March is Women's History Month, Be a Guide for Women and Girls of Today and Tomorrow #bwlpublishing #womenshistory month

Arranging a Dream: A Memoir by J.Q.Rose
Click here to find more books by J. Q. Rose from BWL Publishing

Hello and welcome to the BWL Authors Insider Blog!

 Happy First Day of Spring!

The Beauty of the Earth--Rachel Carson Quote

Today is the first day of spring in my part of the world! That does not necessarily mean spring weather will accompany the date. But, oh, the hope that spring brings for a fresh start, for new beginnings is something to celebrate!

Also worthy of celebrating is International Women's Day.  The special day is every year on May 8. It is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day is also a call to action for accelerating women's equality."--National Women's History Project website

International Women's Day is an event through the National Women’s History Project (NWHP). 

According to their website, this organization "was founded in 1980 in Santa Rosa,
California,to broadcast women’s historical achievements. We convinced Congress and the White House of the need for our nation to celebrate and recognize women’s role in history on an annual basis. As a result of our efforts, the week of March 8th (International Women’s Day) was officially designated as National Women’s History Week. In 1987, we led the successful campaign to have the entire month of March declared National Women’s History Month."

Now an international event, Women’s History Month is celebrated during March in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, corresponding with International Women's Day on March 8, and during October in Canada, corresponding with Persons Day on October 18.

Women's History Month Theme

The theme for 2022 is "Providing Healing, Promoting Hope" to honor caregivers, those on the front lines during the Covid pandemic, and recognition of the thousands of ways that women of all cultures have provided both healing and hope throughout history.

Quote

Thank you to the NWHP for keeping women's history alive for future generations to learn about the amazing lives of those who have gone before them. Truly inspirational stories for the girls and women of tomorrow.

Survival Guide--anonymous

The stories from the past, your life story, is important too. Yes, it is. Your life experiences sharing hopes and dreams, success and failure, joy and sorrow serve as survival guides and inspire the women of today and tomorrow. 

I am a life storytelling evangelist! I encourage everyone to record their stories. You haven't landed on the moon, discovered a cure for a disease, established a charity?  No matter. Your ordinary stories are extraordinary and will resonate with readers who are going through some of the things you have already

Arranging a Dream: A Memoir

 experienced in your life.

I have presented workshops on writing life stories for nearly twenty years. I finally decided to combine my experience in penning non-fiction articles and my storytelling skills to create my life story. Not the entire story from birth to present, but just one theme that was the turning point in my life. I wrote about the first year my husband and I left our family, friends, and guaranteed two paychecks, and moved our one-year-old daughter and all our belongings from Central Illinois to West Michigan to purchase a flower shop and greenhouse business.

I began writing the story for our daughters. But, as I wrote it, I felt the messages of hope and the idea that dreams can come true would encourage others to pursue their dreams. 

Your story has a message for someone. It's been written in your heart. Now let it be written for your family, friends, the world. You'll not only inspire someone else to cope, but your story, seen through the lens of time, will also bring understanding to you. 

I wish you all the best in sharing your memories.

Janet

Click the links below to connect online with JQ Rose:

JQ's Focused on Story Author Website

JQ Rose Author Facebook page

 

J.Q. Rose, Author

Ping Pong by Helen Henderson

Windmaster Golem
Click the cover for purchase information

Ping pong, or table tennis, is a 19th-century Victorian parlor game where two or four players use small, solid paddles to hit a ball back and forth across a table. It eventually became an Olympic sport. Before the days of social media, the internet, and omnipresent technology and electronic games, ping pong tables were popular on college campuses and could even be found in civic and church recreational halls. When it was too dark or too cold outside for frisbee, table tennis filled the void.

However, it is ping pong as a verb that has been keeping the meteorologists busy. The official definition is to, "move rapidly back and forth or between different states." Within days, or sometimes even hours, weather and temperatures varied widely and could go from the 70s to the 20s in a blink. A sunny day with wispy clouds gives way to rain, sleet, freezing rain, and snow. And that didn't include two back to back ice storms that left pine boughs and magnolia branches littering the ground. I felt sorry for the daffodils who couldn't decide to bloom or duck and cover. 

No putting away winter clothes for the season. Pretty much every type of outfit from ski jackets and thermals to short sleeve tee shirts and shorts were needed to keep up with  the temperatures ping ponging. About the only outfit that wasn't needed was a bathing suit. 

The bright colors of  cherry tree blossoms tell warmer weather has arrived.

