Heavenly Hostas by A.M. Westerling

Hostas are some of my favourite perennials as they’re showy, easy to grow and like shaded spots. My hosta garden is on the south side of the house beneath an ornamental crab apple and they really seem to love it there. Which reinforces my mantra to find the plants that like the space you have – it makes you look like a gardening genius! Here's my shade garden during July a few years ago. I planted sweet woodruff and cranesbill geranium along with the hostas.

These plants are native to Korea, Japan and China where they are found in moist woodlands, along stream banks and rivers, and open grasslands. They’re also known as Plantain Lily, Funkia and Corfu Lily. Their known use as a garden plant, food, medicinal herb and a source of aromatics goes back to the Han Dynasty. A Chinese legend has it that a goddess dropped her hairpin from which grew the beautiful hosta and often the decorative part of a woman’s hairpin is made from jade shaped similarly to the unopened flower.

The first hostas appeared on the European continent in the 1780s and at that time were grown under glass for its tropical attributes.

They’re hardy and long lived and although I have mine in a bed, they also do well in containers and rock gardens. They come in a variety of sizes, colors and textures and usually have a spread and height of between 1 and 3 feet. While they’re mostly known for their lovely foliage, the plants also produce lovely spikes of flowers in shades of pink, white, light blue and lavender. Hummingbirds and bees really love hosta flowers. You can see the hosta flowers in behind the pink geraniums:

Hostas do best in dappled or deep shade because of their large leaves but they can take the heat of full sun if they’re kept in moist, fertile soil. Snails, slugs, rabbits and deer like hostas so keep an eye out for those pests.

Plant potted hostas any time but probably best in the spring. Put them at the same soil level as in the pot and water until the soil is moist. I use 20 20 20 fertilizer after planting and also when new growth comes in the spring. My hosta bed has automatic sprinklers so they get a shower every morning around 5 am which keeps the soil nice and moist. You can pinch the flower stalks to encourage new growth however I never bother. Maybe that’s something I should try this year!

It’s best to transplant and divide in the early spring when the leaves just start to poke through the crown. They don’t usually need dividing, however, because they will simply grow less quickly if they have less space. They are slow growers and may take two to four years to reach their full size. Below you can see the hostas poking up through the petals of the ornamental crab, in late May, and below that, the hostas in late July.

Young hosta leaves are edible, with a flavor similar to lettuce and asparagus. In Japan, they’re known as urui and are boiled, fried in tempura or eaten raw. If you want to try this, boil them for about 20 seconds until the leaves are bright green. They’re sometimes included in salads to add texture more than flavor. The flowers are said to have anticancer properties and are also edible with a peppery flavor. The essential oils obtained from the leaves are used in perfume.

*****

It’s likely that the gardens at Harrington House contained these lovely plants!  Find Sophie's Choice, Book 1, and Leah's Surrender, Book 2 of the Ladies of Harrington House series HERE.

 

Rules, Rules, Rules by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

 

https://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

Rules, Rules, Rules.

Ever since I began writing I have been told how to do it. There are rules on how to begin the story, what to have in the story, how to end the story. So I have listed some of the rules I have found and not necessarily followed.

Here are a few Don’ts.

Don’t assume there is any single path or playbook writers need to follow.

Don’t try to write like your favorite writer. 

Don’t worry about whether you should outline or not, whether you should write what you know, whether you should edit as you go along or at the end.

Don’t ever get complacent about the basics: good spelling, healthy mechanics, sound grammar.

Don’t ever write to satisfy a market trend or make a quick buck. By the time such a book is ready to go, the trend will likely have passed.

Don't try to follow some set plot formula.

Don't put in a lot of fluffy, unimportant stuff that the reader is going to skip.

Don’t ever assume it will be easy.

Don’t ever stop reading.

Don’t be afraid to give up … on your present manuscript. Sometimes, a story just doesn’t work. But, don’t ever give up writing. Writers write. It’s what we do. It’s what we have to do.

Here are some Do's.

Do grab the reader's attention at the beginning by establishing the protagonist, the setting, and the mood.

Do have everything in a story caused by the action or event that precedes it.

Do have the story about a person who wants something but cannot get it.

Do have a vulnerable character, the right setting, and meaningful choices. Tension is at the heart of story and unmet desire is at the heart of tension.

Do create more and more tension as the story continues by having setbacks, crises, and antagonism. You won't have a story until something goes wrong.

Do have the protagonist making a discovery that will change his life by the end of the story.

