The Who, What, WHERE, Why and When of Writing - Part 3

June 3 2019

When I started this series of blogs, my first thought for Where was:  Where’s the best place to write?

That question has as many answers as there are writers.

Some people are more comfortable in their same chair at their same desk at the same time every day from the hours of 9am to 5pm. I’m not that dedicated to routine since I have a full time job, three kids, and my life tends to be a bit chaotic at times. I’ve written in many places:

• At work on lunch breaks.
• In waiting rooms at the doctor, the dentist, the hospital, the massage therapist, before and interview, while waiting to have lab work done, and so on.
• While cooking dinner for three hungry kids.
• Out in the park.
• While camping.
• Out at the lake.
• At coffee shops.
• In writing meetings.
• In my backyard.
• With a kid or cat on my lap.
• In a car (not while driving!!)
• While waiting for kids who were in karate classes or music lessons.
• Pretty much any place, anytime, anywhere.

Where isn’t so much a restriction as just doing it. As long as you have something to write with, pen and paper or a laptop, you can write just about anywhere!

My second where I thought of while walking the other day. Where do you want to go with your writing?

Many people write for the sheer pleasure of putting pen to paper and creating worlds that have never existed. Some writers look to Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, E.L. James and so on and see dollar signs. Yes, it is possible to earn a living at writing. So I heard. I’m not there.

Yet.

As a single parent I’ve had to work full-time to get my kids through school and be content with writing part-time to slowly build my career. Now that I have eight books out, I can build a better social media presence and work with my publisher (Books We Love!) to get more and more name recognition.

Marketing is key!

For anyone who thinks they can write a book, upload it to the Internet, then sit back and wait for the money and accolades to roll in – surprise! It’s a full-time job to sell your books. Books signings, conferences, and the like are all great for boosting your career. Word of mouth helps, but writers want to create a fan base.

Those people who are excited to see when you’ve written something new. But how do you do that? We’ll discuss that later….

Diane Bator

Author of Wild Blue Mysteries, Gilda Wright Mysteries and Glitter Bay Mysteries

Mom of 3 boys and 2 cats and a mouse we still can't find...

     You can order my books through BWL by clicking here!

I'm Back!!

It's been a while since I've posted. I needed a break. It's difficult writing every day (or trying to) and doing a blog once a month. Plus we moved - that was a good thing. I love our new house - well it's hardly new 50 years old, but new to us.
It needed a lot of work before we could even move in and we only had a little over a week to do it. Thank God for kids. The house was filthy. I don't think there was a room that didn't have food on the walls. Seriously. I don't know if they had food fights or what, but we had to wash them before we could paint them Did I say wash? Scrub is more like it.
And the bathroom needed gutted. Believe it or not there was a big hole in the tub right by the drain. We had the house inspected before we bought it. We noticed the black spot in the tub. Just figured the enamel was chipped. The tub was disgustingly dirty. Talk about scum.  Anyway, the inspector obviously didn't notice the hole either.  He ran the water for almost 15 minutes to make sure it drained. Oh it drained alright. Right under the tub,  We didn't notice it until I was done scrubbing the tub with bleach. My poor hands were red from scrubbing.
So, my son ordered us a new tub, and tried to save the tile, but that didn't work, so we got new tile around the tub and drywall in the rest of the bathroom.  Apparently a pipe broke at some point and the bottom of the vanity was warped. So that had to go also. The only thing we kept was the toilet.  Not that I mind, I love it.
I teased my son about putting in just a shower. Now I wish we had. I haven't taken a bath in several years, so a walk in shower would have been so much nicer. Oh well, live and learn. - Oh, that's the title of the 4th book in the Family Affair series, I've been working on, or trying to at least. Aunt Beatrice Lulu isn't cooperating too well. I guess she's upset because Ethel is writing it and not her.
Everything's not about Beatrice Lulu after all. Of course you'd never convince her of that. Her sweet husband, Ed, doesn't help matters. He worships the ground she walks on. At least most of the time.
If you've read the three previous books, you'll know how much trouble Beatrice Lulu gets into, and usually drags Ethel and Lottie with her. Ethel especially, because Lottie is busy babysitting grandchildren. I guess Ethel will never learn either, because she goes along with Beatrice Lulu's crazy adventures.
All in the Family, Book 1 in the series, introduces Aunt Beatrice Lulu, even though the book isn't about her. Here's an  excerpt:

Usually Callie enjoyed dinner with her grandmother. The judge never ceased to amaze her. She kept a busy schedule, yet still managed to keep house and entertain regularly. Where or how she found the time to clean, cook, and bake was beyond Callie. Lately, though, Gram had been getting on Callie’s case almost as bad as her mother and sister about getting married.

