Humour in Writing - or not by Victoria Chatham

AVAILABLE HERE

I would love to say I inject humour into all my writing but that just isn’t so because I find writing humour incredibly difficult. It isn’t that I don’t have a sense of humour. I do but, as I tend to be a visual person, ie: I learn best by seeing and doing, it follows that I find visual humour, such as slapstick comedy, the funniest. That is not easy to write and if humour does find its way into my writing, it’s more by accident than design.

Being funny, and humour as a whole is subjective. I remember a movie from the early 80s called ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy.’ Very briefly, a Kalahari bushman encounters civilization and its stranger aspects. It was a low budget of $2.5 million South African film, which netted about $20 million. I couldn’t stop laughing at it, my kids barely cracked a grin. Another movie which I found funny and fortunately they did, too, was 'Start the Revolution Without Me,' starring Donald Sutherland and Gene Wilder as two pairs of identical twins, one aristocratic (The Corsican Brothers) and the other set poor. As France is about to be torn apart by the revolution, both become victims of royal plots. 

So, what is humour? Like the example above, what one person finds funny another won’t. It’s a bit like beauty being in the eye of the beholder. Humour is defined in Webster’s dictionary as having the quality of being amusing or comic. Wit, on the other hand, is defined as having a natural aptitude for using words and ideas in a quick and inventive way to create humour. Forms of wit include the zinging one-liners aka Violet, the Dowager Duchess of Grantham in Downton Abbey. Other forms of humour can be satirical, self-deprecating, surreal, or plays on words as this by John Lynn: his legacy will become a pizza history.

But in every instance, I come back to the slapstick comedy routines favoured by Victorian music hall and vaudeville audiences everywhere. These I remember, not from personal experience (I'm old but not that old!) until the advent of BBC TV’s series The Good Old Days, but from hearing my aunts and uncles talk about them and sing songs when I was little. One of my father’s favourite acts, Wilson, Keppel, and Betty, did a sand dance routine and they still make me laugh. You can check them out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn83cCEpZV0

Before we had a TV in the house, we listened to radio programs such as Hancock’s Half Hour, Round the Horne, and Much Binding in the Marsh. Later there were TV programs with the comedy duo of Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, Fawlty Towers and Monty Python. These were all the English programs but I Love Lucy and the Carol Burnett Show were amongst my favourite classic comedy shows. Who could ever forget Carol Burnett's priceless performance as Scarlett O'Hara?

And then, of course, there is humour of  Donald McGill’s classic but saucy English seaside postcards of the 50s and 60s. They were risqué humour at best but that didn’t prevent one of his postcards, featuring a bookish man and an embarrassed pretty woman sitting under a tree, with the caption: "Do you like Kipling?" / "I don't know, you naughty boy, I've never kippled!", holds the world record for selling the most copies, at over 6 million. (source: Wikipedia.) That was the upside. The downside was a police raid on stores in Ryde, Isle of White, confiscating 5,000 of his postcards for indecency.

I love reading books that make me laugh out loud. Elizabeth Dearl’s Diamondback and Stuart J. West’s Zac and Zora series are recent reads that did exactly that. They are the positive side of humour. The negative side of humour is about deriding, belittling, demeaning and ridiculing which are all aspects of bullying and there is nothing funny in that.

I find it impossible to write about the scenes that make me laugh. What I think I do manage from time to time, is more wit than humour. I can only hope my readers agree.

​Victoria Chatham

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How Dare They Teach Women to Read by Diane Scott Lewis

Last month was Women's History month (we only get one month?)

Women have been fighting for equal treatment for centuries. And education, learning to read, was one of their desires.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, many women, especially the poor, could not read. It was viewed as a waste of time to teach them when they were to be child-bearers and house keepers. Women were taught to be useful, sewing, cooking, etc.
The richer girls were taught to embroider to beautify their husband's home.
Men handled the complicated contracts, leases, government business. Reading as a leisure activity was unheard of, even for men.

Between the 1500’s and the mid-eighteenth century, male literacy grew from ten to sixty per cent. Women, with less opportunity, lagged behind, ranging from one to forty percent, but still an improvement. Female literacy grew the fastest in London, probably with the rise of the merchant class.

As literacy grew so did the desire for books. A spurt in publishing started in the late seventeenth century.

Books had been rare, usually of a religious bent. Cookery books were found in many households. Sermons and poetry were the most widely published literary forms. History books were national or Eurocentric.

