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

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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.

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

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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

Short Stories and Short Story Contests by Nancy M Bell

Calgary Stampede is cancelled this year so why not come and visit the Stampede in the pages of Come Hell or High Water. to find out more about my titles and where to get your copy of Come Hell or High Water click on the cover above.

Short Stories and Contests

What is a short story?
A short story is usually narrative prose. It typically focuses on a single self-contained incident and includes a small cast of named characters. The short story makes use of plot and other components used in the longer novel, just to a lesser degree.

Types of short stories are determined by word count or topic. For the purpose of short story contests there is usually a minimum and maximum word count which needs to be strictly adhered to.
Short Story Lengths in words:
Traditional: 1,500 to 5,000
Flash Fiction: 500 to 1,000
Micro Fiction: 5-350
It is most common to sell a story that is 1,500 to 3,000 words long.

Short Story Contests.
Should you enter? YES! Of course, you should. Even if you don’t win or get short listed, often you will receive valuable feedback from the judges.
How to decide which contests to enter? First decide what market you are writing for. Fiction or Nonfiction. Then look at what is open for submission and what is coming open in the future. Read the guidelines carefully, paying close attention to the rules and guidelines. Generally, these will include topics or focus of the contest, minimum and maximum length of the entry, entry deadline and method of delivering the entry. Generally, this is by electronic means these days including the use of the Submittable website, although some still ask for hard copy entries. Also pay attention to the entry fee asked for and decide if the cost is within your budget and if you feel it is worth the cost of entry. There is a list of 2020 short story contests online, the Writers Guild of Alberta also lists contests in their newsletter.

Crafting the Short Story.
Now, you need a plan. Again, this is going to be different for everyone. There are two basic ways of going about The Plan. This is what is referred to in author speak as Plotting or Pantsing.
There is no right or wrong way, just what works best for you. What is Plotting and Pantsing?
Plotting is just what is sounds like. The author plots out their story using what ever method works best for them. The plot plan will include, in some form, the following elements:
The Beginning of the Story/The Exposition
Rising Action
Climax or Turning Point
Falling Action
The End of the Story/The Resolution

So, now to start:
Generate the core idea. Ideas are all around us, you just need to learn to recognize them. This often starts from a memory, a fear, a problem, or an incident that resonates with you, stays with you and keeps nudging you to share it.

Write it down. Get it out of your head and onto paper. Rough first drafts are always just that rough. Write everything and anything that comes to mind, don’t worry about word count at this point.
Create the characters from people you know, or sometimes the characters just present themselves to you. Go with whatever feels natural to you. If you’re having trouble, it is easiest to base your character on people you are familiar with and grow them from there.
Trust yourself, believe in yourself. We are all writers and creators.

Now you have the basis, you need to add some structure and start to put things together.
Basic story structure is outlined below:
The Opening
Incident that changes things, sets things in motion
Series of crisis or events that builds tension
The Climax
The End

There are various examples of story structure: The Hero Journey, The Three Act Structure, The 7 Point Story Structure. You can look at these online if you want to delve deeper into them.
The structure should assist you in sorting out your conflict, climax and resolution.
In short: The Hero Journey
Call to Adventure
Challenges and Temptations
Revelation- death/rebirth
Transformation/Atonement
Return

In short: The Three Act Structure
Set Up- establish characters and setting
The Confrontation- appears simple with underlying complexity
The Resolution- a good ending contains high stakes, growth and transformation and a solution

In short: The Seven Point Story Structure
Hook the starting point
Plot Turn 1 conflict that moves the story to the midpoint
Pinch Point 1 pressure on the your protagonist- stumbling blocks in the pursuit of the goal
Mid-Point character responds to conflict with action
Pinch Point 2 more pressure and stumbling blocks between protagonist and the goal
Plot Turn 2 moves story from midpoint to resolution
Resolution where everything up to this point has been heading. Goal achieved and loose ends tied up.


