The Rocky Road—Tricia McGill

 

Fins all Tricia McGill's Books here

Ah, what a rocky ride to publication it is. There aren’t many writers who can tell you their first completed manuscript was picked up by an editor at the first attempt. Each writer’s personal journey is different in so many ways from their fellow authors—and there are innumerable hurdles to jump and lessons to learn along the way to publication.

The hardest to take at the start are those pesky rejection letters. But then we learn that each one is really just another stepping stone and when all is said and done, they just reinforce our desire to write and our determination to pass the publication milestone (that depends of course on the level of our desire to see our books read).

While sorting through old letters and papers the other day on one of my spasmodic tidy-ups I came across my first valued critique. This four-page document was written by a lady I never had the good fortune to meet, but her words of wisdom set me on the road to eventual publication. Her name was Leticia, and unfortunately although I have hunted high and low I cannot find the personal letter that accompanied this critique. If by any chance Letitia should happen on these words someday, I want to thank her from the bottom of my heart for the encouragement she gave me to keep going along my personal rocky road. The wording went something like this: “Unfortunately I am not a publisher of fiction but when your husband walked into my office with your manuscript in his hand and asked me if I would be kind enough to read it, I could do nothing but agree to his plea. He assured me you were a wonderful writer and had been disillusioned by one or two harsh rejections. I can see why you are a romance writer as you have your own love affair going.”

Not word for word, but you get the picture. Leticia actually worked for a medical journal publisher but that didn’t deter my husband who had more cheek than I would ever possess. To him a publisher was a publisher, so that was that. So, sometime later the critique arrived. I can’t remember if my husband picked it up or if it came by post. Leticia went into the marketing problems I had with this novel, then went on to give me her honest opinions on each character and how I could improve them, how I could change my story to make it more marketable. As I said at the start, this was over four full pages. But it was the words mixed in with the first few paragraphs that were uplifting.

“Well, in line with my remarks, serving the bad news first, the good news for you at this moment is that I found your writing very impressive. You show a real talent and the ability to become an even better craftsman as you go along.”

Well, that was all I needed. I was off, scribbling like mad (I had not acquired typewriter or computer at that stage). Of course, there were many more hurdles to cross and mountains to climb but that one letter was my personal catalyst. Next step was to join a reputable critique group, one with many talented writers who taught me so much.

In case you are wondering which of my books was that first scribbled manuscript, it never did get published in its original state, but ended up with many changes. It was unrecognisable from my first effort which was called “Trip to Paradise” and as Leticia warned me the title was one of the books main marketing problems. I notice on looking through published books on the internet that there are many books with that name or Paradise in their titles. I guess times have changed and my characters’ mildly romantic trip to Far North Queensland way back then is not what they mean by paradise now.

My dear husband died before my first book was published but I dedicated it to him. Without his perseverance on my part and his faith in me it might never have happened. He was the wind beneath my wings. I hope everyone else is lucky to have such a champion in their lives.

https://www.booksshelf.com/book-series/settlers

National Parks and Reserves of Canada by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

https://books2read.com/u/mKJxdd

 

 https://books2read.com/u/mYgK6x

 

National Parks and Reserves of Canada

I am a Canadian writer and all my mystery, historical, romance, and young adult novels are set in Canada. Canada is the second largest country in the world and has forty national parks and ten national park reserves covering an area of approximately 342,000 sq km (132,000 sq mi). This is about 3.2% of Canada’s total land area.

Canada’s first national park, Banff National Park (formerly the Rocky Mountain Park), was created in the province of Alberta in 1885 to protect the land around the Cave and Basin Hot Springs from being developed. Two more parks were created in 1886: Yoho National Park and Glacier National Park, both in the Rocky Mountains in the province of British Columbia. The land for the Waterton National Park, in southern Alberta, was set aside in 1895.

After Waterton it was nine more years before another park was created. The Thousand Islands National Park, which encompasses the one thousand islands of the Islands Parkway on the St. Lawrence River, was established in 1904. These islands are the remnants of former ancient mountains. Then, from 1907, when Jasper National Park was formed, to 2015 when Qausuittug National Park was established on Bathurst Island in Nunavut, forty-four more parks and reserves were created in the ten provinces and three territories. Each park or reserved was formed to protect the habitat of some animal or plant, or for its scenic magnificence. An example is Qautuittug which is the habitat of the endangered Peary Caribou.

