Paying Dues by Bruce McKern

McKern, Kevin and Bruce - BWL Publishing Inc.

Like most things, the term 'paying dues' has certain connotations, dependent on one's life experiences.  To some, it means a chunk of their paycheck goes to an organization that, ideally, would advocate for them in case of a labor dispute.  For others, it's the price of admission to place that offers brotherhood and cheap booze.  But to a lunk-headed, free-lance small market musician, it has very little to do with money.  It's all the experiences, from the goofy to the sublime, that made me the musician I ultimately became.

It could be said that education and dues are separate entities, but not by me. I started guitar lessons at age seven. Every Saturday morning Dad would take me and my brother to the music store. Our teacher was an old-school musician's musician. He had emigrated from Germany, had an amazing accent, and was proficient in just about every instrument imaginable. He gave us a theoretical as well as technical background in music.

We also got some practical experience when he had me and my brother play some real-life gigs with him.  It was so cool to be out past my bedtime, playing music for people, and actually getting some money for it.  I also got the chance to see how a pro handles different situations whilst keeping the music flowing.

For most of my school days, I was in orchestra and band.  And my last three years of high school, Kevin and I played in the pit for the spring musical.  My sophomore year, it was a last minute, emergency situation with very little rehearsal.  It was just me, Kevin, and the music-director/pianist.  We all worked from condensed scores, so it was great fun making up our own parts (and for a string bass player, I got pretty adept at reading ledger lines!).  But the biggest take away was learning the fine art of accompanying.  With singers and actors, but especially with teenagers trying to be both at the same time, it's a balancing act of being firm, supportive, and above all, flexible.  It's a skill-set that served me well not only doing musical theatre, but with just about every kind of gig.  Most of the time, music is conversational in nature, and listening is key to good conversation.

Probably my very first gig was at a tavern with my cousin and my brother.  I think my age was in the single digits, I played the tambourine, and I requested my pay be in the form of a stack of dollar bills.  Starting in my tweens and running right up to present day, I've been in various iterations of rock bands with my brother.  We did the club scene pretty heavy while I was still in high school.  This was in the days of five sets a night.  Usually, the places were deserted for the first and last sets, so it was challenging to keep the energy up and put on a show.  We had a lot of fun, but it was also when the bars were full of cigarette smoke.  Hair, clothes, and gear were absolutely toxic by the end of the night.

During my college years, while playing in the symphony and rock bands, we were also doing the odd society gig.  Usually at the country club, it was an exercise in humility and definitely a character builder.  In my late twenties, I played in a little-big band (swing-era music scored down for an octet).  This was a particularly interesting sociological experience due to the fact that the other members of the group were retirees from all different walks of life.  They were also mostly from the greatest generation, so they had first-hand knowledge of swing when it was new and popular.  Also, that band had a dedicated arranger who would create absolutely stunning, original charts that were equally challenging and accessible.  

On most of the casual dates I played, I was the baby on the bandstand.  It was a very informal type of apprenticeship that I greatly appreciate.  I'm not sure young people now have the same opportunities.  I hope they do, and I hope they have as much fun as I did!

Vikings in North America by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

  

The Vikings in North America

 

It has been long thought that the first European to step on the soil of North America was Christopher Columbus. But excavations done at a site in northwest Newfoundland, called L’Anse aux Meadows, in the 1960’s recovered artifacts like jewellery, a stone oil lamp, a bone knitting needle, and tools that were compared to ones used at Viking settlements in Greenland and Iceland around the year 1000. They have been carbon dated to between the years 990 and 1050, proof that the Vikings were in North America long before Columbus.

       Vikings were people from Scandinavia, present day Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, who were merchants as well as warriors. During the late eighth to eleventh century they raided, pillage, and conquered settlements in Scotland and throughout Europe. They also had settlements in Iceland and Greenland.

       Surnames ending in "-son" or "-sen" are considered to have Viking ancestry. My great-grandparents emigrated from Scotland. Plus, the little finger on my right hand does not lay flat when I set my palm down. My sister has the same condition but worse. Her little finger had a permanent bend to it. She went to her doctor and received a botox shot to relax it. When she went for physio she was told that a bent finger like that was a sign of being a Viking. I also have a friend of Norwegian ancestry with the same little finger.

