http://bwlpublishing.ca/authors/baldwin-barbara-romance/
Reconnaissant
Agradecido
Kansha
shite iru
Buíoch
Every
language has a word for “thankful.” Since it’s November, I automatically
thought to write about Thanksgiving, but realized not everyone celebrates that
specific holiday. And when you stop to think about it, why do we celebrate
being thankful on only one particular day of the year? It should be an everyday
occurrence.
Many of
you are already nodding your head, because we do give thanks every single day. We’re
thankful for our families, our jobs, our homes, our health. But have you ever thought
about all the totally unique, out of the ordinary things? Let me give you an
example.
I had
the opportunity to visit Paris this summer for a writing workshop and we
visited Versailles one evening. While walking back up the path to the seating
by the fountain, I bent over to catch my breath. (This is not a blog about how
out of shape I am!) I saw a cell phone lying on the gravel. Since it was night
time and the phone was black, I’m surprised I noticed it at all. I picked it up
and tried to open it, hoping to call someone and tell them I had found a phone
with their contact but the phone was either locked or the battery was dead. I
would simply have to turn it in and hope someone checked with security. (Since
my son had once left his phone on a restaurant table, I realized how hopeful
someone was that this would be returned to them.)
With a
bright flash, the phone rang. I quickly swiped it and answered with a cherry
“hello” only to have someone start chattering in French, of which I know
“bonjour”. I quickly gave it to our
workshop director, who spoke fluent French. The end result was we left the
phone with a security agent at a place the owner could easily find. No doubt
that person was thankful for our help, but I was just as thankful that I had
been able to help, just as someone had once done for my son.
Out of
the ordinary, uncommon things to be thankful for, and yet just as wonderful as the
roof over my head. Every time I drive up to the house from a trip, and
especially if it’s dark, I thank my parents and two sisters for watching over
me and getting me home safely.
As an
author, I am thankful for the ability to put words together in such a way as to
create a story. That may sound simple, but believe me, some days the words do
not want to play together nicely! A completed novel leads to being very
thankful to readers because your interest and reviews give my publisher faith
in me and my next novel. So much so that the book featured here is my 20th full length novel! “Prelude and
Promises” is a fun romance about how opposites attract and I hope you will grab a copy. If you do, you can participate in BWL newest contest.
And
speaking of publishers, a huge thank you to Books We Love, who is having a BOGO until
December 25th. The link is http://bookswelove.net/bwl-holiday-special-free-books/
and it’s as simple as submitting a purchase receipt for a book from Books We
Love.
I challenge you to come up with the
unusual for your daily thankful-ness. And if you want to share thankfulness
with a stranger, next time you’re in a drive-through (Starbucks, McDonalds,
etc), pay the bill for the person behind you. They won’t track you down but
believe me, they will be thankful.
Best wishes as we enter the holiday season.
Barbara Baldwin, who is thankful for so many things it would be impossible to list them all.
|
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Being Thankful
I love to travel and would gladly roam from place to place.
Friday, November 9, 2018
Is research your excuse for not starting … or finishing your book? by Rita Karnopp
Murder and revenge collide as a vicious serial killer stalks and escalates in the preparation of one-sinner-at-a-time for atonement. His routine takes an unexpected turn when he falls in love with the last woman on his list.
When
a string of women turn-up dead, all incriminating evidence points to Carter
Thompson, a pathologist with a reputation for solving crimes, that is until his
wife is brutally murdered. For years his
life revolves around making sense of the serial killer’s deranged plan. Carter
is determined to uncover who and why he has become linked to this killer’s
gruesome handiwork. He teams up with the
one woman he hurt and still loves.
Through it all he manages to uncover a convoluted plot of jealousy and delusion.
Native
American Studies Professor, Angelene Jensen’s orderly life is shattered when
her sister is brutally murdered.
Determined the killer must pay, she makes decisions that propel her
closer to the man who left her standing at the altar, and a chilling
killer. Are they the same person? Had her sister uncovered evidence exposing the
killer … triggering her death?
There is so much information on the
Internet – it’s like having a library at your fingertips. You just must learn
the tricks to finding the information you’re looking for.
Find a search engine to do the work
for you such as Google, Yahoo, AOL, and . . . Different search engines
may look for different things. Some look for key words in the titles of
documents, some search all links for key words, and some will search the entire
text of documents. Check several out and decide which one you like best. The
search engine I use most often is Google.
When searching keep in mind:
1.