One of the features of the parks are red Adirondack chairs. The placing of the red chairs began in Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland/Labrador in 2011. The members of the park staff positioned eighteen sets of chairs throughout the park and held a contest to see who could find all eighteen sets. The winner won a pair of red chairs. Since then the other parks have followed suit and now there are over two hundred across Canada, all made from 100% recycled plastic.

Some are easily found while others require a bit of a hike. When you find them, sit and enjoy the beautiful view, whether it is overlooking a lake, taking in mountain scenery, enjoying a prairie vista, or listening to a flowing river. The parks offer much to see.

Banff is the most popular park in the country with over four million visitors each year. Tuktut Nogait, in the Northwest Territories, has the least amount of visitors with less than five. A combined total of over fifteen million people view the beautiful scenery of all the parks every year.

Trash or Treasure? by Victoria Chatham

 

AVAILABLE HERE

We writers can be a weird lot. And before you ask, yes, I include myself in that statement. Writers are well known for being a bit different, and thank goodness for that. Every single one of us is, like snowflakes, unique. What makes writers different is their penchant for often being somewhere else, off in the clouds, or out of it entirely while their brains deal with recalcitrant characters, create new worlds, or give birth to dragons.

There are myriad ways in which writers write. Some need utter peace and quiet while other writers like listening to music or even require the buzz off a pub or coffee shop, ‘white noise,’ to keep them focused, or partnering up with one or more other writers and having group writing sessions. Like diets, one way does not suit all.

Then there are those writers who like a pristine work surface with no clutter around them. Then there are the clutter bugs who, like bingo players and their lucky dobbers, have to have their talismans, good luck charms, or just things that make them comfortable while they write.

I come somewhere between the two. I like my desk to be clear, but I have objects around me that create my comfort zone. The first is Tigger, a gift I bought my DDH (dear departed husband for those not familiar with this acronym) because, much as he loved Eyore, Pooh, and Piglet in that order, Tigger was his favourite character from Christopher Robin and Pooh Bear stories by A.A. Milne. He thought Tigger was fun, and when I saw this in Toys‘R Us many moons ago, I bought it for him for Christmas. Given his sense of humour, it could not have been a more appropriate gift. Tigger now watches me write, a constant reminder of my DDH’s mantra of ‘Have you written today?’

My right-hand aid is my Scotch whisky-tasting glass. This glass was a birthday gift from said DDH to me, along with a bottle of 15-year-old Dalwhinnie, my preferred Scotch, although I’m happy with any single-malt Scotch. I might add that my glass doesn’t always have Scotch in it! My other aide de comfort is my collection of owls. Owls symbolize wisdom, knowledge and good luck. I hope I have the wisdom and knowledge to write exciting stories and the good luck to have readers enjoy them. Each of the owls in this picture is from different places. The tall, black obsidian owl at the back came from a location close to Teotihuacan in Mexico, while the little white owl in the front came from the island of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland.

So what might be trash to one writer can be an absolute treasure to another. It is up to the individual writer what they are comfortable with, what aids or deters them and sets them up to write in their own distinctive voice.

 

​Victoria Chatham

  AT BOOKS WE LOVE

Images from author's collection.

Being in the scene

 Part of the challenge of writing is taking readers to the setting of our books without writing a travelogue. Other challenges are writing a hook that pulls readers into the story, and creating engaging characters that readers relate to, like, and care about.

The plot for "Peril in Paradise" had been bouncing around my head since a trip to Volcanoes National Park several years ago. Anyone who's ever written a book can happily expand on the difference between having an idea and writing a book. They're about 80,000 words and six months of writing different. I made the transition from idea to story early one morning. 

Having been warned repeatedly by my cop consultant not to talk about my imaginary friends, I'll say that an acquaintance woke me up at midnight. As sometimes occurs, Jill Fletcher wanted me to write down her ideas for the opening of a book set in Hawaii. Rather than allow her to keep tormenting me, I got up and together we wrote the opening chapter of "Peril in Paradise". With the first chapter written, she let me go back to sleep for a few hours, until she dragged me out of bed again at 6 am to continue the story.