       But, that bent little finger comes from my mother’s side who also had one. Her maiden name was Relf, which I learned was first found in the 1000s in Nairnit, a town in northern Scotland. So, with this ancestry on both sides I consider myself a Viking. In 2017, I visited L’Anse aux Meadows in northwest Newfloundland.

       From the parking lot I walked to the interpretive centre where I looked at the displays of what the settlement would have looked like during its occupation. There are replicas of the longships that the Vikings sailed in, artifacts unearthed during the excavations, write-ups about the Vikings, tools that were found, and maps showing the route the Vikings used to get to Newfoundland or Vinland, as they are thought to have named it. The Scandinavians of the medieval period were known as Norse and they were farmers and traders. When they began raiding other countries they became known as Vikings, the Norse word for raiders.

       There has been a lot of interest in the Vikings recently with televisions shows and documentaries about them and their raiding which began in the 790s and lasted until around 1050. With their longboats and advanced sailing and navigational skills the Viking men and women travelled from Scandinavia south through Europe to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia and west to North America.

       I left the centre and followed a long, wooden boardwalk through grass and small bushes to the actual site. There I found a post fence around a yard with large mounds covered in grass. When the Vikings landed here there were forests from which they were able to get material for their boat and house building. The remains of eight buildings were found in the 1960s and they are believed to have been made of a wooden frame and covered with sod.

       The structures have been identified are a long house, an iron smithy, a carpentry shop, and smaller buildings that may have been for lower-status crewmembers or even slaves or for storage. There are three replicas of those sod buildings with their thick walls on the site. One is a long house which is equipped with clothes, beds and bedding, household utensils, tools, a fire pit and has a couple dressed in period clothing cooking a meal. The Vikings hunted caribou, bear, and smaller animals plus whale, walrus, and birds for food as well as fished.

       I wandered through the rooms divided by hand carved wooden plank walls. Light came from the fire and holes in the ceiling which are partially covered with upside down wooden boxes to keep the rain out.

       One of the other buildings is the smithy complete with anvil, forge, bellows, and various tools. I wandered the rest of the site and saw the outlines of other buildings that have not been reconstructed. It is estimated that between 30 and 160 people lived there over the years.

       The Vikings arrived in Newfoundland from Iceland via Greenland. According to historical records the site was inhabited by the brothers and sister of Leif Ericson plus a series of explorers. It is believed the settlement was there for seven or eight years before being abandoned. This is the only confirmed Viking site in North America and is the farthest west that Europeans sailed before Columbus.

       After viewing the buildings I followed a trail along the rocky shoreline and then turned inland to walk on a boardwalk over a bog back to the parking lot.

       One of the best things is that not only does the interpretive centre have the history of the Vikings, but there is also extensive displays showing the history of the aboriginal people who inhabited the area over thousands of years before any European arrived.

       In 2018, I visited the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, just outside Copenhagen, Denmark. In the museum is a permanent exhibition of parts of five original Viking ships excavated nearby in 1962. A thousand years ago these ships were deliberately scuttled (filled with rocks and sunk) in a river to stop the enemy from invading the city by water. Over the decades since they were found, the pieces have been preserved and put together on a metal frame to show how the ships would have looked. Also at the site are replicas of the Viking ships and I became a Viking for an hour. A group of us sat on the seats and rowed the ship out of the harbour using the long oars. Once on the open water we hoisted the mast and set sail. After sailing for a while we headed back to the harbour. As we neared it I had the honour of pulling on the rope that lowered the mast and sail and we glided back to our dock.

       It would be fun, someday, to write a novel about my ancestors.

       

 

Where to Set Your Story by Victoria Chatham

 

TO BE RELEASED SEPTEMBER 2025

All stories have a setting. Some are instantly recognisable, others are not. One of my favourite authors is Rosamund Pilcher, who set many of her stories in Cornwall, the English county that dips its toe into the Atlantic Ocean. The first line of her book, Coming Home, tells you this, but in a charming way:

'The Porthkerris Council School stood halfway up the steep hill which climbed from the heart of the little town to the empty moors which lay beyond.'

Lee Child, another of my favourite authors, leaves you in no doubt of his setting in the opening of Oneshot:

'Friday. Five o'clock in the afternoon. Maybe the hardest time to move unobserved through a city. Or maybe the easiest. Because at five o'clock on a Friday nobody pays attention to anything. Except the road ahead.'