In the eighteenth century a new phenomenon, the populace wanted to read for pleasure.

Books became widely available from lending libraries, booksellers, and peddlers: abbreviated versions of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, or Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones.

Periodicals, such as the Gentleman’s Magazine, advertised what new novels were available to order and purchase from the booksellers.

The large circulating libraries offered places where patrons could browse, gossip, flirt, or actually read a book. Novels and romances were the most checked-out. History remained popular.

Library at Margate

The fee of three shillings a quarter kept out the poorer people, but libraries were still a bargain because books weren’t cheap.

Unfortunately, libraries earned the reputation as places full of fictional pap for rich ladies with nothing better to do. Men remained the majority subscribers, visiting to read or discuss religious and political controversy.

Church libraries offered books to the poorer, though not the variety.

Coffee houses maintained collections of books, to be read on the premises. Any man, merchant or laborer, could wander in, order punch, and read a newspaper—a sign of English liberty.

Even the illiterate were encouraged to buy books so their more literate friends could read to them.

In 1650 few country houses had a room set aside for books and reading, while in the late eighteenth century a house without a library was unthinkable.

With this wider reading public, more women authors and romantic writers emerged, such as Fanny Burney and Ann Radcliffe. Women read critically to lift the mind from sensation to intellect as well as men.

Fanny Burney

Everyone profited from increased literacy, education and the availability of the written word. Why teach women to read? Because, as earlier thought, their minds are not feebler than men's

Source: The Pleasures of the Imagination, by John Brewer, 1997

For a heroine who does far more than read, she decodes ancient Greek during the American Revolution, check out my historical novel, Her Vanquished Land.

Purchase Her Vanquished Land and my other novels at BWL

For more info on me and my books, check out my website: Dianescottlewis

Diane Scott Lewis lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty puppy.

Earth Day Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary by J.Q.Rose

Terror on Sunshine Boulevard
Paranormal Mystery
Click here to find more mysteries by JQ Rose
from BWL Publishing

Earth Day Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary

by J.Q.Rose

Earth Day April 22
Image courtesy of pixabay.com by PrettySleepy

Since 1970, April 22 has been designated as Earth Day. This year, Earth Day celebrates its 50th anniversary with the ongoing goals to stop the destruction of our environment and to preserve our world for future generations. 

The movement brought awareness to saving our climate by stopping factories belching black, toxic smoke into the air, factories dumping toxic waste into our water systems, the unlimited use of pesticides and the destruction of the wilderness and loss of wildlife.

According to the Earth Day site, "Earth Day led to the passage of landmark environmental laws in the United States, including the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts. Many countries soon adopted similar laws."

In 2020, citizens from around the world focus on the dire need for us all to take care of our planet.

People today are more environmentally conscious. Schools and families make an effort on this day but also throughout the year to educate children to care for our earth. Even the simplest thing like not littering makes a big difference and is an easy lesson for our kids and for us to learn and choose to do.

Being good examples to kids by turning off lights in a room when not in use, not letting the water faucet run and separating recyclables from trash reinforce the importance of saving our environment from destruction.

Reading eBooks is environmentally friendly. Thousands of books can be stored digitally on e-readers and reading devices, saving trees that otherwise would be cut down for making paper.

What are some ways you can help our environment, not only on Earth Day but every day? Please leave a comment below. Thank you.

About J.Q.Rose

J.Q. offers readers chills, giggles and quirky characters woven within the pages of her mystery books. She and her husband live the snowbird life, traveling to Florida in the winter and to Michigan for the summer where she spends time with her family including four grandsons and one granddaughter. Travel, photography, reading and playing pegs and jokers help to keep her out of trouble when she isn't writing fiction and non-fiction.

Click here to connect online with JQ.

Saluting All Health Care Workers - Janet Lane Walters #BWLAuthor, #MFRWAuthor #Nurses, #Doctors #Respiratory Theripists

Saluting All Health Care Workers

During the past few weeks, we’ve been keeping apart from other people. The nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists and other health care workers have been close up and personal with others. As a former nurse, long retired, I can understand how they feel. They are afraid and have to face death after death. This will make a large impact on their lives and how they live when this is over. They are our warriors and deserve our respect and prayers. I’m sending healing thoughts to them and to those they care for.

 Below is one of my medical romances.