Be specific don’t use words too general or too common.
2.
Use singulars – never plural forms
3.
Write down in a notebook where you’ve been – saves so much time!
4.
Unsure of a key word –start with a wide search and find key words
to find what you need
5.
Keep it simple – and don’t get bogged down
a.
Pace yourself
b.
Don’t read everything – skim through until you find what you’re
looking for
c.
Don’t print every page – ‘copy and paste’ into a ‘note’ file and
save it on your hard drive or a flash drive for future use
d.
Copy the URL if it’s interesting - or save the site to your
‘favorites’ for future research
e.
Take notes if there are bits and pieces of information you wish to
keep
f.
Don’t bog down – keep moving – if you find a site that is so
interesting you can’t seem to stop reading; save it to your ‘favorites’ for
later
g.
Keep moving – It’s so important to stick to the information you’re
looking for.
Don’t
let research be your excuse for not starting … or
finishing your book!
I would say writing is my passion . . . I see a story in just about every situation. I love Native American history and all the lessons it has to offer.
Thursday, November 8, 2018
The Jealous Land by June Gadsby
When I decided to try my hand at a story
much further back in time than I had previously done, i.e. the 1850’s, it was
the biggest writing challenge I’d had to date. I had never researched the
1800’s, knew nothing about the history thereof. As usual, I planned to take my
characters across the world to Africa. I had already visited South Africa and
years later I spent some time in Kenya with my second husband, Brian,
naturalist and wildlife photographer.
The inspiration for the book, which I
called THE JEALOUS LAND was all there, handed to me on a plate – only I had to
take it back to the days when the young Queen Victoria was on the throne, the
days of The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London, early train
travel, great white hunters and early photography to be carried out by the hero
Daniel, adventurer and wildlife photographer.
As I have said, many times, the research
was enormous and filled more pages than the book itself. It also took longer to
do than the actual writing, but it gave me a taste for writing the historic
novel more than ever before. It was new and exciting for me as a writer and
animal lover. And being married to a serious photographer was also a great
help. I had seen the places I was writing about; experienced getting up close
to the beauty and the danger of the wildlife that hadn’t changed.
5*
Review by Rosemary Morris:
I congratulate Gadsby on her historical
research. The description of Sophie and Thomas Brixby’s journey by train from
Newcastle to London is excellent. So is the description of Daniel’s camera “the
latest daguerreotype camera from France, together with the necessary glass
plates and chemicals required for his trip.” Gadsby handles a large cast of
characters in this unusual novel filled with searing emotion and prejudice. The
more I read the more I wanted to find out what happened in the end, and despite
tragedies before I reached it, I was satisfied.
BLURB:
Following the death of her parents, Sophie
is sent to live with relatives in London, where she is treated like a servant.
Later, her chance to escape an imposed life of hardship comes in the form of
Daniel Clayton – a formidable explorer and photographer. Sophie agrees to his
proposal of a loveless marriage, but this union plunges her into the midst of a
family feud. She faces unforeseen treachery, a terrible secret in her husband’s
past and her greatest dilemma yet.
There’s plenty of emotion, mystery, murder,
danger and romance – and a baby elephant called Billy that will steal your
heart.
Here is an extract from the book – though
it may make some of you hold your breath and some of you cry. I must admit that
I shed a tear or two while I wrote this section:
South Africa, 1853:
Daniel
felt a surge of excitement as the big bull elephant moved slowly towards the
watering hole. This lumbering giant was followed by a smaller female and a
varying entourage, from tusked adults to the tiniest of hair-covered babies. [1]
From his makeshift hide in the lower
branches of a broad-girthed baobab tree, Daniel slowly removed his wide-brimmed
hat, and wiped his sweating forehead with his shirtsleeve. He dived again beneath the black Hessian hood
that shut out the light, and placed a patient eye against the viewfinder of his
camera. His movements were minimal so as
not to alert or alarm the group of pachyderms.
This was the moment he had waited for and
his patience had been happily rewarded.
Yesterday, the elephants had been nervous because of a pack of hunting
lionesses [2] near the hole. Today, they seemed calm and relaxed as they drank
and the young ones played beneath the heavy torsos of their parents. As he watched with baited breath, Daniel
smiled to himself as one after the other, the females lowered themselves into
the cooling water and mud with almost human sighs of relief.
The big male, however, though he showed no
sign of uneasiness, remained standing, as if guarding his troop.
