The Author's Voice by Victoria Chatham

AVAILABLE HERE

Most writers understand the term the author’s voice. For non- or new writers who may not, it refers to the writer’s personal and distinctive elements of style. Someone who loves classical music can differentiate between Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. A jazz fan will know Muddy Waters from B.B. King. Fans of Nora Roberts or Debbie Macomber, John Grisham or Lee Child will not need the cover or spine matter to know who has written the book. A few lines of text from a single page will tell a seasoned fan all they need to know because they recognize the author’s voice.

But there is another author's voice to consider. It is that real voice, the one an author produces the first time they perform, either at a reading or giving a presentation. It is the part that authors over and over say they like the least because many authors are often introverts and prefer to be seen but not heard. They do not want to hear that thin, reedy, wavering vocal vehicle that cannot possibly be their voice. They know it is not going to reach the back of the room or do anything to WOW their audience. They suffer from glossophobia, the technical term for fear of public speaking which affects at least 25 percent of the population so in that they are not alone.

However, as with writing, practice makes perfect, and the best place to practice your reading is in the comfort of your own home. First, find a paragraph in your book that resonates with you. It could be descriptive narrative or a few lines of dialogue from a passage with which you are comfortable. For your first attempt, make it a short piece. You might barely move your lips around the words so that you are only whispering, but that will not do. Read your passage out loud, and I do mean OUT LOUD, and then re-read it. Next time, lift your head, look straight in front of you and then dip our chin slightly so that you lengthen your neck. Now hold your paper (or book) up so that it is at eye level and re-read the piece.

Notice your breath. Many of us, when we begin public readings, take a deep breath and go for it, ending on a gasp like a landed fish. Learn to breathe. Yes, you read that correctly. Controlling your breathing goes a long way to calm your nerves, which ultimately modulates your voice. Take three deep breaths and re-read your piece. Better?

Here’s another tip. Print the page from which you are going to read and mark it up with a backslash at

every comma and period, which will show you where you can pause to take a breath. It is also a neatway to determine if better punctuation will make your writing flow more easily. If you can’t comfortably read a sentence in one breath, then it is too long. You may also find places where you naturally want to take a breath, so mark these as well. Note the solid backslashes and the dotted backslashes in this sample take from my book His Unexpected Muse. 

 Practice as much as you can. Watch TED talks on YouTube and watch how the presenters interact with their audience, or research online articles on public speaking. If you have the chance, visit the venue where your reading is to take place, get comfortable with it. Is it a library, bookstore, or school? If you can, meet the staff who will be there on the day of the reading. Find out where the podium will be placed and check the lighting. Is it good enough for you to see your page? To make it more comfortable for yourself, print your page(s) in as large a font as you need. Look around and familiarize yourself with entrances and exits. The last thing anyone wants is to be placed by the washroom door. You may laugh, but that has happened.

On the day of the reading, a couple of things will help you stay calm. Most of us love our coffee, but too much caffeine before the event can make you more nervous. Drinking milk, or having any milk-based product may cause congestion. You know yourself best, so if this is likely to happen to you, it would be better to drink water.

When you step up to the podium, look at your audience who need not know this is the first time you are reading in public. Pick one or two people, make eye contact with them and imagine you are reading just for them. Smile. Breathe. Begin.

When you have finished, look around your audience again and thank them for listening. Keep smiling, even though your knees may be knocking, and you long for that coffee or a stiff drink—pat yourself on the back. You’ve done it! You’ve survived. And the more you do it, the more you prepare for it, the easier it gets. I promise.

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Featured Author - Diane Bator

 Hello! I am BWL Publishing Inc. author, Diane Bator. I’m a mystery writer and my books can be viewed and purchased by visiting https://bookswelove.net/bator-diane/ I’ve been a writer my entire life. Since I was little and learned how to scribble with crayons. I still have short stories and poems from when I was a teenager.

Back then, I had one major goal in life. I wanted to be on the Oprah Winfrey Show. In my daydreams, I was an actor or a writer and Oprah and I got on famously. Flash forward many years, a marriage, three kids, and a divorce. Oprah’s show is in reruns. I work in administration for a local theatre and get to meet actors. Oh, and I became a writer.