Isolation humour, by J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb - DarknessDescends 

Short-listed for Best Young Adult Book 2018,

The Word Guild

Book 2 of the award-winning Twisted Climb series

As a writer, I'm used to staying home for long periods of time in my own creative world, in the playground-of-my-mind as I like to call it. But a forced stay-at-home is not so easy. I miss my family and friends.

This pandemic has altered routine. Nothing is 'normal' anymore. Headlines about COVID-19 are found on every social media platform. Deaths/ confirmed cases / pending cases - these statistics are broadcast from news outlets around the world, pretty much on an hourly basis. I want to close my eyes and cover my ears to temporarily halt the onslaught.

So I've come up with a distraction of sorts. 

I search for light-hearted content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, even CNN. There are hundreds of light-hearted pieces out there. So, to brighten your day and shift from the sad realities choking our collective mood, I'm sharing a few pieces I've found and/or copied and/or revised.

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November,
all the rest have thirty-one
except March and April which have 8,000

Only in Canada, eh? 
Remember, social distancing equals two hockey sticks.

And while we're on the topic of hairs....

Stay safe everyone.  

J.C. Kavanagh, 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

www.facebook.com/J.C.Kavanagh

www.amazon.com/author/jckavanagh

Twitter @JCKavanagh1 (Author J.C. Kavanagh)

Google Trends, a Powerful Tool

Google is the world’s most popular search engine. Want to know when the next snowfall will arrive in Calgary? What about the spread of the coronavirus epidemic? How about a recipe for apple pie? These are just three of the about five billion daily searches on Google, accounting for an astounding 90.5% of all searches on the internet.

The question arises as to how to make sense of these searches. Are some items searched more often than others? Are some searched seasonally? Can searches be categorized—for example, relating to book purchases?

These questions have more than a curiosity appeal, given that Google’s ad revenue amounted to $135 billion in 2019. There is big money to spend, and to make, with Google. Having the ability to use Google in marketing and promotion affects every business with an on-line presence, and even for purposes other than sales.

For example, a blogger may want to know what the hottest trends are in fashion. An epidemiologist may want to investigate the country with the most searches per capita of a virus. A marketer would like to know if the band he’s promoting is trending in a particular province.

Fortunately, for the common man or woman, there is a tool to help search searches. Google Trends was launched in 2006, but only became the robust tool that it is today in 2012.

To use Google Trends, one needs to enter the following website: trends.google.com. On the website, there is an “Explore” bar, where one can put in the search terms. For example, I chose the United States as my geographic region, entered “Apple Pie,” and several sections showed up. One, “Interest over Time” revealed a large spike in the search for this term in the last week of November which, being Thanksgiving in America, makes sense. The next section showed that Pennsylvania, for some reason, evinced the greatest interest for “Apple Pie.” Google Trends also allow you to compare searches: I compared ‘Apple Pie recipe’ with ‘Cherry pie recipe.’ The winner: Cherry pie, by a mile! 

More powerfully, it also allows searches by categories, such as Books, Games, Education, and so on. What about the hottest trends? Google Trends has a section that lists the top twenty of searches, by day, of all topics. On another page, called ‘Real Time Trends,’ shows the number of searches in real time, per hour, in a graph of the top searches.

A very simple use of Google Trends would be in Search Engine Optimization: the use of terms that would generate the greatest interest in a blog, a website or a product description. But Google Trends has turned out to be a lot more subtle and revealing than many expected. For example, the search ‘is my son gifted?’ was shown to be more popular then ‘is my daughter gifted?’ Similarly, the search ‘Is my daughter overweight?’ turned up more times than ‘Is my son overweight?’ Searches like these show cultural attitudes in statistically significant ways.

It takes times to become a competent user of Google Trends. Fortunately, over forty free lessons are available on the website itself. For authors, bloggers, businesspersons, or for anyone who is interested in public trends, it is a wonderful tool!

Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "The Yoga Zapper," a fantasy, and "Karma Nation," a literary romance. www.mohanashtakala.com

He is published by Books We Love (www.bookswelove.com)

Writing in a changed world...by Sheila Claydon

My author page at Books We Love

In my book Miss Locatelli, Arabella has to up her game very swiftly to help save the family jewellery business when her grandfather becomes gravely ill. I wonder how many of us will have to step in to do something similar, if not as dramatic, as Covid 19 continues to sweep across the globe. 