She pulled into Gram’s drive and groaned. Not only would she have to deal with her grandmother, mother, and sister, Aunt Beatrice Lulu was here. Not her favorite person. She eased out of the car. May as well face the music.

Callie’s grandmother greeted her at the door. “How’s the new Police Chief?” Gram’s smile beamed with pride. One thing she’d give Gram credit for, she was proud of her children and grandchildren.

“I’m doing well.” Callie hugged and kissed her. “How are you?”

“Ah, you know how it is. Busy. Jim Landry thinks I should retire.”

“Maybe you should. Take life easy. You’ve certainly earned it.” Callie suppressed a grin. Truth be known, Jim Landry was sweet on Gram.

“And just what would I do with my time?” Gram put her hands on her hips and frowned at Callie. “You young people think everything is solved by retiring.”

“Well, you could travel. Or you could spend more time with Jim.”

Gram waved her hand, but Callie caught the blush on her cheeks before she turned away. “Posh. What makes you think I need to spend more time with Jim?”

 “Well you’re always telling me I should get married. Maybe you should consider it.”

“I was married, remember? And to a very good man. No way could I replace him. Get married, the very idea.”

“Gramps has been gone a long time, Gram. And Jim’s every bit as good. He’s sweet on you, you know.”

Commotion from the other room saved Gram from answering. Callie followed her grandmother into the living room.

Aunt Beatrice Lulu sat in the middle of the floor. Everyone stared open mouthed, looking scared to speak.

“What in the hell are you doing on the floor?” Gram covered her mouth to keep from laughing. “Are you okay? Do I need to call 911?”

“No. You don’t need to call 911. Help me up, for God’s sake.”

“What the hell are you doing on the floor to begin with?”

“I fell. What does it look like?” Aunt Beatrice Lulu took the hand Gram offered.

“I can see that. But what happened?”

At that moment, Aunt Beatrice Lulu spotted Callie. Oh boy, here it came. Her nasally voice grated on Callie’s nerves. Okay, it wasn’t her fault, adenoids or something caused it, but it was still annoying. Sometimes Callie thought her aunt exaggerated it. Maybe she didn’t, but right now it sounded worse than usual, and Callie wasn’t in the mood to listen to her, even if she sounded normal.

Why couldn’t everyone just let her live her life? What made them think they could tell her what to do? Aunt Beatrice Lulu wasn’t the only one. Oh no, Callie’s mother, her sister, heck even Jim Landry weighed in on what she should do with her life or what man she should meet. Everyone was always setting her up with blind dates.

Beatrice Lulu. What kind of name was that anyway? And don’t anyone dare shorten it to Aunt Bea or Aunt Beatrice. Oh, no. It had to be the whole name, or everyone would catch what for.

Callie remembered when she was little-she called her Aunt Bea once. Wasn’t that what Opie Taylor on Andy Griffith reruns called his aunt? Callie thought it was cute. Lord above, you’d of thought she’d put a curse on her aunt or something. She thought she’d never hear the end of it.

That woman ranted and raved for almost an hour about how her name was Beatrice Lulu, not Bea, not Beatrice. It was the name she was born with, the name she was christened, and the name she’d die with. It’s the name she expected people to use. Obviously she was proud of her name, but did she have to go on so? Callie never made that mistake again. No, ma’am. From then on she used her whole name and so did everyone else. All except Uncle Ed, that is.

Callie would never forget when her aunt met Uncle Ed. She about fell out of her chair laughing. Aunt Beatrice Lulu stood there staring at him like she wanted to bash him over the head or something.