The setting anchors the story in time and space, providing a sense of reality for the reader. The author is responsible for further solidifying that setting by engaging the senses. If it is an indoor setting, such as a house or a building, where is the character located? What furniture might they have to move around? What can they see, hear, and feel? I often close my eyes and visualise it, typically typing as I move from hallway to stairs, from scullery to dining room. The devil is in the details, so all the details I ‘see’ are typed. What time of day is it, and what part of the year? Where does the light fall, and what shadows does it create? How does that affect the colour palette of the décor? Being specific usually holds a reader’s attention, especially if it appeals to the senses.

Shakespeare wrote, ‘Let me count the ways.’ OK, he was writing Sonnet #43, but that phrase could just as easily refer to creating settings as to declaring love. In As You Like It, he also wrote, ‘All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.’

While the Bard waxes poetic, authors are not so different in creating the stage or setting and moving characters around in that landscape. As much as I love creating characters, I also enjoy creating their settings. For my Regency romances, my characters have followed the social round from someone’s country seat to London, then on to the spa towns of Brighton, Bath, Cheltenham, Buxton, and Harrogate. While there were others, these are the most easily recognised, particularly Bath, for those who enjoy Regency romance. Being such popular cities, many of which have changed little since their inception, street plans are readily available online with some digging into each city’s archives.  

Typical town plan

I have been torn between using real-life locations for my contemporary stories and creating a town because I’m writing fiction. This is where I combine fact and fiction. I take a location I know and fictionalise it. That way, I can still write with a measure of conviction that might otherwise be lacking. Readers invariably sense a weakness, and I do my best to make my fictional settings as real as possible. I mix up English village names if my setting is in England, and I’m sure there are many more fictional ranches in Southern Alberta than in reality.

Fall colours in Southern Alberta

Another aspect of setting is designing the houses in which my characters live. I need to understand how they move through these spaces and what keeps the upstairs household members separate from those below stairs. Even with my ranch houses, I approach the same considerations. After designing one ranch house, I knew almost every log and stone in its construction, but I could not picture the roofline. I phoned a local architect’s office, explained my dilemma to the receptionist, and asked if any of the architects there would be willing to assist. The following day, I received a call from a gentleman intrigued by the process of building a house in a novel. We scheduled an appointment, and when he examined my floor plan, it didn't take him long to add a roof to it. Job done, but our conversation about the intricacies of writing a book continued well beyond the one-hour slot he had allocated me.

My current work in progress is set in a place I know well, but I have fictionalized it out of respect for the residents. Whether they recognise it or not remains to be seen when A Murder in the Meadow debuts this coming September.

Victoria Chatham

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Lighting the creative fire and keeping it burning

At a recent writer's workshop, one of my students asked, "How do you stay motivated to work on a book that may take years to complete?" My first thought was to pass on the old adage, "Don't be overwhelmed by the elephant laying before you. Eat it one bite at a time." I sensed the student needed something more immediate. 

I said each book has a series of milestones. While it's immensely satisfying to see your name on the cover of your first book, that's only a single milestone along a long path of writing. I sensed he needed something immediate, so I passed on advice I'd received from Nevada Barr, the author of the Anna Pigeon series. She writes three pages a day. Every day. If she's inspired, she writes very small. If uninspired, she writes large and double spaced. That discipline yields a book every year. 

I could see my student glaze over as he considered the prospect of a year of daily writing. I said, "the milestone was three pages, not the whole book. Write three pages and step back. Say, 'I've succeeded today. I've written three pages!" 

Still not sensing any enthusiasm, I reassured him. "Do you have an opening sentence? If you do, you've passed a milestone. Is there an opening paragraph? Great, another milestone is behind you. A first page. Another success." I could see him starting to feel better about his accomplishments. 

"Next, tell your wife or call you best friend when you've finished the first chapter. They'll be impressed and their enthusiasm will drive you on. You'll have the energy to write the second chapter."

As he mulled that advice, he smiled. "I can write three pages a day. Thank you."

A second student told me she'd stalled. Halfway through a book, she'd hit the wall. She was a "pantser', writing by the seat of her pants, whatever thoughts came to her mind that day. I suggested she step back to create an outline of the plot she's completed. When I do that, I perceive the "trajectory" of the book I'm writing, which helps me envision what comes next.