Do the writing first then worry about inserting breaks and chapters.

Here are some rules on the personal side.

Don’t spend your time waiting to hear back from an agent or publisher. Get to work on your next book or idea while you’re querying.

Don’t get mad at someone for the feedback they give you. No piece of writing is perfect.

Don’t forget to get out once in a while and enjoy the other parts of your life.

Here are a few dubious rules, which I have seen broken in many best sellers.

Don't open your book with weather.

Don’t have a prologue.

Don’t use any other word other than said to carry dialogue. (I personally find it very boring to read said all the time. How does the reader know if the character is angry if he says 'said' instead of 'shouted'? "Get out of here." can be said softly, said through clenched teeth, said angrily, shouted). You need to show emotion.

Don’t use an adverb to modify the word said. (see last statement) Keep exclamation points to a minimum. (Again see above).

Avoid detailed description of characters, settings and objects.

And now some quotes about writing from famous writers.

“The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.”—Philip Roth

“Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” —George Orwell

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”—Ernest Hemingway

“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.”—Virginia Woolf

“The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.”—Samuel Johnson

“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.”—Elmore Leonard

“Write. Rewrite. When not writing or rewriting, read. I know of no shortcuts.”—Larry L. King

“There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.”—Doris Lessing

“Style means the right word. The rest matters little.”—Jules Renard

“Style is to forget all styles.”—Jules Renard

“I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.”—Tom Clancy

“Don’t expect the puppets of your mind to become the people of your story. If they are not realities in your own mind, there is no mysterious alchemy in ink and paper that will turn wooden figures into flesh and blood.”—Leslie Gordon Barnard

“Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion—that’s Plot.”—Leigh Brackett, WD

“The first sentence can’t be written until the final sentence is written.”—Joyce Carol Oates

“When your story is ready for rewrite, cut it to the bone. Get rid of every ounce of excess fat. This is going to hurt; revising a story down to the bare essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.”—Stephen King

“You do not have to explain every single drop of water contained in a rain barrel. You have to explain one drop—H₂O. The reader will get it.”—George Singleton

“When I say work I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs.”—Margaret Laurence

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is … the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”—Mark Twain 

“People say, ‘What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?’ I say, they don’t really need advice, they know they want to be writers, and they’re gonna do it. Those people who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it.”—R.L. Stine  

“Beware of advice—even this.”—Carl Sandburg

What's In A Name by Victoria Chatham

 

AVAILABLE HERE

The origin of names goes so far back into history, there is more than one truth or theory, depending on the era, the culture, and what part of the world a character comes from.

 What is clear is that names mostly stemmed from a need for identity and connection within families and communities.

People were often named for the trade in which they were skilled like the English surnames Smith, Baker, Archer, and Tyler, or after the towns or countries from where they originated like York, Hamilton, or French.

First names were often handed down from father to son, mother to daughter, which could get confusing if you had a long line of Edwards or Marys and even more so if, like the boxer George Foreman, all his five sons were named George. Today it seems anyone can name a child anything and often seems more by fancy than reason.

As an author of historical romance, I have most of my work done for me as all I need do is Google the popular male and female names for any given year and go from there. Please note: Google is a starting point, not the be-all and end-all for any type of research. I have also used parish records and names found on tombstones to be full of information, too.

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Because my settings are mostly English, I can pinpoint the county my characters populate and run a list of names for that area. My next Regency romance is set in the New Forest in the county of Hampshire, England, so I am currently researching surnames from that area in the early 1800s.

Once I have a list of names, I consider how easy those names are to pronounce and if the first and second names not only fit together, but also suit my characters. Into that mix I must consider the intricacies of the British peerage if I include lords and ladies in my books. Burke’s Peerage is an invaluable resource for this.

One thing that I find frustrating is when I come across a name in a book and have no knowledge of how to pronounce it. In this instance Google is my friend, as you can search ‘how to pronounce’ whatever the name is and listen to the result. That is why I would never use an invented name in any of my books unless I can qualify it in some way for my reader to easily understand it.

In my current work in progress, a contemporary western romantic suspense, my female character is Callie. Where did that come from? Her mother (like mine!) loved calla lilies, so I have worked that into the story. It is just a small detail which I think (hope) gives my character a little more reality.

