Giving Thanks as an Author - by Vijaya Schartz

Jasmine, the calico who sits on my pages and steps on the keyboard

You could say we authors are not quite like other humans. For many, Thanksgiving is about family, the great stuffing controversy, who's going to win the game, and they are grateful for health, shelter, and company.

Of course I am celebrating with friends (since my family is in France). But unlike most people, we, authors, see the world in terms of stories and characters... and while we strive on human emotions, we often seem aloof, as we take a step back to observe and notice the details of all life surrounding us, true or imagined.

So, let me tell you about an author's thanksgiving.

As an author, I am grateful for the freedom to write the stories in my heart. Despite all the upheavals in this ever-changing industry, I am thankful to have a publisher daring enough to publish what I write, and smart enough to ride the crest of this drastic revolution, constantly exploring new avenues for the benefit of their authors.

I also want to thank my supportive fellow authors, always generous with a kind word. I find your chatter comforting and often enlightening. No matter how much your family loves you, they do not understand the twisted worries and strange concerns we have for our characters.

I am thankful for internet research, providing bountiful fodder to spark my imagination. I should also thank my kindle for holding all my favorite books in one very small package, ready to travel anytime.

I'm thankful for the calico cat snoozing on my lap while I write, or stepping on the keyboard to remind me it's dark out, and way past feeding time.

I am thankful for the joy of a new release, for the first look at that new cover, for the exhilarating smell of fresh ink on paper and the comfortable weight of that book in my hands.

But most of all, I'm thankful for my readers, those who push me to write yet another book in their favorite series, those who stay late at night, turning the pages. They are the ones who perk me up and keep me going whenever I'm down, the ones whose voices urge me on to write. And when they share their love of my books, or tell me they enjoyed the last one, my heart warms up, and I experience this fuzzy comfortable happy feeling only equaled by love.

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.

Vijaya Schartz
Blasters, Swords, Romance with a Kick
http://www.vijayaschartz.com
http://bookswelove.net/vijayaschartz.php

Tricia McGill--on Rock and Roll

I’ve been watching a series on our Aussie National TV station about the early days in Cilla Black’s singing career and it brought back so many memories. Some younger people might not be familiar with Cilla, but guess you’ve all heard of the Beatles and The Rolling Stones. You’d have to have been living on another planet not to have heard of them. Anyway, back to Cilla. I was fortunate enough to have lived through the early days of Rock and Roll. I say fortunate as I don’t think any music has matched up to those glory years of the late fifties and 60s.

When I first attended dances at my local town hall in my teenage years we mostly did a sort of shuffle around the floor as in those days it was strictly ballroom dancing and who could do the foxtrot or tango—certainly none of the young men I danced with. But then Rock and Roll came on the scene in the form of Bill Haley and his Comets, and the like. My cousin, who was also my best friend, and I began to excel at dancing this new-fangled Roll and Roll. I can still remember how my brothers, all much older than us, laughed at our antics. Little did they know how this new ‘craze’ would catch on. It spawned some of the greatest rock musicians ever. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, and let’s not forget Elvis. I can still recall vividly the first time I heard Elvis on the radio. My cousin and I were enjoying a refreshing drink during a break at the dingy little dance club we went to twice a week, when the announcer came on to introduce this new singer who was sweeping all before him. I still get that same old tingle up my spine when I hear him singing Heartbreak Hotel. 

Now I think about it I was so lucky. I saw so many stars live in their early years as performers, including Bill Haley and the Comets, Frankie Laine, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Eddie Fisher, Matt Munro. Probably a few of them are long forgotten but there are two groups who are well known even today. We would go to the local market Saturday morning and buy the records of our favorites. Those round plastic things that apparently are coming back into fashion by the purists. I think I had every record made by Frankie Laine and stupidly left most of them behind when I left England. 

Moving on a few years, and I met my husband, who shared my musical tastes. How we loved to rock and roll the night away. I met him many, many years ago on Christmas Eve at the Tottenham Royal, a dance hall. I Googled it and it doesn’t exist anymore. Pity, as it was a wonderful venue.

Getting back to Cilla. My husband and I went to a dance hall every Saturday evening and the manager there got a batch of tickets for a Beatles performance and I was lucky enough to be included in the select group who went along to a local theater. To be honest I can’t recall one song the Beatles performed as the screaming from besotted girls was so loud they could have been playing rubbish. But then one of them introduced Cilla, and I can still see this girl standing there singing her heart out. I believe her first hit was ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’. Well anyone with a heart had to fall for her then and there--and many did--and remain fans to this day.

We also went along to see one of the early Rolling Stones performances. From memory it was at a Boat club along the River Thames at Richmond. It must have been a huge place with rafters as some boys stripped their shirts off to hang from the rafters. I was an arm’s length away from this skinny bloke called Mick Jagger as they performed on the stage and who would have guessed that 50 odd years later he and the Stones would still be a household name.

I do hope my reminiscences have brought back some happy memories for others.

Tricia McGill’s books can be found either on her webpage: www.triciamcgill.com

Or on her Books We Love page: http://bookswelove.net/mcgill.php

The Story Behind the Story by Gail Roughton

As a reader, have you ever read a novel that seemed so real you could smell baking bread, feel the heat of the sun beating down on your head, hear the roars of a crowd? If you’re a confirmed reader, one who always has a book going (usually one in each room), you almost certainly have.  Because it’s those moments, those scenes, those books, that make reading so much more than a pleasant diversion and turn a casual reader into a book addict.  Those moments, those scenes, those books—they take readers to another world, another place, another time and introduce them to characters they feel they know, folks they’d like to sit down with over coffee.  Or beer.  Depends on the time of the day, I guess.

So here’s the Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar question.  How does a writer write such scenes, such books?  Not that I’m saying I do, mind you.  I’d like to think so, at least occasionally, and I know that while I’m writing, I myself am in another place and time. But not because I’m using my imagination to create them.  Because I’m tapping my memory to reproduce them.  Not exactly, of course.  Not the actual moment, the actual event.  I want the feel, the flavor, the taste, of that memory.  And I want it to come through to the reader.  But even more than that, I want to put that memory into words that I can take out and visit with whenever I so choose. Bet you didn’t know that, huh?  That basically, writers are selfish people who in the final analysis, write for themselves and not for others.  Which isn’t selfish at all, really, because by doing so, they create those scenes that turn readers into book addicts.

In other words, there’s always a story behind the story.  Always.  My “darkest” work came from a real-life ordinary moment.  In a law office.  In my early twenties, I worked for a lovely, lovely gentleman, an older attorney known to all in Macon as “the Judge”.  One day the phone rang, I answered like a good little secretary and explained that the Judge was currently out of the office, might I take a message?

“This is Jim Smith (not really, I don’t remember the real name, it was a long time ago) at Riverside Cemetery.  Please ask him to call me at xxx-xxxx.”

Okay, I was in my early twenties but I was possessed by the devil on occasion even then.  I wrote up the call and under “About” added:  “Has a vampire in one of the mausoleums and would like him evicted.” 

The Judge came back, read his message, went “What?” and we all had a good laugh.  But the idea never left me, the idea that this would be an hysterical short satire, a “Night Court” sort of satire, wherein the poor vampire had to defend his right to live in the family mausoleum.  I mean, his family paid for it, after all, for the use of dead family members.  By what legal remedy would you evict a vampire?  He’s family.  And he’s dead.  Sort of.

Somewhere along the line, the story line ceased to be humorous and it dang sure ceased to be short.  Final product:  The Color of Seven

You can find all my titles at http://bookswelove.net/roughton.php. And there’s a story behind every last one of them.