Some other forms of Short Stories.
Anecdote: This is a short account that tells a story about a real person or actual incident. It can be amusing or interesting or both depending on the subject. Anecdotes are often used to support a point in larger work, for example an essay or article.

Drabble: This is a very short work of fiction, generally exactly 100 words not counting the title. This form is used to demonstrate a writer’s ability to express something meaningful in a confined number of words. It is an exercise in brevity.

Fable: This form uses anthropomorphic creatures to illustrate a story with a mora. These may include animals, plants, inanimate object, forces of nature etc) Burgess Thonton’s work in the early 20th century is a prime example, as well as Asesop’s Fables. The moral is usually spelled out for the reader at the end of the story.

Flash Fiction: This is short literary work. No widely accepted word count but usually between 300 and 1,000 words. Generally I have seen then around 500 words in contest rules. Pay close attention to the guidelines of the contests you wish to enter.

Frame Piece: this is not generally used now but has been used in the past. In Walter Farley’s the Blood Bay Colt one of the characters is bed-ridden and reads a book whose contents are shared within the context of the larger story.
It is also useful for introducing the main narrative or setting the reader up for a series of short stories that follow. Flashbacks- the dreaded and should be seldom used flashback- is also an example of this form.

Mini-Saga is a short story of exactly 50 words. A good exercise to learn to remove all but the most pertinent parts of the story or scene.

Story Sequence: this isn’t a novel, but rather a series of short stories within an over all timeframe that together tell a larger story while still remained complete stories in their own right. This is sometimes referred to as a composite novel.

Vignette: this focuses on a single character, setting or scene. No emphasis on conventional structure or story development. Can be stand alone or part of a bigger work.

We can go deeper here and look at three distinct types of short stories. The Epical Story, The Lyrical Story and The Artifice Story.

The Epical Story: realist short fiction. Commonly withholding a part of the narrative. Generally, the best of this type are the ones where in spite of the obvious clues within the narrative, the reveal of the missing part is unexpected from the reader’s POV. The revelation must serve to highlight what came before it, shining light onto what was just latent beforehand and locking with it seamlessly and showing it in a new way. The big reveal is always at the end, the quality depend on the unexpectedness of the discovery, the twist.
indefinite range of things, if not everything.

The Lyrical Story puts the emphasis on a central recurring image or symbol that the narrative revolves around, rather than focusing on the plot. The ending is considered to be ‘open’ as the focus doesn’t insist on one meaning but is open to many depending on the readers’ perspective. This form needs an external plot (often of the epical form) which flows alongside the development of the image. The central focus fills in where an expression is wanted but didn’t show up. There is a need to express what the protagonist won’t or can’t, to cry, or express joy, or grief.
The Artifice Story is the weaving together of two apparently non-compatible things. This can be two story lines, realities or perspectives. This can be used as an over-arching metaphoric device or it can be an abruptly introduced incongruity. This is inserted into the otherwise conventional narrative at the beginning, the larger meaning comes directly from the unexpected symbiosis between the deliberately inserted incongruity and the conventional plot.

Until next month, stay well, stay happy.

You can also find me at http://www.nancymbell.ca

New Release and A New Move #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Romance #Contemporary

NEW RELEASE AND A MOVE

 

Two reasons bring Cancer heroine Janine Rhodes to Fern Lake. The first is the Masters and Doctors program at the nearby university. The second is a letter from a dying woman. Since the courses she takes are weekend ones, she finds a job for the Grantlans a writer and a nurse practitioner caring for their toddler niece they recently adopted. While here, she is able to observe the son she gave up for adoption eight years ago and his attorney father. She is content just to watch until tragedy strikes.

When Virgo Nate Quinn learns about his son’s medical condition, he can barely hold on. Just a year ago, he lost his wife to cancer. His adopted son has become his entire family. When the doctor asks him about the child’s birth parents, he has no idea. He agreed to the adoption but only signed papers and took no other part in the process. Now he needs to locate two people.

Then he learns the identity of his son’s birth mother and knows she has been in the periphery of life. He acts rashly and then must find a way to make amends, especially when he learns more about her.