Certainly here, where I live in the North West of the UK, many people are already working very differently as they search for ways to keep their businesses going. Local stores that once could rely on the footfall of regular customers for income, have introduced  delivery services. Yoga and Pilates teachers now stream classes online. Childcare nurseries and pre-schools are doing the same with singalongs and fun activities. Bridge clubs are playing online, and, for the less experienced, also providing lessons. All banking is done online and doctors are carrying out most of their consultations online, except to the very vulnerable. Restaurants are now delivering meals to those people isolated at home and providing takeaway for others. Taxi drivers are delivering food. Shop assistants from high end department stores are stacking shelves in supermarkets, while security men have moved from nightclubs to the supermarket carparks to ensure that everyone follows the strict social distancing rules imposed on us all.

Of course we adapt and one of the British ways of adapting is to resort to gallows humour, so dark jokes abound, as do amusing home made videos of whole families singing coronavirus themed songs to well known tunes. And we are surprisingly obedient. Very few people are flouting the guidelines put in place by government as it tries its best to manage the pandemic. Instead we cross the path when we see neighbours approaching on our daily dog walk, and conduct our conversations across a 2-3 meter gap. We socialise online too. Nearly everyone I know speaks to friends and family daily, mostly on Skype or similar, and share meals and drinks across the ether as they chat. My own granddaughter will be 18 next week and plans are already in place for an online all day party where family and friends can check in at any time on a digital platform that will allow them to speak to one another as well as the birthday girl. It won't be the same, but it will still be fun, and thanks to the wonderful delivery drivers who have kept working throughout, she has a lot of presents to open too.

There are so many other ways in which we are all adapting, from downloading newspapers online  instead of looking forward to the ubiquitous daily delivery that was so much part of British life, to young families spending a lot more time with their children, and throughout it all we wonder what will happen when this is all over. Will we revert to our old ways or will some things have changed forever? Only time will tell but I do have a separate question of my own.

Will books change? Will writers find that they are adapting their stories to an altered existence. We have all read stories written in the past century that appear very outdated, where the characters appear less than realistic in both their attitudes and speech. Neither historical fiction nor contemporary, they no longer seem to fit our mindset. Of course fantasy and futuristic novels will still resonate but what about family sagas, contemporary fiction, even crime novels. How will the global pandemic affect them? Will writers be able to produce stories that ignore our changed world...should they? It's a philosophical question that only time can answer.

In the meantime, stay safe everyone.

Book Launch in the Time of Pandemic

                                                     my page at BWL Publishing

With bookstores and libraries closed and book tours canceled, authors with books coming out face the challenge of connecting with potential readers.

But during these times, we also turn to books to raise our spirits and give us comfort. My new novel Mercies of the Fallen is set in another perilous time in America’s history — the Civil War. Ursula and Rowan are both fallen people, plagued with traumatic pasts but facing their troubled times with courage and heart. I hope you’ll find their story uplifting.

And I hope you'll lift a socially distanced virtual glass with me in celebration of publication!

Music Soothes Troubled Times

                             Please click this link for author and book purchase information

This winter, a friend coaxed me to join her choir. This wasn't something I'd thought of doing since high school. During my childhood and teens, I belonged to choirs at school and church. I enjoyed them and continued to like singing alone or at occasional public events, despite my diminishing vocal quality. No longer able to hit the high notes, my range became limited to about five notes. My voice cracked and stained by end of each song. The tones fell flat, to my own ears. 

My friend got into choir for something to do after she retired. Before then, she'd had no interest in singing and, unlike me, hadn't taken piano lessons as a kid. She explained that some choirs required auditions. Others don't, including Shout Sister, her all-female choir.

She gave me printouts of lyrics to her group's current roster of songs. Leonard Cohen., Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles; my long-time favourites. I had spare time and was looking for activities this winter, since I was away from home in Ottawa, helping a relative through medical treatment.

"I've arranged for you to try out the choir this week," my friend said. She'd also convinced the  administrator to give me a special rate if I decided to stay, since I'd only be there for part of the year.

"Okay," I said, because she'd gone to all this trouble.

Wednesday afternoon, we drove to her choir practice at a local church. About seventy women, mostly seniors like us, stood in a horseshoe shape facing the choir leader. No sheet music. The notes  rose and fell with the leader's hand, a method of music reading I found easy to follow.