I’m likely not Oprah Show material at this point. Somehow, I don’t think she’s read my books nor have they been part of her book club, but I’m still a fan.

That’s okay. I write for me.

Writing is what keeps me happy and sane through all the obstacles life hurls. It gives me focus even when the world feels like it’s falling apart. As one of my friends says, it’s like breathing and the ink is in my blood.

I’ve been on several Zoom chats with some very inspiring authors through all of this. Some are encouraging, some are more focused on other things in the world right now. It’s a juggling act between the real world and our fantasy lives some days. Not everyone can keep the balls in the air all of the time. Sometimes, we need to just sit. Just rest.

If I could offer one bit of advice to anyone who wants to write but doesn’t know where to start, I’d say to start with what you ate for breakfast. Silly, right? As Julia Cameron says, sometimes we need to prime the pump. Start writing just for the sake of writing then the great—well, good—stuff will follow.

As for me, after a month and a half of being numb in this new world, I’m writing again. Chapters at a time, which is exciting after a dry spell.

For now, may I present excerpt from my two newest novels, Drop Dead Cowboy and Dead Without Shame. I hope you enjoy the excepts. I promise, there will be much more to come!

Diane Bator

Drop Dead Cowboy (Book 1 Sugarwood Mysteries)

Excerpt:

Chapter 1

“Wow, Miss Lavinia sure goes all out for Halloween, doesn’t she?” Merilee set a brown paper tray with two take-out cups on the front counter then slipped off her black leather gloves.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, her shop is always ready for Halloween. It’s her favourite day of the year.” I reached for a cup and took a whiff. Stitch’n’Time was the only thing that kept me busy and happy now that the children were on their own and I had nothing left to do at home but clean the house and stare at walls. Not that I wasn’t good at either. “Mmm, nothing like a cup of pumpkin spice tea on a chilly October day.”

Merilee Rutherford, my best friend and partner in our shop Stitch’n’Time shook her head. “Give me coffee or let me sleep.”

“What are you talking about?” I laughed. “You get up at five in the morning to do your work out. You’re half done your laundry before I even get out of bed. You’re the earliest early bird I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah, well, it starts to catch up by mid-week.”

I sniffed my tea once more. “Does Miss Lavinia plan to do palm readings again for the Halloween Festival on Friday?”

Merilee shrugged. “I didn’t go inside. I just noticed all the creepy little voodoo dolls and shrunken heads in her window. What’s creepy is that one of them looks a lot like your husband.”

“There’s a shrunken head that looks like Rex?” I raised my eyebrows. “No wonder I haven’t seen him much lately.”

“No silly.” She tapped my arm. “A voodoo doll. How would she know what he looks like or have a piece of his blue striped shirt? Has he ever even been inside her shop before?”

I straightened a rack filled with embroidery needles and a dozen fancy crane scissors I’d bought online for a steal from another shop going out of business. “Only when I dragged him in to see her that one time. I hoped she could cure his snoring with one of her essential oil blends.”

“Did it work?”

“Nope.” I sighed. “Rex still snores like a chainsaw. The problem is now Drake has started to snore too. It’s like I’m stuck between two race cars revving their engines at the starting line. Some nights, I go to sleep in the guest room. I couldn’t get the dog or Rex to wake up. I should go check out her decorations.”

Merilee chuckled. “Oh, speaking of interesting decorations. Did you happen to see the new one on the bench in front of Miss Lavinia’s shop?”

I frowned. “Did she put something on the bench? I know a few people who won’t be happy about that. Mr. Ossington sits out there and throws breadcrumbs for the pigeons.”

“We have pigeons?” She stared.

Excerpt:  Dead Without Shame (Book 4 Gilda Wright Mysteries)

Just as he predicted, the lunch hour class was packed, even though he did wear the top to his karate uniform. Not about to let anyone slack off, he pushed all the students to run a lap then drop and do ten push-ups over and over until Gilda’s arms and shoulders burned.

“Okay, I give. I’m six push-ups away from death.” Marion Yearly, Gilda’s best friend for nearly ten years groaned beside her. “Who gave Kane coffee today?”