Powered by caffeine, Jill and Doug's words, and visions of Volcanoes National Park, I wrote like a mad man. At some point, my wife wandered out of the bedroom and glared at me. Having survived over two decades of my writing, she shook her head and made herself breakfast while I pounded on the computer. She knew I was "in the scene". Yep. I may have been staring at the computer screen, or the blank wall behind it, but I was driving the Chain of Craters Road with the brown/black lava flows. I was eating papaya and warm banana bread in a Volcano Village B&B. I mean, I could smell the baking banana bread and perking Kona coffee as I wrote the scene. As my characters walked outside, I could smell the sulfurous "Vog" from the nearby volcanic eruptions. 

While drafting this book, a reader came to a book event and said it felt like I'd been to every place I'd written about in the Pine County mystery he'd just finished. The answer is yes and no. I've driven most of the back roads in Pine County, just as I've been to Devils Tower, Walnut Canyon, Padre Island National Seashore, Everglades National Park, and canoed down the St. Croix River. However, my mind's eye has taken me places I haven't been.

A prime example of that was when a reader called me and asked how to find an unnamed cop bar in Minneapolis mentioned in an early Pine County mystery. He'd just read a scene set in that bar and was ready to drive there with his wife for supper. I had to admit that particular scene was set in a place that was a composite of several of my favorite restaurants. Sorry, Mike, it's a fictional place. Not to say I wasn't sitting in that fictional bar when I wrote the scene. I could smell the stale beer and the burgers frying on the grill. I saw the walls covered with shoulder patches from dozens of police departments, pinned on the walls by cops from all over the world. Car doors salvaged from old police cars hung from the ceiling. I apparently did such a good enough job of creating that fictional bar that the reader was ready to go there for a juicy burger on a homemade bun.

I hope I've created enough of those places in "Peril in Paradise". I hope your mouth waters when the waitress delivers hebi (short-billed swordfish) in butter wine sauce to Doug and Jill. That you can smell the fresh white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies at their B&B. And maybe even have your nose tickled by sharp sulfur smell at the Kilauea observatory. I saw, smelled, and felt each of those scenes as I wrote them. I never left my chair, but I was there. My stomach even tightened during the helicopter ride. 

I hope I can take you there too.

Hovey, Dean - BWL Publishing Inc. (bookswelove.net)

https://books2read.com/Peril-in-Paradise

An Illicit moment, Outcast Artist in Bretagne - WWII heartbreak and forbidden love, by Diane Scott Lewis

 

To purchase Outcast Artist in Bretagne, click HERE

It's WWII, and August, the German Commandant, is falling for the Englishwoman Norah. Threats are on all sides. He wants to destroy Hitler, but will Norah destroy his heart? How could they possibly make this work? His attentions will compromise her.

Read an excerpt:

“I realize that.” But August still yearned to know; it had been so long since someone cared—if she cared. “Tell me what is in your heart.”

Norah turned and met his gaze. “I’m not one to mince words. I’m rather blunt, as you’ve pointed out.”

“Then let’s be honest, please.” His throat felt raw. He should let it go, allow her to dismiss him.

She sighed and blinked quickly. “I have feelings I shouldn’t have.”

“Ja. As do I.” Two lonely people, or something more? Silence followed, punctuated by rain and the whistle of wind around the building. Her eyes looked huge, and startled, even in the shadows. A woodland creature; but was he a savior or a predator?

Finally, he said, desperate to say something, “May I see what you’ve done so far on the portrait?”

She smiled, looking relieved by the change in subject. “No, not yet. I want it to be completed first.”

He moved toward her, playfully. “Just a peek won’t hurt.”

She spread her arms as if protecting her masterpiece. “Mais non. I’ll tell you when.”

August took a long step toward her. Fräulein Cooper came forward at the same time. They bumped into one another, her breasts right below his chest. He clasped her upper arms. She stared up at him, lips parted, inviting, yet wary. Past helping himself, he lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers. A tightening started low in his body.

She quivered beneath his hands, but didn’t move away, her breath warm on him.

Thunder boomed and rattled the windows. The rain pounded like drumbeats on the roof. The gunshot sounds from his nightmares faded.

“This is wrong, especially for you,” he whispered into her mouth.

“I know. Terribly improper. We shouldn’t.” She remained in place, her form delicate under his fingers, and kissed him back with a tiny moan.

Diane lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty dachshund.