Uncle Ed is a big man.  Big--like six feet six or more. Most people are overwhelmed by his height. A giant of a man, he towered over everyone and his shoulders, lord above, they were almost as wide as the doorway. And he had this loud, bellowing voice that vibrated off the walls and back at you. His black curly hair fell in a curl on his forehead, and bushy dark eyebrows sat above the roundest, darkest blue eyes Callie’d ever seen. His straight nose, mustache, square jaw, and creases at the corner of his eyes, as well as his tan, gave him a rugged appearance. Sexy. Ruggedly handsome. Magnum PI or the Marlboro Man. 

Aunt Beatrice Lulu didn’t look impressed. Not that Uncle Ed noticed. He just walked right up to her. “Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing?” he said. “Bet you got a pretty name to match.”

Callie’d never heard anyone refer to her aunt as pretty before. Or little. Nothing about her aunt was little. Okay, she wasn’t huge, but suffice to say she had some added bulk. Nothing Callie’d call pretty about her. Aunt Beatrice Lulu’s nose was too big for her face, her lips too small, and her squinty dark brown, almost black eyes looked beady at best. She pulled her mousy brown hair so tight into a bun on top of her head-Callie swore it pulled every wrinkle out of her face. She usually sat with her arms crossed over her ample bosom and resting on her paunchy stomach. Nope, nothing pretty about her. Portly, but not pretty. Obviously, Uncle Ed thought differently. 

You can read more about the books at: BWL Publishing

New Releases for June 2019 - BWL Monthly Features Mystery

BWL Publishing Inc's free read for June is A.M. Westerling's Medieval Romance A Knight for Love Visit http://bookswelove.net to download a free pdf copy

Priscilla Brown  considers carrots and cliffs

Men are off Cristina's essentials list during her working holiday at a luxury Caribbean resort. 

But can the resort's zany charmer of a pilot break through her defences?

www.books2read.com/Where-the-Heart-Is 

Carrots have received many mentions in literature. Grimm wrote a fairytale The Carrot King; Shakespeare mentioned them in several plays; Edward Lear in a limerick rhymed about a purchase of two parrots fed on carrots (the parrots who frequent my garden turned up their beaks at shredded carrot).

Real carrots for me are just another vegetable, arranged on a dinner plate or shredded onto salad, their colour cheering up the conglomeration of all that green stuff. Perhaps, like me, as a child you were told to "eat your vegies". If you did, something nice may come your way; if you threw a tantrum, you were sent to bed early. The old carrot and stick idiom.

Fiction writers use carrots as turn-the-page bait. A character wants something that's out of reach, but if s/he accepts the dangled  "carrot", for example, adjusting behaviour, overcoming a challenge, telling the truth, the desired outcome may be attainable. We want the reader to worry about the character; will s/he get this elusive something, and if not, what will happen? Tension, conflict, suspense.

In One Thousand and One Nights, each night Scheherazade tells the king a story. Leaving it incomplete, she promises to finish it the following night, so that he, keen to hear the endings, abandons his plan to kill her. Carrots save her life.

 Cliffhangers are similar to carrots in that they encourage readers to continue with the story, eager to know what happens next. Writers use a chapter or scene with a dramatic climactic ending to raise the stakes for the characters: a question or situation unresolved, a physical threat or sense of foreboding or urgency, distressing information...scenarios which leave the reader in suspense.

In Where the Heart Is,  the cliffhanger is almost literal. After an evening of sexy dancing, the protagonists are perched on a dangerous cliff top. She badly wants to sleep with him, but won't until he reveals a secret she believes he's holding. He wants to sleep with her but won't because he's afraid of falling in love and she must return to her home country. The chapter ends with just three words from him, words which devastate her.

Enjoy the carrots and cliffs in your reading!  Priscilla

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They say an army travels on its stomach. So do tourists. Margaret Hanna

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Traveling to a foreign country entails learning about the culture, and culture involves food. What a feast for the senses!

Mexico: The best place to find food is in the market. Sounds, sights and smells assault you at the entrance. You enter, dazed and confused at what at first seems like a maze of stalls and people and “stuff.” Take heart. The adventure awaits.

The pineapple vendor selling thick, juicy, sweet slices for pennies apiece. I bought one. Juice ran down my chin as I ate it. It was so good I had to have another. And another.

The lady selling blue corn tortillas. She patiently sorted through her stock to find ones without any holes. If you have never eaten a blue corn tortilla, well, you don’t know what you’re missing. They are so flavourful and aromatic, not at all like the packaged tortillas you buy at the supermarket.

