak from experience. Nothing shows you how to whittle down a sentence to the key elements better than Twitter. Pretend you only get one single solitary tweet to get the idea across. Can you do it?

Try this writing exercise and redo this sentence:

• Pretend you only get one single solitary tweet to get the idea across convey your idea.
• Pretend you only get one tweet to convey your idea.
Look, I just saved 3 words by editing that sentence. That’s GOLD in flash!

2. You don’t need all those adjectives and adverbs.

Use stronger nouns and verbs to do all the heavy lifting. For example, don’t say ‘walk leisurely’ when you can say ‘saunter’. Don’t say ‘small dog’ when you can say ‘Chihuahua’. Your specificity will build a better story with a smaller word count. The exception is for dialogue tags. You’re better off just using “said”, as other verbs related to speech tend to be distracting.

3. Pick a key emotion to color the story.

Readers love it when they feel something.

4. Pick a strong image.

Give us a meaningful and memorable visual. You want a movie example? Indiana Jones shoots the fancy swordsman in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.

Or come up with your own favorite.  “Bell, Book, and Candle” when Kim Novak (a witch) falls in love with James Steward (a mortal) and becomes a mortal herself.

Now do that with words.

5. Limit your number of scenes.

Honestly, one scene might be best. Though I usually have two or three scenes. The key is choosing a small but powerful moment in a character’s life and placing your story there.

It’s the anti-epic story.

6. No more than one or two characters.
More than that and it gets difficult. Too much dialogue; too many interactions.
While twelve dancing princesses is suitable for a short story or novel.

One dancing princess is suitable for flash fiction.

7. You’re better off using a 1st person or 3rd person limited points of view which stick tightly to the protagonist.

Pick just one point of view for a short story and utilize that throughout. Head hopping and third person omniscient is too jarring in flash fiction.

8. Use a small idea.

Big ideas belong in BIG stories.

9. The same goes for a short story theme: you only have room for one.

10. Focus on one main conflict.

11. Start in the middle of the story, at the beginning of the conflict.

12. Yes, you must still have a character arc.

13. Choose an effective title.

Just like on a date, or job interview--First Impressions Count.

Don’t forget, writing in a new medium takes practice!

Let’s take this new genre for a Halloween Test Drive.  Let’s use six words or less to describe a picture.


But I’m scared of the dark

Can you feel the music?

Happy Halloween Everyone!

For a little not too scary Halloween Fun, download my novella, “Here Today, Zombie Tomorrow”.

Visit my personal blog site on 10/27/2018 for Halloween party treat recipes  and story teasers!

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