The meeting brought back memories of my youthful choirs. "Don't interrupt the line of music by taking a breath." The director echoed my earlier choir leaders. "Sustain the last note." The large group sang harmonies that sounded lovely to me. I found myself able to sing all the notes. Either the organizer selected songs suited to amateurs or she arranged them for unpracticed female voices.

Best of all, for those two hours of song I forgot my worries about my family member's health challenges. The choir had me hooked.

I looked forward to the weekly sessions. After two months, a woman I talked to during the break  convinced me to participate in the next week's concert at a retirement home. Performing with the group was fun and gave a new dimension to choir practice. Our concert ended with the 1970s O'Jay's anthem, Love Train, which urges people around the world to join hands and form a train of love. At the rousing finish, we were supposed to join hands with the person beside us. Some of us did; others refrained.

The following week our choir session was cancelled due to COVID-19. It soon became clear we wouldn't be singing for weeks and months. Then the organizers set up practices on Zoom, a virtual meeting site that has taken off in this time of home isolation.

I'm not swift with technology and worried I wouldn't figure out Zoom, but with a little advice, Zoom worked easily and well. Now, I follow the leader on my computer screen, while thumbnail pictures of choir members appear along the top or side. During breaks, I switch to gallery view, with thumbnails filling the screen. The first two weeks, over fifty members signed in each time. I'll miss week three since I'll be driving from Ottawa, west across Canada to my home in Calgary .

At the virtual Zoom session, the director puts us all on mute, since the system can't co-ordinate our voices. I discovered my voice doesn't sound as good alone as I sounded to myself with the group. It still cracks and strains for those high notes.

I wouldn't want to start with choir online, but virtually continuing with familiar faces and songs was more satisfying than I'd expected. Again, for those two hours, choir brought me out my despondent mood. For the first time since this mass isolation began, I felt that most of us won't be permanently damaged and we'll return to our humankind.

Shout Sister operates in numerous Ontario locations. Ottawa has three branches, with our afternoon group the most recent sister. Here's a YouTube video of one of our older sister groups performing Ben E. King's Stand By Me, a song our newer group learned this year. 

I have several friends in Calgary who belong to choirs. A year ago, I asked one of them what he gained from being in a choir. He said, "When you sing together, you make each other so much more." I agree.

   

Words of Our Times

Find my books here

Quarantine, pandemic, social distancing, shelter in place – not all new words, but phrases that have become part of our lives because of the COVID-19 and which will long be associated with 2020.

Throughout the centuries, there have always been phrases that have earmarked a generation. I say “For Pete’s sake” all the time and every time I do, my grandkids ask, “Who’s Pete?” This particular phrase comes from the expression for Christ’s sake. Some people, for religious reasons, don’t want to use the word Christ in a negative way, and, instead, use Pete as an alternative. It originated around 1900. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "for Pete's sake" expresses frustration or annoyance and prompted similar sayings such as "for the love of Pete" in 1906.

Very often, the expressions or sayings don’t make sense literally. I can remember my aunt saying “it’s the cat’s pajamas”. That always made me laugh because of course, cats don’t wear pajamas. That phrase became popular in the U.S. in the 1920s, along with “bee’s knees” and “the cat’s whiskers.” In the 1920s, the word cat was used as a term to describe the unconventional flappers from the jazz era. This was combined with the word pajamas (a relatively new fashion in the 1920s) to form a phrase used to describe something that is the best at what it does, thus making it highly sought and desirable.

I never really thought about pajamas being a fairly modern word as versus nightgown, or nightrail. I do recall once an editor telling me that “shirtwaist” wasn’t the appropriate term for a blouse in the time period I was writing. I’m not sure every reader would catch individual words but as an author I want to be as authentic as possible.

When I was researching “An Interlude”, I wanted a few words that would have been appropriate and used during the roaring twenties. I loved finding “my main squeeze” to indicate a loved one; “hard boiled” to indicate a mean or ruthless man, and the still usable “don’t take any wooden nickels.”

Words and phrases help the reader understand the time period of the novel. For example, when writing historical, an author must be very careful to use phrases that were part of a particular century. You don’t “turn on a light” back in the Middle Ages when candles were used. Simple words also indicate time and place. Does your villain steal an SUV, jalopy, roadster, barouche or wagon? Does “Alexis” turn on the lights when you enter a room, or does your butler? (Although I suppose that is not mutually exclusive.)