The fruit vendor had piles of large green “things” I had never seen before. I asked my friend, “Is that a squash?” “No, that’s a papaya!” (That was in 1987, before such exotic fruit appeared in Saskatchewan supermarkets.) What a taste treat I was in for. I think I ate half the papaya myself.

The mole vendor (“mole” is a paste that you make into a sauce). Red, green and black mole, ready to serve over chicken, enchiladas, fish, chilis rellenos, or whatever else. Eat your heart out, ketchup.

Some places, like the meat market, are not for the faint of heart. Sides of beef or pork and freshly killed chickens with feathers, heads and feet still attached hang in conditions that would give a Canadian food inspector a heart attack. But you know that the meat you cook for supper was freshly killed that morning.

France: Just around the corner from our little hotel was a little plaza with an open-air market. Fresh fruit and vegetables, good cheeses, crunchy bread and bottles of unlabeled but extremely drinkable red table wine, all relatively inexpensive. We often created our lunches from these vendors.

We saw open-air markets everywhere. Some operated every day, some only once a week. But everything was fresh. Tomatoes smelled like tomatoes; peppers like peppers.

And the bakeries. Oh my! The smell of freshly baked bread, the CRUNCH of a buttery croissant that disintegrated into a thousand delectable crumbs, exquisitely decorated petit-fours – how could one resist? Calories? Who’s counting?

Indonesia: An array of vegetables and fruits we had never seen before. Alas, we spoke little Bahasa Indonesian; they spoke even less English. We never did learn the names; that did not lessen their taste. Or our enjoyment.

Ah, but coffee! Powdered, not ground. Throw a handful or two thrown into a pot, pour boiling water over. Let steep. Inhale the aroma. Drink. Hot, black and strong, but never bitter. We have yet to find coffee that good anywhere else.

Newfoundland and Labrador: A food and cultural experience of a different sort. We were traveling through Labrador with our truck and camper, and arrived via overnight ferry at a small outport. We needed to restock our fridge so we headed to the nearest grocery store. What a shock! There was nothing fresh, only ancient vegetables and fruit – wizened apples, black and shriveled cabbage, – and frozen meat encased in layers of frost. It brought to mind the limited stocks we had grown up with in our small prairie town groceries stores – one variety of apples (usually Macintosh), cabbage, head lettuce (who knew it was called “Iceberg”?), onions, potatoes, maybe turnips and parsnips, and four wan tomatoes in a cardboard sleeve with a cellophane window. And we thought this was just fine because we knew nothing else!

How spoiled we have become, with access to almost every variety of food in our grocery stores, even if it wasn’t picked just yesterday.

                                                                          * * *

                                                        <HaddadGeneralStore.jpg>

My grandmother, Addie, wasn’t sure what she would find the first time she went to Mr. Haddad’s store in Meyronne, for everything had to be freighted in, a two-day wagon trip if coming from Morse or three days from Moose Jaw. As you can imagine, there was little that was fresh. Here’s what she saw (from Chapter 7 of “Our Bull’s Loose in Town!” Tales from the Homestead):

“I knew better than to expect shopping like in Toronto or even Dundalk; even so, my heart dropped when I saw the Meyronne store. A false front wooden building with a sign on the front that said, “General Store,” plopped out there in the bald prairie, no side-walk, no street, not even a hitching rail for the horses, just trails leading off in all directions.

We walked into the store and when my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I was quite surprised at what I saw. Oatmeal, flour, sugar, salt, tea, dried beans and peas, dry mustard, some canned goods – I remember canned sardines particularly, – crackers, pails of lard, and some dried apples, although they looked as if they had arrived last century. A barrel of pickles and another barrel of salt pork sat in a corner. One shelf held tin plates and cups, lamp chimneys and wicks, saucepans, frying pans and matches. Underneath were pails, kegs of nails and bottles of kerosene. Behind the counter, there were shelves of lye soap, liniment, Perry Davis Pain Killer and Dr. Thomas Eclectic Oil.”

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"...watching the wheels go round and round..."