Gilda gasped. “No coffee. Just an unhealthy overdose of ego.”

“Stop being nice to him, will you? Flattery will get us all killed.” Marion dropped face down onto the mat. A foot taller than Gilda and built like an NFL quarterback, Marion was a local 9-1-1 operator. She’d lost about twenty pounds since August when she started training as well as eating healthier along with her new boyfriend, Razi Mauli.

“Get up.” Kane nudged Marion’s leg with his big toe. “One more lap then you can collapse.”

She didn’t look up. Her voice was muffled by the tatami mats. “I’m good. Just run me over.”

Kane closed his eyes and shook his head. He grabbed Marion’s feet and dragged her into a corner. He left her there face down then turned back to face the class. “Yame. Stop and grab your sparring gear.”

“Did he just yell stop?” A loud groan came from Marion in the corner. “Seriously?”

“Except for you.” Kane glanced back over his shoulder.

She struggled to get up. “Oh good.”

“You can give me another fifty push-ups.”

Marion flattened her body to the mat with a groan. “You’re cute, but I hate you.”

“Just think how good you’ll look in a bikini next summer,” he said.

Gilda tried to stop a giggle from escaping as she fastened the Velcro on her sparring gloves. The fact Marion had started training to impress Razi wasn’t lost on Kane.

“Me in a bikini?” Marion pushed her upper body off the floor in a Cobra pose she couldn’t do two months ago. “Could you imagine?”

Kane’s eyes grew wide. He flashed Gilda a small grin. “I asked for that, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” Gilda muttered.

He paused. “Okay, on your backs. Count out ten sit-ups each. Marion starts.”

“Yup. Still don’t like you.” Marion flared her nostrils then rolled over and counted.

Gilda never saw Marion move so fast in her life. Not even for ice cream, and that was saying something.

Diane Bator

http://penspaintsandpaper.com

http://dbator.blogspot.ca/

New Brunswick—a surprising history

When I was asked to contribute to the Canadian Historical Brides series, with the stellar help of Nancy Bell, I was given the province of New Brunswick. I bought a book on the province’s history. I decided to set my story in the eighteenth century, a period I enjoy writing in, and picked the year 1784. From the book I learned that was the year the huge colony of Nova Scotia was divided in two, the western part to be called New Brunswick. This was my first surprise. 

Why the break? After the Revolutionary War, the numerous people who’d remained loyal to King George III had their property confiscated and risked arrest. Thousands of these Loyalists escaped north, into Canada, and the western portion of Nova Scotia. The colony swelled with a disgruntled population who needed land. They demanded their own colony, another capital.

I wanted to toss my characters into this morass, everything changing.

The Coming of the Loyalists by Henry Sandham

Nancy sent me several websites with old maps, documents on the settling of the Loyalists, so much to work in, or leave out.

Then I came across the history of the Acadian Expulsion, the original French settlers when the area was known as New France. Entire villages were slaughtered when the British took over. I just had to delve deeper into that period, and have an Acadian character, one whose mother lived through the expulsion.

Maliseet man

Of course, I couldn’t ignore the First People who were there when the French arrived, mainly the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet tribes. Every layer of settlement, wars, massacres, needed to be worked in without overloading the story.

The biggest challenge was to fit in my fictional characters with actual historical personages, the history timeline, and the extreme hardships of this as yet untamed wilderness.

I hope my novel, On a Stormy Primeval Shore, a "Night Owl Romance Top Pick", will intrigue readers about New Brunswick and its varied history.

Purchase this book 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.

Honoring Fathers on Father's Day by J.Q.Rose

Deadly Undertaking by J.Q. Rose

Cozy mystery

A handsome detective, a shadow man, 

and a murder victim kill Lauren’s plan for a simple life.
Click here to find more mysteries by J.Q. Rose at BWL Publishing

****

Hello and welcome to the BWL Publishing Authors Insider Blog!

My Dad
oxoxoxox

This Sunday, in the US, we honor fathers during Father's Day. I would like to take this opportunity to honor my father, Gordon.