All of this is just part of the fascinating research I like to do before I start writing. Having a vocabulary that creates a sense of time for my stories is just as important as knowing what color their hair and eyes are. For a chuckle and to recall some fun phrases from your childhood, visit https://www.bustle.com/articles/25318-88-hilarious-slang-terms-from-the-20th-century-to-sprinkle-through-your-writing-like-youre-putting.

I invite you to explore Books We Love and see how I and other authors use words and phrases in our stories. And in this new time of needing to maintain our personal space and boundaries, know that Books We Love is trying to help by offering a FREE download book every day of the pandemic. Check their website at http://www.bookswelove.com/. They’re also having an April contest, which actually deals with the blog, so check it out.

Barbara Baldwin

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

http://www.bookswelove.com/romance-authors/baldwin-barbara/

9-1-1 by J. S. Marlo

J. S. Marlo's BWL Books

Aside from staying home and eating too much, I've been painting my bathrooms and babysitting my five-year old granddaughter whose parents need to work. Every day, my granddaughter gets virtual homework from her kindergarten teacher, which is really cool, but I've also been teaching her other things, among them how or when to call 9-1-1.

She's known for years how to unlock my phone, so I told her there was a special number to call in case of emergency. Then, I made sure she understood what an emergency was:

- Grand-maman dropping a full gallon of paint from the top of her ladder is a catastrophe, but NOT an emergency.

- Grand-maman falling from the top of her ladder and not being able to get up is an emergency.

 So, what's the first question she asked me: why did they pick THAT number, grand-maman?

Good question, I thought. I did some research and stumbled on an article written on February 16, 2017 in the Smithsonian Magazine about a 9-1-1 festival.

 "On this day in 1968, a phone rang in the police station of Haleyville, Alabama. But unlike all the days before, the caller—Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite, who was not in an emergency situation—didn’t dial the local police number.

He dialed 911, a three-digit number that would go down in local and national history.

The idea for a universal emergency phone number didn’t start in Haleyville, a town of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants that was dry until 2010. It started with a 1957 recommendation from the National Association of Fire Chiefs, writes Carla Davis for the Alabama News Center.

Their recommendation was prompted by a serious problem, she writes: before 911, anyone who needed emergency help had to figure out if they needed the fire department, the police, or medical help, and then call the appropriate local number. Not easy to do when someone is bleeding, a baby is being born, or the building’s on fire.

It took more than a decade before the fire chiefs’ recommendation was put into effect, Davis writes. Haleyville came into the picture when the president of the Alabama Telephone Co., an independent telephone company, fought to have his company launch the new system.

The call was picked up at the police station on a special red phone, wrote Hoyt Harwell for the Associated Press on 911’s 25th anniversary in 1993. At the receiving end of the call was Congressman Tom Bevill, Alabama’s longest-serving congressman—who was still in office when Harwell interviewed him 25 years after that first call.

Haleyville still celebrates the event that put it on the map with an annual 911 Festival."

So, why 9-1-1? These are the major reasons why AT&T chose the number 9-1-1 in 1968:

- because it was short & simple
- because it was easy to remember
- because it was quick & easy to dial
- because of the middle 1, which indicated a special number that worked well with the phone systems in place at the time.

That being said, 9-1-1 is an emergency number used mostly in North America (Canada, USA, Mexico). In Europe, you would dial 1-1-2 in case of emergency.  And in Australia, 0-0-0.

Here are some funny and disturbing (and hopefully false) 9-1-1 calls:

Female caller: There are alligators in the river.

9-1-1 operator: Yes ma’am, this is Florida.

Female caller: But my kids play and swim in that river.

9-1-1 operator: Why do you let your kids play and swim in alligator infested waters?

Stay safe. Hugs!
JS

 

J. S. Marlo's Website

Virtual Brainstorming by Eileen O'Finlan

Click here to purchase

Click here to visit Eileen O'Finlan's website

COVID-19 has shut down a lot of things, but our imaginations needn't be one of them. In fact, recent personal events show that they may be more active than ever.

Before this virus hit, a group of writers met at my house every Wednesday evening to work on writing projects and offer feedback. For several in the group, those Wednesday nights provided a writing lifeline. I hated having to send out the group text announcing the cancellation of our group until further notice. Even though we're not a huge group (on the rare occasion that everyone is present on the same evening, we total seven), with my 93 year old mother in the house, I couldn't take any chances.