As the students left, a smiling middle-aged woman approached and shook my hand. I asked if I'd provided the tools she needed to move ahead with her book. Her reply was priceless. "No, Dean, what you've done is convince me I don't want to write a book. You've pointed out the things I enjoy in a book, and I'm motivated to dive into my "to be read" pile. I'll look at the plots and characters more critically. Thank you."

I heard later that she was working her way through my Pine County mystery series. That's a milestone for me; a reader who enjoyed the first Dean Hovey book she read, and is now moving on to the others.

If you're an inspired reader, check out "Skidded and Skunked". It's the latest book in the Pine County series. This is the first book for my co-author, D.L. Dixen, She's just hit that incredibly exciting milestone of touching the first book with her name printed on the cover. 

Better yet, if you search for D.L. Dixen on Amazon or my publisher's website, you'll see "Skidded and Skunked." Not only did she make the book better, she hit that BIG milestone of her name on the book's cover. 

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=D.L.+Dixen&crid=2GBIPB966OLU5

Dixen, D.L. - BWL Publishing Inc.

A woman doctor in the 18th century, impossible, or is it? by Diane Scott Lewis

 

A young woman seeks to learn a physician's skills in the late eighteenth century, but discovers strange village secrets, and a possible murder, instead. To purchase this book, click HERE  

For this novel I delved into eighteenth century medical practices, and found some interesting facts concerning women. I hope you find them interesting as well.

In this time period woman weren't allowed to study as doctors in Great Britain. But some women found ways to circumvent the restrictions.

Women were often relegated to treat female issues only, but a few went beyond that practice.

An Irishwoman named Margaret Bulkley dressed as a man, attended Edinburgh University, and graduated a fully fledged doctor. Her charade went largely undetected in her many years of practice.

Margaret as "James Barry"

A Mrs. Roman in 1760s Wiltshire, England, worked as a physician, for the poor, treating both men and women. She was paid the same as the male doctors but her formal education is unclear.

Here is an excerpt from my novel, when Rose confronts the village doctor. (all her examples are pre 1790s) 

“Why are you interested in these things, may I ask?” Dr. Nelson's tone turned a little cold as he scrutinized her.

“That’s what I’ve come to discuss with you.” Rose scanned two other book titles then faced him. “Since I was a little girl I’ve been interested in healing, practicing on cats and dogs, mostly. I set a dog’s leg, and he recovered quite well. I even treated our servants in America with poultices and syrups.

“I discovered a Lucretia Lester of Long Island who practiced midwifery for years, but she was respected as a nurse and doctoress to the women she treated.” Rose sat in a Windsor chair before a large oak desk, the books in her lap.

“Women have long been respected as midwives.” Nelson sat at his desk. The size of the piece dwarfed him, and it displayed no personal items and no portraits hung on the walls.

He stared down at his hand and tapped a finger. “Of course, since the use of forceps started twenty years ago, which brought men into delivery rooms, midwives were relegated to rural communities or serving the poor.” He related this as if delivering a lecture. His stiff words pushed aside any friendliness.

Undaunted, Rose plunged on. “I also read an article in an old edition of the South Carolina Gazette about a Mrs. Grant who attended lectures by professors of Anatomy and Practice of Physick in Edinburgh. She had a certificate and practiced as a doctoress in Scotland.”

“I have heard of her. That was almost thirty years ago.” Nelson looked up again, his frown deep. “What do you hope to accomplish, Miss Gwynn?”

“Women were allowed to be physicians in England until Henry VIII legislated to put a stop to it.” She pressed the history books against her thighs. “It’s time that women were allowed back into the practice.” 

“Do you intend to find a way to attend a medical college? I’m afraid that’s— impossible.” His skin flushed as if he fought against a stronger emotion.

A quack doctor assists a patient in 1792

Rose has no idea she's stirring up trouble for Nelson, but soon she'll be in the thick of it. Along with her meet Catern, a tavern wench out for revenge against the earl who is courting Rose's sister, and the mysterious Charlie who watches them all, hoping to help or hinder.

For more on me and my books, visit my BWL author's page

https://bwlpublishing.ca/lewis-diane-scott/

Diane lives in Western Pennsylvania with one naughty dachshund.