When the weather is bad in my area, sometimes it is the characters who bear the brunt of it. In Windmaster, Ellspeth and Dal are riding a dangerous mountain trail in a blizzard. Exhaustion and being soaked to the skin are not the only problems encountered. Even after shelter is found, Ellspeth comes under a psychic attack.

Where I grew up,  cardinals came with snow. The arrival of robins in the yard and the blooming of daffodils and crocuses signaled spring. Outside our sunroom in the more southerly clime, the winged harbingers of spring and winter co-exist all year round. So how to tell its spring?

Beyond a date on the calendar, I'm not sure anymore. But nature's playing ping pong with the weather and temperature has one benefit. It allows for procrastination in spring cleaning and swapping out seasonal items. And is a perfect excuse to get a new book.

~till next month, stay safe and read.

To purchase the Windmaster Novels: BWL

Find out more about me and my novels at Journey to Worlds of Imagination.
Follow me online at Facebook, Goodreads or Twitter.

Helen Henderson lives in western Tennessee with her husband. While she doesn’t have any pets in residence at the moment, she often visits a husky who have adopted her as one the pack. 

Happy Dancing! by Nancy M Bell

 

To learn more about Nancy and her books click on the cover.

Soooooo, a little sneaky preview. I can share this as my post doesn't go live until March 18th and the big reveal is on March 17th.  His Brother's Bride, and indeed, all the Canadian Historical Brides books will soon be available as fully accessible audio books. There will be Daisy/NNELS files available for those who require them. This is a huge step forward for us at BWL Publishing Inc and I for one am very excited about it.

Now, more good news! My book of poetry, Touchstone 2015 was reviewed by Miguel Angel Olive Iglesias in his latest book  A Shower of Warm Light. Miguel is editor in chief of the Canada Cuba Literary Alliance (CCLA) magazine The Ambassador and president of the CCLA. He is a member of the Mexican Association of Language and Literary Professors, VP of William Shakespeare Study Centre and member of of the Canadian Studies Department of the Holguin University in Cuba.

I am more than thrilled and certainly humbled to be included in this book, along with many highly successful Canadian poets. I must thank James Deahl, the editor of Tamaracks, Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century for including my poem Henge in his book and encouraging me to send my poetry to Miguel.

Miguel says of my work:

"Her book (Touchstone) is a reminder of how connected we are to the essences of life and points to our origins, our guiding principles, our salvation. It is a book about, with and for love. It exudes gratefulness and wholeheartedness from the very first proposal, "Touchstone," to its last poem, "Lost in Choices."

He goes on to say:

"Bell connects nature with the human condition in the last stanza (of "Tide") using a versatile expressive means, simile: The tide is coming in/sliding up the shore/Sure and steady as mothers love." She is able to link the sureness and steadiness of the ever-lapping sea with love, a leitmotif in her creation."

In conclusion he says of my poem "Still in Love" and my work in general :

"As I said at the beginning, this is a book of love. Bell has a gift: she is able to pour out words with an emphatic and empathic tone that catches the reader as she turns concrete occurrences and a great love into an ever-lasting experience: "The memory of  what we had/ And what we were to each other....// With the summer days we lived together/ And the love we shared."

I am totally humbled by his words. I write poetry because it comes to me, like breathing. Usually already whole and complete  just waiting for me to put the words on paper. It's something that I've done from a very early age and something that I enjoy. It also has a cathartic aspect, as putting emotion into words helps to exorcise pain and help me heal, and also to express the beauty that abounds around us. So much beauty that it would break my heart if I didn't set it free and share it.

Until next month, stay well, be happy.

  

What To Do When Your WIP Takes A U-Turn by Janet Lane Walters #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor $Romantic suspense #medical #Blackmail #Murders

 

What To Do When Your WIP Takes a U-Turn

 

This book is coming in April, I definitely pary I can finish. Unfortunately, the book took a U-turn at the halfway point. What do you do then? If my hair hadn’t already turned white, it certainly would be of no color now. There are a number of things you can do.

First, you could throw the chapters away and begin anew.

Second you could find the first point of the change.

Third you can change the focus of the story a bit.

I didn’t dot the first since I knew those pages were solid. I moved to the second way and found there was a point where the story changed. I explored this and finally I realized, I’d thought of this as a straight suspense story. Then I realized there was more to be shown.

I pulled out the main points of the story. Nurses trying to rid their hospital of doctors unfit to practice medicine. Then I looked for the crimes. Blackmail and murder. I finally realized there was a reason for the blackmail and murders. The heroine was the focus of all of these. I discovered the why and finally had the story on track again. I’m nearly finished with the rewrite and not it’s time to look at the pages and add what needs to be added and show the new slant. This is  not a straight medical suspense but is a romantic suspense. Soon I’ll be writing The End. Once that’s done, I’ll send it off. Hopefully I’ll never have a story do this again.