Of course, everyone understood. Several had made the painful decision to stay away even before receiving my text. Being a resilient, resourceful, and most of all, imaginative group it took less than an hour for one member to come up with the idea of a writing round robin. One person would write one page of a story, email it to the next person who would add another page then forward it to the next and so on. After two rounds the story would be complete. It might not add up to something publishable, but it promised to be fun and keep those writing muscles toned. I had to bow out as all my writing time is, of necessity, being devoted to the completion of Erin's Children, the sequel to Kelegeen, though I do look forward to reading the finished product.

My non-involvement in the round robin did not mean complete detachment for me, however. In less than a week, I jumped onto a Zoom meeting with fellow writing group member, Jane Willan. Jane is the author of two cozy mysteries, The Shadow of Death and The Hour of Death, the first two books in her Sister Agatha and Father Selwyn Mystery Series. She's currently working on the third in the series as well as a thriller.

Jane and I are searching for both "tried and true" and "unique and new" methods of marketing our writing, so we decided to focus our Zoom session on brainstorming ideas. (For anyone unfamiliar with Zoom, it is similar to Skype). We started by naming what we're already doing: Twitter and Facebook posts, website, newsletter, blogging, in-person talks and book signings, partaking in giveaways, interviews with bloggers and local papers. Currently, I'm working with an organizer on setting up a blog tour.

Then we started thinking about what we could do that we haven't done yet. Podcasts were the first thing to come to mind. It turns out that if you google podcasts along with your genre, you'll find a plethora from which to choose. We both committed to being interviewed on podcasts.

But why stop there? Jane's husband has a vast supply of audio/visual equipment. Why not start our own podcast? Fellow BWL author, Eileen Charbonneau, and I have been discussing creating a podcast. So the three of us connected on Zoom for our first podcast planning meeting. Fortunately, through the wonders of technology it doesn't matter that Jane and I live in Massachusetts and Eileen Charbonneau lives in Vermont. We don't have to be in the same state or even in the same house to make it happen.

YouTube was another marketing option open for discussion. I have a YouTube channel, though so far I've only put up one clip of me reading an excerpt from Kelegeen. Jane and I decided we could make some more YouTube clips. They don't all have to be book excerpts. The writing life offers plenty of topics for discussion. With my sequel being set in Worcester, a video tour showing the sections of the city where much of the story takes place seems another likely possibility. Jane also has some trailers for her two mysteries. Eileen and I would like to follow her lead and make some for our book(s).

Our brainstorming session didn't end there. We talked about the 19^th century coterie of writers that formed the literati in Concord, Massachusetts – Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, Hawthorne - to name a few. Then we widened the circle of our thoughts to include 19^th century authors throughout New England. Such an abundance! Our region still boasts literary luminaries today. Some, like Steven King, are household names.

We got to thinking about the other authors in our area that we both know personally. Published, yes. Famous, no. This led to a discussion about what it is, besides the obvious (great writing), that makes some authors successful and others whose writing may be just as good or even better, virtually unknown beyond their small circle. 

The answer – marketing! We have to do it ourselves and for most of us it is not our field of expertise. Not even close. If it was we'd be marketers, not authors. Yet in today's world we have no choice. We have to climb that steep learning curve to figure out how to let the world know we're here and we've written awesome books that deserve to be widely read.

But how? This is a question I've been struggling with since the publication of Kelegeen. I sunk a lot of money into an advertising company that has been helping me climb that learning curve for almost two years. “Learn to think like a CEO.” “You are not only an author. You are the CEO of Eileen O'Finlan.” These are mantras they've driven into my brain. They are also concepts completely alien to the way I think. A huge learning curve, indeed.

But I am not alone and that gives me great hope. Eileen Charbonneau remains an amazing mentor for me. Our joint in-person appearances may be on hold for a while, but we are excited about embarking on a new virtual adventure through podcasting. 

Jane and I have committed to working together, mastering the art of branding, learing the ins and outs of marketing, pulling each other up and over that daunting curve so that we can come out on the other side, if not as household names, at least with successful authorial careers. We fully realize it will be a marathon, not a sprint, but we are willing to give it all we've got. If it doesn't happen (but it will – think positive!) it won't be for lack of trying.

Eileen O'Finlan

Jane Willan

Eileen Charbonneau