Daniel had the animal squarely in the
viewfinder. He was finally getting accustomed to the smoky grey and black
images that were totally inverted. His finger hovered over the cable
release. It was the perfect shot. Not many of the wild animals of Africa stayed
still as long as the elephants, though he wished he could get closer to his
subject. As it was, he was so close he
could hear the gruntings and the murmurings and could smell the creatures well
enough. Getting too close to them would
provoke an attack. Only last week he had
seen a young native boy trampled to death.
‘Hold it, hold it, hold it!’ Daniel
whispered under his breath as the bull elephant stood rock solid fifty feet
away from the tree, not moving a muscle.
‘Got you!’
Daniel depressed the button and started
counting the requisite number of seconds for the picture to take. There was a moment when all was still, then
the old bull lifted his head and trumpeted loudly. The herd, as one, rose and stood dripping and
steaming nervously, large ears flapping.
‘Damn!’
Daniel swore loudly as the big male
elephant swung around, its trunk feeling the air, its small beady eyes
searching. He could have sworn that the
animal met his gaze. One great foot
pawed the dry savannah and the red dust rose in a cloud. It drifted like a hot
mist over the other elephants that were slowly coming out of their morning
bath. They arranged themselves prudently behind their leader and protectively
around the youngsters of the group.
They were going, disturbed by something
only they could sense. He had waited all
morning in the roasting heat of the flat African veldt, and had managed only
one image. There would be other days, other opportunities, thank heavens. This was a favourite watering hole, one of
the few that retained its life-giving liquid all year round. At this time of the year water was
scarce. The land was dry and was crying
out for rain.
‘Massa!’
A thin streak of brown arm shot over
Daniel’s shoulder. In his exhilaration,
he had forgotten the presence of his guide, Josiah. The old Bantu was anxiously
pointing to the far side of the watering hole.
‘What is it, Josiah? What can you see?’
Daniel squinted through the heat haze. The scene before him dissolved like a
watercolour painting in the rain, shimmering and distorting before his
eyes. He wiped his hand across his face,
blinked stinging droplets of perspiration from his eyelashes and followed the
direction of Josiah’s pointing finger.
The Bantu was shading his eyes, shaking his
head. His black eyes started fearfully
from their sockets. He did not move, but became one with the tree.
‘What the…?’ Daniel could see more clearly now, could see
the spreading confusion within the ranks of the elephant herd. ‘I don’t believe it! No! Dear God, no!’
Daniel’s words left his mouth in a loud,
angry explosion as he made out the moving shapes that slowly surrounded the
elephant herd. Tall, dark, semi-naked
figures, chanting and ritualistically thrusting long spears in a menacing
attitude.
But it wasn’t the Bantu that induced such
dismay in Daniel’s breast. There were
other figures among them and it was to them he waved his arms and shouted,
though Josiah tried in vain to hold him back.
It was not so unexpected after all, Daniel
thought, to find his brother, Nick, at the head of the group of white hunters
with long rifles at the ready. Even
through the dust clouds he could see the bloodthirsty lust on their faces.
‘Nick!
Go back! Get away from there, you
idiot!’
Daniel’s warning shout went unheeded, even
though he knew he had been heard. The
bull elephant threw back his head and trumpeted, then stood, ears wafting, head
shaking, feet stomping the dry earth.
The poor animal knew it was trapped long before the shots rang out.
As Daniel jumped to the ground, preparing
to save himself from a possible charge, he felt the earth beneath his feet
vibrate as one by one the animals did not run, but fell where they stood,
mortally wounded by the constant barrage of bullets and native spears.
‘No!’ he cried out again and again as he
witnessed the scene of devastation and slaughter that played out in front of
him.
The hunters had not missed a shot. All but the smallest of the herd were dead or
dying. The calf, miraculously untouched,
stood by its slaughtered mother, swaying gently and crying. It was the most heart-breaking sound Daniel
had ever heard.
There was a rush of feet as Nick led his
party forward, stopping to admire their handiwork in the muddy waters of the
watering hole, now gleaming blood red in the late afternoon sun.
‘Oh, yes! Yes!’
Daniel heard his brother’s exultation. His
jaw set rigidly. He moved to the edge of
the pool and looked on as the hunters went from animal to animal, inspecting
them, measuring them, arguing about which bits would fetch the most money at
the market place.
‘Why, Nick?
How can you get so much joy out of creating such carnage? We came out
here to explore – not to kill.’