Not the characters yelling that’s not the way. This time the plot yelled I don’t like the way the story is going.

My Places

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https://bookswelove.net/walters-janet-lane/

 

Is it sci-fi or horror? by J.C. Kavanagh

 

The Twisted Climb
Book 1 of the award-winning series

I'm well into the manuscript for Book 3 of my Twisted Climb series, but every now and then I take a break from writing a young adult book and switch to.... sci-fi horror. Yeah, I have a fascination for science fiction thanks to Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. And I have a lurid fascination for horror, thanks to Stephen King's Carrie, The Shining, and The Stand. Many of the adventures in The Twisted Climb's dream world have paranormal and horrific features - features that I love to wrap my twisted mind around. Mmmm, delicious.

Lead characters in Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek 
William Shatner as Captain Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Spock 

The 1978 original cover of Stephen King's The Stand

So when I have an opportunity to write something other than YA (young adult), I wholeheartedly accept. I belong to a writers' group called 'The Wordsmiths,' a very talented group of local authors and poets. To stir the creative pot, our group leader frequently provides story prompts. Last week's storyline choices were:

1. Your character, by chance or habit, peers through a telescope. They see something unusual - what is it?

2. Your character has just checked her lottery ticket numbers and finds that she has all the numbers and is a big winner. What goes through her mind the first hour and what does she decide to do.

Sooo... my twisted mind went to work and came up with this...  

Just one look
by J.C. Kavanagh

 “I know it’s there!”

“It’s not there – I’ve inspected the entire quadrant.”

Ellie drummed her fingertips against the cold, metal desktop. “Well, I saw it yesterday and the day before, so, it’s got to be there. Dying stars don’t disappear in a day.”

Her new colleague, Freizen, shook his head. “I know that – you forget my specialty is in galactic death.”

Ellie deliberately turned her head to one side and rolled her eyes, preventing Friezen from witnessing her sarcastic response. Galactic death is his specialty – ahaha! She held back a laugh, turning it into a quick cough.

Friezen leaned toward her, his one eye seeming to grow larger with each passing second as the single pupil replicated over and over until it appeared as multi-faceted as the arachnid species found on earth. Only this wasn’t earth. This was a galaxy far away where humans were called ‘alien.’ On this planet, there were only spider-like beings – creatures with a single eye and eight hairy limbs. Ellie waved a hand in front of her face. “You don’t scare me with your alien eyeball,” she said softly. “We came in peace, remember?”

Friezen shifted his body back, allowing his single eye to roam over her human body. Slowly, the pupils merged to one and Ellie knew he had overcome his fight-and-kill mentality. It was always this way with him. Actually, it was this way with his entire species.

Ellie tapped a set of coordinates on the wall-sized computer screen, enhancing the quadrant ten-fold. “This is where you’re pointing the telescope, right?” An image of the starry sector appeared on the wall before them. Bracing hands on hips, she said, “I want to look for myself.”

In response, Friezen waved four of his limbs at the eyepiece of the enormous telescope. “You can take a look – but you only get one look.”

Ellie stepped toward the eyepiece, sidling past Friezen. She was confused at his comment. If that was a dying star I saw and if that really was part of the Milky Way galaxy, then I might have witnessed my own planet self-destructing. But why would Friezen hide that from me?

“Just one look?” she asked. He nodded and pointed once more toward the telescope.

Ellie leaned into the eyepiece, focusing on the spiral-shaped sector. There! It’s there! The dying star was glowing brightly in its final death dance. She turned toward Friezen just as he spewed a massive gob of gossamer web on her face.

“Humans are so stupid,” he said. “But their brains are quite tasty.”

* * * 

I'm not sure which genre reflects this short story, sci-fi or horror. What do you think?

If you're looking for great books to read during the March break - check out my award-winning Twisted Climb series. Action, adventure, suspense, drama and paranormal activities abound!

Stay safe everyone!

J.C. Kavanagh, 

Voted Favourite Local Author, South Simcoe, 

author of The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends (Book 2) voted BEST Young Adult Book 2018, Critters Readers Poll and Best YA Book FINALIST at The Word Guild, Canada 

AND 

The Twisted Climb, 

voted BEST Young Adult Book 2016, P&E Readers Poll

Novels for teens, young adults and adults young at heart 

Email: author.j.c.kavanagh@gmail.com 

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