My dad is up in Heaven tapping the piano keys playing for the angel choir or jazz band. He was a talented musician as well as a very special person, not only to me and my brothers but also to our community. He was a funeral director.

Yes, I am a funeral director's daughter, hence the premise of my romantic suspense novel, Deadly Undertaking. I used my life experiences in writing the novel. Some of the quirky characters in the story actually are people I knew!!

I am now writing a memoir and that demands that my dad is in the story. I am including an excerpt about my father in this post from the book, Arranging a Dream, to be released in January 2021.

Arranging a Dream by J.Q. Rose, Excerpt from Chapter 13

The best way to keep my dad’s memory alive and to honor him is to remember all he had instilled in me while growing up and to practice those lessons. He always pointed out the beautiful things surrounding us in nature like a wide-open prairie sunset, the glitter of the sun on a spider web, and the way the leaves on the trees flipped over before a storm. He never gossiped about anyone or badmouthed a person. He never swore, well, except the time when my brother’s class ring was not correct and the shopkeeper would not do anything to make it right.

A sense of mischief popped out in his odd sense of humor. He’d go for coffee at Turner’s, the local greasy spoon located on Route 66, where they called him Digger. He carried a measuring tape in his pocket to measure up anyone who gave him a hard time, being sure he would order the right sized casket for the jokester. 

He cared about people and appreciated the simple things in life. I wanted to be just like him as a businessperson, friend and parent. But most of all, I wanted to teach our baby daughter, Sara, the same lessons by example.

****

Arranging a Dream: A Memoir
by J.Q. Rose

****

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!

J.Q. Rose, author

Click here to visit J.Q. Rose online.

Featured Author Susan Calder

https://bookswelove.net/calder-susan/

I am BWL Publishing Inc. author Susan Calder. I've published three mystery/suspense novels, which you can view and purchase by visiting my BWL Author Page.

I’ve loved mystery novels since I read my first Bobbsey Twins book when I was eight years old. From the kid sleuth twins I progressed to Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and, later, Agatha Christie whodunnits and Daphne Du Maurier dark suspense. I wrote my first mystery novel, A Deadly Fall, as a classic whodunnit combined with a coming-of-middle-age story. My amateur sleuth, Paula Savard, age 52, stumbles into investigating the murder of her childhood friend. The story events shake up Paula’s personal and professional life and lead her in new directions.

On the principle of ‘write what you know,’ I set the novel in my home city, Calgary, and created a protagonist similar to me. Paula was my age at the time I wrote A Deadly Fall. Like me, she grew up in Montreal and moved west to Calgary for opportunity. She’s an insurance adjuster; I worked as an insurance claims examiner. But as our shared traits diverged, Paula became her own person. She's divorced; I’ve now been married for 42 years. She has two grown up daughters; I have two sons. She enjoys sports and risk. I like reading and run from danger. 

Here’s Paula with the novel’s prime suspect, her murdered friend's husband. He’s invited Paula to lunch to learn what her friend had told her about him.  

Paula would reassure him and make it clear her friend had told her nothing. He would be on guard, but, perhaps, less guarded than he’d be with a cop. There was a chance he’d slip.

He was waiting for her reply. His face said, ‘Yes, no, either way, I don’t care’ while his hand opened and closed into a fist, opened and closed against his shaking leg. He was hanging on her answer. Saying ‘no’ would close the door. After talking with the police, she could cancel.

“I can do lunch tomorrow,” she said. “Where? What time?”

“Your choice,” he said.

She thought of a nearby restaurant. “Do you know Lily’s Café?”

“I’ve heard of it.” 

“Noon. I’ll give you directions.”

While writing A Deadly Fall, I realized that an insurance adjuster would make a good series detective. Adjusters are skilled in investigative work. They visit accident and crime scenes, interview witnesses and study forensic evidence to determine what really happened. Insurance claims could also reveal cover-ups for murder. Was the building fire an accident? Did an arsonist set the blaze to collect the building insurance? Or to kill a person sleeping inside?