​Victoria Chatham

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A summer festival gone awry - Dean L. Hovey

 I sat, fingers poised over the keyboard, ready to write the next Whistling Pines cozy,  but nothing came to mind. NOTHING. My perceptive wife looked at me and asked, "What's wrong?" I explained my dilemma and she thought for about two seconds and said, "You've never written about a Two Harbors summer festival."

Moments later she'd found a Two Harbors website featuring a pirate ship with Scantily clad wenches lining the deck and beefy pirates hanging from the sails. The text below listed an upcoming date, a weekend of activities, and a list of bands performing. There were contests, foods, liquor, and a clothing-optional sailboat cruise.

I froze, perhaps literally. "Um, dear," I said. "We live near Lake Superior, and sticking even a toe in the water at any time of year is painful. The deep waters of the Lake Superior never rise more than a degree or two above freezing in the height of summer, and sunbathing cruises seem...wrong." We rechecked the date of the festival. It was set for June, still part of the possible snow season in northern Minnesota, and early enough in the year that it would be foolish to assume there wouldn't be ice fishermen walking on the lake rather than sailboats full of sunbathers. It was then we realized she was looked at the website for Two Harbors on Catalina Island.

Ideas flew around my head like billiard balls. We're all coming out of Covid isolation and people are looking for things to do. Tourists will search for Two Harbors summer festivals and would find this interesting site. Missing the small detail of the California area code as we had, they'll be making motel and campground reservations in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Calls will be made to the local chamber of commerce requesting information. Wanting to capitalize on the tourism surge, the chamber of commerce, fraternal organizations, and churches will put together their own Buccaneer Days festival for the same dates.

I started writing. Peter Rogers, my protagonist who is the recreation director of Whistling Pines senior residence, sets up activities to mirror the town's plans. He puts together pirate and wench costume contests, a pirate sing along, and more. 

At this point I paused, struggling to think of other possible festival activities. I contacted my tuba playing Two Harbors consultant. His wife answered the phone, I outlined my book to her and asked if I could consult with Brian. "Oh, yes, please. I'll get him from the tubararium." Moments last Brian was on the phone. "What's a tubararium, Brian?" I asked. He explained that it was his soundproof room where he practiced playing his tuba. He's designed it to keep the neighbors from complaining to the police.

After explaining my lack of activities, he started firing off ideas. "The city band does concerts in the park, the Sons of Norway have a summer picnic including a lutefisk dinner, the Rotary club has a fundraising pancake breakfast. You can gather them all into one big festival. There have been rumors about the Sons of Norway planning a lutefisk tossing contest, but they've always backed off when someone points out it might be illegal for lutefisk bits to wash into the lake."

I laughed, included the lutefisk toss to the list, then fired off an email to my other consultants requesting other ideas for the festival. Within a day I had dozens of other ideas, and encouragement to include a naturist cruise, promoted by the Whistling Pines residents. I wrote a pirate-themed murder, added a Lake Superior regatta, and wrote until my fingers bled (figuratively speaking).

The eBook version of Whistling Pirates is available for pre-order ahead of the May 1 release.

Yelena, an oysterman's wife caught in the crossfire, by Diane Scott Lewis

  

"Ring of Stone (former title) is an entertaining read, combining accurate historical details with a fast-paced plot and a number of credible characters." Historical Novel Society" Review for Rose's Precarious Quest.

Diane Scott Lewis grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, joined the Navy at nineteen and. She writes book reviews for the Historical Novels Review and was a historical editor for an online press. She lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty dachshund. 

To purchase my novels and other BWL books: BWL

Find out more about me and my writing on my website: Dianescottlewis

In my upcoming novel, Ghost Point, my heroine, Yelena, struggles to better her life while her husband, Luke, is in the middle of the Potomac Oyster Wars in 1956. He toils, dredging for oysters on the Potomac River. Does she still love Luke or has she outgrown him? A girl from a higher class family, everyone warned her not to marry a gruff waterman's son.

 After she obtains a bookkeeping job in the local used bookstore, a mysterious man with a foreign accent catches her attention. Is he attracted to her, or after information on her husband's illegal activities? His suave demeanor enchants her. The town begins to whisper that she is leaking evidence to the hated inspector.

She is caught between her wish for a fancier life and her youthful love for Luke. And what about their little boy? He will suffer in the consequences. 

Yelena must choose, tear her family apart and chase the unknown, or stay put and fix the issues with her husband.

The Potomac Oyster wars, between Maryland and Virginia where watermen fired and murdered one another, was a real event in the small coastal town of Colonial Beach, VA in the 1950s..