Nick looked up, aware of Daniel for the
first time. His eyes were wild and
glassy and it wasn’t the first time that Daniel had been afraid for his younger
brother. Nick liked the killing more
than the thrill of the chase.
‘Hey, Daniel! Come on, grab your camera and let’s have a
record of all this. Just think how
envious they’ll be back in England.’
‘Did you have to kill all of them?’ Daniel
demanded, through tightly clenched teeth.
‘Could you not have spared the ones without ivory, at least?’
Nick looked genuinely surprised.
‘What?
Pass up the chance of making good money?’ he said. ‘There’s a fellow in
Cape Town who’ll take all the elephant feet and tails I can provide him
with. This beats stalking any day.’
Daniel shook his head in disgust. ‘It’s a
shoddy business,’ he said. ‘Totally amoral – like you!’
Nick threw back his head and laughed
lustily. ‘Oh, my poor dear brother,’ he
said, his eyes gleaming. ‘If you don’t
have the stomach for life out here in Africa, you should have stayed back in
Northumberland and photographed your cows and your sheep. Come on, man!
I want some images of this.’
He ploughed out of the sucking mud and ran
to where the bull elephant lay twitching in the last throes of death. Leaping on to its side, he posed, one foot on
its shoulder, the other on its head.
With a triumphant smile, he brandished his rifle in the air and threw a
challenging smile at Daniel.
‘No!’ Daniel shook his head, his refusal
adamant.
‘Josiah!’
Nick snapped his fingers, the sound echoing cleanly through the now
silent air. ‘Here, boy! Camera!
Give Masser Daniel his camera.’
Josiah edged silently to Daniel’s side and
proffered the camera, which he had brought down from the hide in the baobab
tree. Daniel no more than glanced at the
apparatus before swiping it viciously from the African’s hands. The old man looked shocked and bent to
retrieve the shattered pieces, but Daniel stopped him with a gentle pressure of
his hand to the shiny, ebony shoulder.
‘No, Josiah. Leave it.’
‘I sorry, Masser Daniel!’
Josiah’s whispered words filled Daniel with
remorse, pushing aside, momentarily, the anger directed towards his brother and
his friends. Josiah was a simple man, a
good guide and a valued servant. They
spent many a long hour together in the evenings when they weren’t trekking the
veldt looking for subjects that Daniel could sketch or photograph. In halting
English, learned from missionaries, Josiah would relate the stories of his
village and his people. He was old, but he was tireless and he was devoted to
his Masser Daniel.
‘It’s all right, Josiah. It’s not your fault.’
Daniel was relieved to see the fear leave
the old man’s eyes.
‘Camera break, Masser.’
‘Yes.
Camera break, Josiah.’
Daniel stared in disbelief at the camera
pieces scattered at his feet. What
stupidity. Why on earth had he done such
a thing? As he looked up again in time
to see Nick levelling his rifle in the direction of the grieving calf, he knew
the answer to his question. He had
smashed the camera, because if he had not done so, he would have ended up
killing his own brother with his bare hands.
‘Nick!
Enough!’
Nick raised his eye from the rifle
sight.
‘You trying to spoil your little brother’s
fun, eh?’ he said.
Daniel swallowed with difficulty, for his
throat was tight and dry. He glared at
his brother and felt his fists clench.
There was too much distance between them. Before he had time to travel two yards, Nick
could pull the trigger and the baby elephant would be dead, like the others.
‘What challenge is there, Nick,’ he said
quickly, ‘in killing something so small and defenceless? It’s hardly heroic enough to impress your
important friends.’
The friends in question were hovering in
the background, pretending not to hear this exchange between the Clayton
brothers. Daniel knew them all. They were cronies of their host here in South
Africa. Reverend Henry Noble, disciple of God, was better known as one of a new
breed of explorers – the “great white hunters”. Henry was more interested in
earning money from the animals he killed than preaching the Gospel.
‘Leave it, Nick!’ It was Noble who now called out from the tight
cluster of white men, still glassy-eyed with exhilaration. ‘Let the boys get on with the
butchering. We have business back at
camp.’
There was a ripple of subdued
laughter. Daniel knew what Noble meant
by ‘business’. They had brought out
crates of alcohol, which they drank from liberally after every killing. They would be inebriated out of their minds
long before the sun slipped down behind the black horizon.
‘Ach, you’re right, Henry. I’ll wait until this one gets his tusks
before I come after him.’
And by then, dear brother, thought Daniel,
I hope to have you safely back in England or die in the attempt.
[Images by June Gadsby]
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