This beek finished very close to the deadline. The problem was two fold. I became so interested in the story that I forgot to look at the romance and also had a screwy time line. At the beginning of May when I was revising I discovered both problems and had to rewrite all but four chapters. But I finished and the bookis released.

Now for the move. I haven’t left my home of many years. When my husband became very ill, we moved him to what way my study for his bedroom and I migrated to the second floor. This meant many trips up and down the stairs.

When he died in January, the process of moving took a lot of time and with the coronavirus the move was slow. I am now back to my home base and happily learning the new routing. I do miss having the large screen TV across from my recliner but that’s probably a good thing. I don’t waste time watching TV. But my dragons are arrayed above my computer and so is the dreamcatcher, my epee from my fencing days and family pictures.

Hard pants, by J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends 

Book 2 of the award-winning Twisted Climb series

In a world where there seems to be less and less humour and more and more hardship, the English language has - how would you say it - blown up. Indeed, it seems that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to life a linguistic creativity that unites us all. There are so many new terms / words developed in the last six months, and in many ways, these terms have broadened the way we live and cope through these troubling times.

I'd like to promote more humour so I've compiled a few terms I've made up, together with some I've learned and others researched on the web.

Hard Pants: when you have to leave the house and replace your sweat pants or flannel pyjamas (soft pants), with jeans. I have to wear my hard pants to the store. They're sooo tight.

Cornteen: the intentional misspelling of quarantine. I'm getting so fat during this cornteen.

Covidiot: a person who disregards social distancing and safety guidelines. Look at those people on the beach. Bunch of covidiots.

Moronavirus: another term/form of quarantine shaming for those not following health and safety guidelines. He speaks so moistly and without a face mask! What a moronavirus.

Quarantini: a slang term for day-drinking while under quarantine. It's after 2... time for a quarantini anyone?

WFH: the acronym for Working From Home. WTF, I can't take anymore of this WFH.

CovKilos: the weight gained during COVID-19 gym closures/restrictions and WFH. These CovKilos are making it impossible to wear my hard pants. Pour me another quarantini.

Coronials: They're on their way. A reference to the generation of children conceived during the pandemic. Yeah, I'm a coronial. Want my autograph?

Skunk-Stripe: the natural, un-tinted white stripe at the top of your head and hairline. I'm desperate for my hairdresser! This skunk-stripe is making me look like a granny. 

Sheepdog: a person's hairstyle after four months without a hairdresser/barber. Hey sheepdog! You'd win a sheep-shearing contest with that hairdo.

Stay safe everyone. This too, shall pass. And, I do have a great suggestion to pass the time at home - read my award-winning books. If you like action / adventure / suspense / drama and a dash of paranormal, then The Twisted Climb books will take you to all those places. Enjoy!

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)

The Inimitable Josephine Baker

Josephine Freda MacDonald was born in St. Louis, Missouri on June 3, 1906, to Carrie MacDonald, a part-black and part-Native-American woman, and Eddie Carson, of black and Spanish ancestry. When her father abandoned them, the family was left destitute. Josephine, at the age of eight, had to work cleaning houses and babysitting for wealthy white families.

She ran away from home at the age of thirteen and found work as a waitress in a club. There, at the same age, she met and married her first husband, whom she divorced soon after. 

Young Josephine had always loved dancing and performing, so when the opportunity to join a travelling band arose, she quickly accepted the offer, though she was considered too young and skinny to be a chorus girl and often had to take non-performing parts. At the age of fourteen, she married William Howard Baker, whose last name she kept, though their marriage dissolved after four years.

Her big break came in 1925, in France, during the explosion of interest in American Jazz on the European continent. She opened in the “La Revue Negre” at the Theatre des Champs- Elysee and became a huge hit, famous for her uninhibited performances and scanty costumes. Her fame grew and among her fans were Christian Dior, Grace Kelly, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

 She returned to America in 1936, but was not well-received. Infuriated by the racial discrimination she encountered, such as being barred from hotels and refused service in clubs and restaurants, she returned to Paris after renouncing her American citizenship.