 The quote is from a post-Beatles John Lennon song, because I'm in a similar dropped out, meditative State. The New Englander inside my head keeps yelling that I "ought" and "should" do lots of things, like mow and mop and scoop cat poop and write and call my repugnant congressman, so maybe what I've got currently is simply Sloth.  Who knows? I'm not a Spring time Optimist--especially this spring, where Ragnarok--at least--apparently just around the corner for our poor old 21st Century world.

Lying fallow is part of the writing life, it seems, every bit as much as the obsessed hustle of those "creative" moments, when The Spirit of Tell Me a Story takes possession. I'm still a writer, though, even if nothing is coming out, information is always coming in, whether it's just this year's peonies, lanky from over-dosing on fertilizer (I think) and the record 12 months of rain-rain-rain we've just logged here in PA, or the burst of color around the base of the Witch Hazel. Here are little moments of lovely that I'm collecting a memory of for later.

.

May into June  I always seem to be waiting for something. I'm wondering if it's because 50+ years ago, my new husband and I were living in a basement apartment in Boston. I was awaiting the birth of a first child. We were taking time off from college, having our baby and getting our feet under us a married couple. It was hot as the hinges of hell before a/c there in the city, and I, sweaty and fat, ironed my husbands shirts in a hallway which connected the three rooms in which we lived.

It was also the summer of the Boston Strangler, so being alone in a basement apartment for hours every day was--let us say--unnerving. We didn't have a television, only a radio, but enough scary news came, on the hour, via that. I'll never forget the moments of stepping out into the hall, listening for the sound of human activity in the laundry-cum-trash bin-area, and, finally, after deciding the coast was clear, turning and swiftly locking the door behind me before running as fast as a heavily pregnant 19 year old can go upstairs to the lobby. It was not a transition I looked forward to. I walked along the burning sidewalks to the Shop Rite many blocks away with my little, happily anticipating the shade of each and every ragged city tree.

I spent a lot of head time in either past or future back then--the mysterious trial of labor lay ahead of me as well as the gender surprise which, in those days, only came upon the birth of the baby. An only child and a bookworm, my education came not from female relatives or neighbors, but from Alan Guttmacher's Pregnancy & Childbirth, as well as a then revolutionary English book called Natural Childbirth, by Dick Grantly.

At the clinic, when I asked about this method, I was cautioned rather sharply that "American Women are too weak for that."  An epidural, I was informed, was the closest I could get to "natural."  I also had a well-worn copy of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, loaned to me by a mother of eight who my husband used to baby sit for. In the end, the anticipated drama of "going into labor," --such a standard of books and movies--never happened. One day, I rode the bus to the hospital and then was required to stay. By the time they'd given me the epidural, my son had practically arrived, so, in the end, I was glad I'd geekily studied the Grantly book with care and had learned some strategies to deal with what I was supposed to be "too weak" to endure.

Time has passed, lots of it! Those childbirth stories I can tell are part of history, fifty years past, tales that are triggered by birthdays and Call The Midwife. That hapless younger self is gone, replaced by one that is older, wiser, but doubtless just as hapless as ever. This body hurts for no discernible reason at times, but that's apparently the new normal, as entropy takes hold. We all know the jokes: "Past your sell-by date" etc. I've got several stories begun--two series books I want to complete--but it's all on hold.

Zauberkraft: Black

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(And Where oh Where is Zauberkraft: Green?)

The characters have walked away; they aren't speaking to me, not telling me their "thrilling tales of yesteryear." I used to fret when this happened, to do writing exercises and tricks to jump-start the flow. One thing I've learned over the years, though is that worrying doesn't solve a single thing. I've also learned that sometimes, sitting on the patio, watching the clouds flowing this way, and then that, while the  jet stream tries to figure out what it's trying to accomplish in this part of Pennsylvania feels sufficient. 

Here I sit, enough to eat, roof over my head, surrounded by green--the weary old trees with holes full of starlings and woodpeckers, and the spry young trees, ones "I've known from nut and acorn" like the Ent, Treebeard, in LOTR.  It's sufficient, the light and the green.

           "To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower
             Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour."
                ~~William Blake
                https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/william_blake

  
I've realized The Muse will come back when (and if) She/He/It feels like it. In the meantime, try on a dragon tail; lighten up, reminisce with small pieces concerning pains and pleasures past, enjoy your bright little spark of human consciousness--and scribble on!   

~~Juliet Waldron
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