A suspicious house fire is the subject of my second Paula Savard mystery novel, Ten Days in Summer. Paula investigates the fire from the property insurance angle. In the course of her work, she gets to know the family living in the house and gradually unearths their secrets. I set this novel during Calgary’s annual wild west festival, The Calgary Stampede. For ten days each July, Calgarians cut loose, wear cowboy hats and boots, party, line dance, and cheer on the daily rodeo and chuckwagon races. Paula’s mother from Montreal is visiting her this summer. Paula takes her to the Stampede parade, which kicks off the festival. In the midst of the revelry, business intervenes, when an insurance claimant/suspect returns Paula’s phone message to set up a meeting.  

Stampede Parade

       

Belly dancers, in halters and pantaloons, whisked guns out of their holsters. They twirled the pistols around their fingers and shot imaginary bullets into the air.

“A blend of the old and new Calgary,” Paula said to her mother, who was seated on the lawn chair beside her. Over the past few years, Paula had noticed more and more newcomers’ floats and acts in the Stampede Parade. Today, Asian, Muslim and Caribbean communities would march with descendants of the original pioneers.

Her cell phone rang. Brendan Becker.

“Great of you to call,” he said. “I’ve been bugging my sister Cynthia to contact the insurance company.”

The belly dancers moved on. A bow-legged man wearing riding chaps bounded toward Paula and her mother. He moved his arms in circles.

“Cynthia refused –”

“YAHOO,” the cowboy shouted.

“YAHOO,” the crowd answered.   

“YEE-HAW.”  

“YEE-HAW.” Paula’s mother joined in.

“You sound like you’re at the parade,” Brendan said against a backdrop of trombones.

“You too?” Paula said.

          

While working on his second mystery novel, I got an idea for a different suspense/mystery story. Calgary engineer Julie Fox travels to California to search for her mother who abandoned Julie when she was a child. This novel, To Catch a Fox, would alternate between five viewpoint characters. As the story progressed readers would understand the harm and danger the two 'bad guys' plan for Julie. 

My husband Will and I researched setting descriptions on two holidays in Southern California. Yes, writing can tough sometimes. Julie stayed in the Airbnb apartment Will and I rented in Santa Monica. All of us rented bicycles from a shop on the boardwalk. Julie questioned a clerk in the shop.

  

Julie hesitated, feeling foolish to hope the clerk could provide any information about her mother; yet how wonderful, how easy would it be if he did.

He looked up, his eyes bleary red, and asked what type of bike she wanted.

From her waist pouch, Julie pulled out the three pictures of her mother she’d brought. “I’m looking for this woman, who once worked in a bike shop in Santa Monica.”

“This shop here?”

“I’m not sure. It was in the late 1980s. Was this place operating then?”

The man’s grin revealed a gold front tooth. “Beats me. I only bought the joint two years back.” He picked up the pictures.

“Could you put me in touch with the previous owner?”

“Not likely. He’s dead.”

Bike shop on the Santa Monica boardwalk

After BWL published To Catch a Fox in 2019, I returned to my mystery series. I’m currently working on the third Paula Savard book, Winter’s Rage. Paula investigates a hit and run collision that killed a woman and seriously injured her husband. Was it an accident? Or a pretext for murder? The insured vehicle owner, an eighty-five-year old man recovering from heart surgery, insists he wasn’t driving. 

    “I can’t tell you more than what I told the police,” he said. “Them showing up at my door yesterday was the first I’d heard of anything.”

“Our insurance perspective is different from that of the police.” Paula had explained over the phone that she was the independent adjuster assigned to the claim, but repeating that could insult him, and rightly. So far, he’d impressed her as being mentally on the ball.  

He leaned forward, lines flaring from his nose bridge. “When they talked about my car being in an accident, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I haven’t driven for two months. Doctor’s orders.” He rapped his chest with his gnarled hand. “I was sitting right here, reading, that whole evening until I went to bed.”

“At what time?”

“About 9:30, my usual these days.”

“It was your birthday,” she said. 

“At my age, that’s nothing to celebrate.”  

Every book publication is something to celebrate. BWL has scheduled Winter’s Rage for publication in February 2021. After the celebrations, I'll move on Paula Savard mystery # 4, which will be set in spring, the season of hope.         

             

My front yard this spring