The Second World War opened the most interesting period of her life. She used her fame as a cover to gather intelligence for the French underground. She carried sensitive documents and messages to neutral countries, sometimes using invisible ink on sheet music. She rose to the rank of lieutenant in the Free French Air Force and, after the war, was awarded the Croix de Guerre, the Légion d’Honneur and the Rosette de la Résistance.

Her personal life was also out of the ordinary. Men fell madly in love with her and she received approximately 1,500 marriage proposals. She married four times, but had no children of her own. Rather, she adopted twelve orphans, from different parts of the world, whom she called her ‘Rainbow Tribe,’ to show that children of different colors and nationalities could live together.

In the Fifties and Sixties, Baker frequently returned to the United States to fight racism. She participated in demonstrations and boycotts of segregated clubs and concert venues. In 1963, she joined Martin Luther King Jr. in the famous March on Washington, and became one of the notable speakers at the event. In honor of her efforts, the NAACP eventually named May 20th “Josephine Baker Day.”

In 1973, she performed at Carnegie Hall, after decades of rejection and racism. Greeted with a standing ovation, she openly wept in front of the audience. The success of the event marked her comeback on the stage. 

On April 12, 1975, Baker died in her sleep of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was 68. More than 20,000 people lined the streets of Paris to witness the funeral procession and the French government honored her with a 21-gun salute, making Josephine Baker the first American woman to be buried in France with military honors.

Mohan Ashtakala (www.mohanashtakala.com) is the author of "The Yoga Zapper," a fantasy, and "Karma Nation," a literary romance. He is published by Books We Love (www.bookswelove.com)

Unexpected Consequences...by Sheila Claydon

Click here for my books at Books We Love

In my last blog I talked about Shakespeare and the pandemic that affected him all of his life, starting with a fifth of the people of Stratford dying the year he was born. It was, of course, the bubonic plague, and it rampaged around the world for several hundred years, coming and going seemingly randomly until its cause, the fleas in rats, was discovered. Even that plague had its positives though, and in Shakespeare's case it gave him time, while he isolated himself and his family during the worst outbreaks, to write much of his best work.  

The Coronavirus that at the moment is affecting countries around the world also has some surprising upsides. I know businesses that are unexpectedly thriving because, with the closure of many shops, people are turning more and more to online shopping. The same with take-away meals and the many smaller restaurants that previously only offered table service are now barely able to keep up with requests for meals to be delivered.  And there are new local delivery services too where, for example, local farmers have seen a gap in the market and started delivering their fruit and vegetables directly, while family run butchers do the same with their meat.

Of course there are many, many people who are suffering, people who are wondering if their jobs are safe, people living in overcrowded conditions where the virus is more likely to run rife, people with barely enough to eat, but there are many, many more who are enjoying the unexpected freedom that has come with being paid to stay at home until the worst is over. This has led to family time, new hobbies, DIY house upgrades, healthier meals being cooked from scratch, more exercise, more fresh air...the list goes on. Although we live near a beach it is a bit off the beaten track, so we tend to recognise most of the people who park near us and set off through the woods and sand-hills to the sea. In the recent warm weather, however, we have seen so many new families visiting and enjoying themselves, and so many strangers exercising, that we doubt whether life here will ever be the same again. 

And that brings me to our own unexpected consequences. Three days ago we had coffee in Sydney. Yesterday we had lunch in Hong Kong. This evening we are having a drink with friends on the south coast of England and we will be meeting up with more friends in the Midlands on Tuesday. There are plans to see cousins in San Diego and we have already walked around a friend's garden in New Zealand and admired their burgeoning fruit trees and newly planted flower beds.

When I started writing I needed a strap line and at the time it was that my books were a 'ticket to romance' because many of them were set in places I've visited over the years. The fact that all that travelling is continuing virtually is the wonderful unexpected consequence of how Coronavirus is affecting us.  Where we used to exchange emails and maybe meet up once or twice a year, or only every few years if the distance was great, now we are very active Internet friends, talking weekly in many cases. With so many social platforms available it is so easy, and with practice has become almost as pleasurable as seeing one another face to face. We all have so much to say that we quickly forget about the screen between us as we lift our glasses to one another or excuse ourselves for a couple of minutes while we make another coffee. Why it has taken a pandemic to set up such an enjoyable online network of weekly contacts I can't fathom. We could have started doing this years ago instead of just limiting online calls to our granddaughter in Hong Kong. Everyone says the same and I think, when live gets back to whatever normal is going to, be this is an unexpected and very enjoyable consequence that will continue.

Cheers everyone!

Footnotes

More about me and my books

"The history books you read sanitized slavery, disregarded indigenous stories, minimized wars, 

and dismissed the narratives of immigrants, poor, and working people."

-- Humanity Archive

I have a profound appreciation of those who have come before, who have made my life possible.  Some of our ancestors have been left out…people of color, immigrants, women.  I cherish their lives. I want to find their stories, even if it means combing through the footnotes, finding obscure archives for articles, paintings, drawings, photographs.  Here's one I came across recently... Who would not want to tell this woman's story?

O-o-dee of the Kiowa, 1896

Sometimes I am lucky enough to find some scholarship just when I need it, like Charles Swain's book, helping me discover how brave African American families survived and thrived in the north of a country divided. This informed my knowledge of life in New York, often called City of Sedition because of its economic ties to the South, and the horrible carnage of the Draft riots there in 1863, featured in Mercies of the Fallen, the second of my American Civil War Brides series:

The culture of the Diné (Navajo) is seen through the eyes of a woman in:

You can be sure this informed my Code Talker Chronicles series.  I loved the thought of Luke Kayenta being raised by women like this one!

I hope you enjoy my novels and see history from a different perspective though them!

I Can't Write the Future Anymore

                           Please click this link for author and book purchase information

On March 10th, I began the third draft of my novel-in-progress, Winter's Rage. Unlike my two previous mystery novels, this story shifts between three viewpoint narrators and two time periods. For reading ease, I placed a header at the start of each chapter with the narrator's name and the story month and year. For the main storyline, the date was January, 2020. But this March I thought, since the book won't be published until next year, why not reset it in 2021 to make the novel more contemporary? Later, I could insert any minimal changes needed or specifics to highlight that future date. I had done this easily for my earlier books to help bridge the time gap between starting a novel and its publication. In fact, draft #2 of Winter's Rage was written months before January 2020.

So I changed the headers for my first few chapters to January 2021, started revising, and realized I couldn't do this. In March, the effects of COVID-19 hit Canada with full impact. International travel shut down. Empty shelves, lineups and changed protocols appeared in grocery stores. Museums, restaurants and group activities closed. Each day brought a new development that I hadn't considered the day before. I couldn't predict what my world would be like the next week, never mind ten months in the future.

Even now, three months later, I don't know what daily life in January 2021 will be like in Calgary, my home city and the setting for my mystery novels. Will we have a vaccine or cure for COVID-19 by then? Probably not, but if I assume this and a miracle happens I'd have to significantly change any story I'd write now. And if COVID-19 is still with us, what rules, guidelines and customs will Calgarians experience in January 2021? Will schools be open, or will students continue to study online? Will we all be wearing masks? In lockdown or moving about fairly freely, keeping our social distance? What percentage of people will be working from home, or be unemployed? Will our economy have collapsed, flattened or revived with a renewed flourish? Will national and international travel be open? Will Canadian snowbirds travel south, as usual, to warm, sunny destinations or hibernate at home?

We can all make guesses, but no one is sure enough about life in Calgary next winter for me to portray it in the novel I'm in the process of finishing now.

I returned to the first chapters of Winter's Rage and reset the date to January 2020, when I and many others lived in the old normal, oblivious to what lay a month or two ahead. As I revised my manuscript, ordinary behaviours I'd included struck me as strange in our current time. Characters shake hands when they meet for business. Some touch people who don't live in their own households. I'm sure they often stand closer to each other than two metres (6.5 feet or, in Canadian terms, about the length of a hockey stick).

Paula, my insurance adjuster sleuth, visits insurance claimants in their homes. No one thinks twice about inviting her into their living room. In an early scene, Paula helps a claimant prepare hot chocolate in his kitchen.  The man is 85, recovering from heart surgery and at high risk for serious complications from COVID-19. He and Paula pass each other mugs, utensils and the can of chocolate powder without hesitation. In these details, my novel and others set at the start of 2020 will chronicle our society immediately before everything changed.

Too close

Winter's Rage is book three of my murder mystery series. Since the first and second novels were set in fall and summer, the one thing I know about book four is that it will take place in spring, to complete the Calgary seasons. Since it won't be published for a couple of years, I'd expected to set the story next year or later. Then I thought, with no travel on the horizon, I might have time to start the first draft this summer, writing by hand on my back yard patio. The novel could take place this spring, while we're experiencing the height of COVID-19 restrictions. Why not portray this unique time in a fictional murder mystery story? The current social mood even fits what I have in mind for Paula at this point her life. Uncertainty. Fears. Isolation from loved ones.

But how can I have dramatic interactions between Paula and suspect strangers when everyone with something to hide has the perfect excuse to tell her, "Stay away, I won't talk to you in person?" How does an insurance adjuster/detective do her job without meeting people face to face? I'd better start researching this before life returns to a new normal and people forget the details of this peculiar time we're living through.

Social distancing on Hunchback Hills, Alberta. In the past, my hiking club would squeeze together for a group photo. 

 

        

Choosing the Right Word by Karla Stover

                   




I am always fascinated by the words people choose to express themselves or to name something--what writer isn't? And lately I've been looking at the names of housing developments as I drive past them. How a developer came up with Nantucket Gate a couple of miles from me when we are smack dab between Puget Sound and Mt. Rainier is a puzzler. There's absolutely nothing Cape Cod-ish about our neck of the woods. One name that makes perfect sense, though, is Brookdale Greens. It was built on an old golf course (greens) just off Brookdale Road, but just down the street, on the other side is Sawyer Trail. There's no trail because it's built more or less against a hill, and a sawyer is a person who saws wood. Ah, well, moving right along, the reason I saw these places was because I'd made an early morning, quick trip to the hardware store. While in lock-down I decided to paint the bathroom and as long he doesn't have to help, my husband is willing to let me. We even agreed on a color and it has a foo-foo name.

I used to think my ideal job would be to write descriptions for what I call the 'Odds-and Ends' catalogs. Examples in the latest one sent here: The LAWN RANGER TEE; "You might not be fighting outlaws, but your weeds are running scared!" Very fun. The DANCING TIKI LIGHT, "Transform your yard into an exotic paradise." It'd take more than a tiki light to do that in  my yard, and STYLISH COMPRESSION KNEE-HIGHS. That's gotta be an oxymoron. There is nothing fashionable about compression socks. The same catalog also had BOOST OXYGEN in assorted scents, "used by famous celebrities." Isn't every celebrity famous? I'm just asking. Speaking of celebrities, wouldn't 'The Sinatra' be a great name for a cool and classy car?

However, getting back to the paint, color samples, some of the names on the little cards are almost as fun as a tee-shirt for fighting weeds, for example: Bromance Blue or Teal & Tonic. I quite liked Left Bank Blue and Nantucket Fog but New Born's Eyes makes me want to gag.

As a writer, I regularly used the 'synonyms' function on my Word program. Is there a better word, one that gives more punch, one that will eliminate repetitions?

Anyway, the color my husband and I finally agreed on for the bathroom is 'Heaven on Earth.' In the context of a color for a bathroom, I find that funny.

Bumpy Road Ahead

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I tried something different this month and you may have to enlarge your page to fully appreciate the jpgs I've added.