What's in a Name by Victoria Chatham

 

AVAILABLE HERE

All novels are populated by characters and those characters need names. With writing historical novels, or novels set in other countries, characters' names require a little more attention. Are the names appropriate for their era or country? 

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. Visiting cemeteries, especially historic ones like Highgate Cemetary in London, the final resting place of Karl Marx and George Michael, can be fascinating. Visiting a country churchyard is always a voyage of discovery, especially you wander amongst the older headstones. 

Image courtesy Pixabay.com

 I have also used parish records like this one from my own family history.

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, Charlotte Gray, is set mostly in the New Forest in the county of Hampshire, England, so I researched both first names and 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.

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 sometimes seems more by fancy than reason.

What I find frustrating is when I come across a name in a book and have no knowledge of how to pronounce it. Here again, the internet is a useful resource, especially www.howtopronounce.com. Type the name in the search field ‘and listen to the result.  If you are using an invented name it is only fair to your reader to qualify it in some way for the reader to easily understand it.

Names, whether real or imagined, need to be a solid anchor for readers to identify with characters and, hopefully, come to know and love them.

Victoria Chatham

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Deadly Mixture

 Deadly Mixture (published August 1 by BWL publishing) takes my readers back to Pine County. As with all my books, the research took me a number of unexpected places, in geography as well as content. 

For the uninitiated, Pine County is 1,400 square miles located just an hour's drive north of the St. Paul/Minneapolis urban area. The journey quickly leaves behind the urban centers, then suburbs, taking us past farmland, then into Pine County's forests, lakes, swamps, and rivers. 

I've interviewed three Pine County sheriffs who've pointed out the unique police issues facing the rural sheriff's departments. The first issue is police response time. There are nights were only two deputies are assigned to patrol that huge area. If they respond to a crime or car accident in the farthest corner of the county, it might take them 45 minutes to respond to an emergency in the other corner of the county. 

Many residents are trying to escape the hubbub of the urban areas. They seek the solitude, but expect all the services available in the urban and suburban homes. Police response time is one issue. There are other trade-offs as well. You lose the anonymity of the city and enter a community where people know their neighbors and look out for each other. The other side of that coin surprises many people who relocate to "the boonies." Your neighbors get to know you. They bump into you at the grocery store. They also know what you do, have done, and may do at some future time.

A widower friend started dating a year after his wife died. He had breakfast the morning after his date at the local mom and pop restaurant. He was surprised when the waitress asked about the restaurant where he'd taken his date the previous night. Someone else asked about the movie they'd seen, and a third person expressed his disappointment that my friend was dating so soon (one year) after becoming a widower.

I try to capture those issues in the Pine County books. The teens in Deadly Mixture are trying to escape the prying eyes of the community. They use an abandoned hunting shack to escape what they see as the oppression in their dysfunctional families. A series of unfortunate choices throw them into a deadly mixture of truancy, drugs, and death.

Sergeant Floyd Swenson is back, as is his girlfriend, Mary. Other regulars include Pam Ryan, freshly returned from maternity leave, and Sandy Maki. I've introduced a new character, C.J. Jensen, a veteran cop hired to cover for Pam's maternity leave. C.J. (Charlene Joy) is rebounding from the recent death of her husband. Her basset hound pup, Bailey, brings some humor and another set of challenges to the small sheriff's department.

What I learned writing my first novel, the ignorance of a beginner by Diane Scott Lewis

 Escape the Revolution: "Simply brilliant" Historical Novel Society.

To purchase my novels and other BWL books: BWL

Never write a rambling saga with too many characters that's bursting at the seams at nearly 200,000 words!

I started writing as soon as I could put words on a page; I loved to tell stories. I even had a short story submitted to a literary festival from my high school.

Then I joined the navy, traveled to Greece, met a man and married. And we're still married.

Two children came quickly. I didn't start writing again for twenty years.

Then I decided it was time to dip in the pen, again. Or rather, sneak in writing on my work computer.

The Rude Awakening: I thought I knew everything about writing, but found I knew nothing.

Escape the Revolution, which went through many names and covers, was my first effort.

I rambled on in my story, chapters too long, describing everything, cramming in my stellar research, and the book grew huge. 170,000 words. Who knew there were page and word limits.

Or POV (point of view) restrictions. Everyone had a POV, even a dog or a horse. Thoughts hopping all over the place. Actually, I wasn't that bad in this regard. I've read other authors who made these mistakes.

Where would my story go? I only had a small notion but didn't want it to end, so on I wrote.

Then I bought books on writing and editing. Another shock. There needed to be plot, and structure; your character couldn't just wander on forever to the next adventure. They must have a goal, a conflict, to drive them on. Each person should have a solid POV, perhaps one per scene; but too many characters with 'thoughts' can get confusing.

'Would', 'could', and 'should', must be used sparingly. Gerunds also should not be overused, all those words ending in 'ing'. So many things to avoid. Don't even ask about the much-maligned 'was'.

No double exclamations, heck, hardly any exclamations allowed.

Each scene must be its own structure with a beginning, middle, and end.

Passive vs. Active voice. 

Plus, get that research correct if you write historicals. You don't want any Tiffanys wearing bloomers in the18th century.

Develop your characters, even the minor ones; what is their background, their goals? Even the villains need 'reasons' why they act they way they do. 

Action, Reaction, Decision.

Exhausting. First, I stripped out too much from the story, then realized I needed to put much of it back in, just in a cleaner, tighter way. I had to cut the book into two books because of the length. 

The sequel: Hostage to the Revolution, was published to finish the story.

I'm glad I learned so much from books, workshops, and other authors. The knowledge has been worth it. I've been with my on-line critique group for sixteen years.

To find out more about me and my books, please visit my website: DianeScottLewis

Diane lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty dachshund.

Green Plant versus Brown Thumb by Helen Henderson

Windmaster Golem
Click the cover for purchase information

During lockdowns for COVID-19, many people turned to hobbies, do-it-yourself projects, or exercise for mental and physical well being. One thing that fit all the  criteria is gardening.

Now let me say first off, I did not voluntarily decide to be one of those who turned to a garden for therapy or exercise. I have what has been called a brown thumb. Over the years, my brown thumb has killed plants, bushes, and other green living things including cacti, ivy, grass, forever plants, and azalea bushes. Some of which are under normal circumstances almost indestructible.

What makes my ability as a terminator more remarkable is that I grew up on a farm in the "Garden State." And, yes, that is the official nickname for my home state. 

Besides the cash crops of eggs, sheep, wheat, corn and such, we had a lilac bush so big you could ride a pony through the middle of bush. In fact our Shetland pony and a sheep used to play hide and seek and tag using the bush as shelter and hidey hole. The weeping willow tree that was as tall as our two-story farmhouse provided hours of play on the tire swing or shade for reading and cloud watching.

As  might be expected we also had a garden. It provided fresh vegetables for the dinner table and extras for canning and friends.  One of the many chores and tasks needed to keep a farm running was pulling weeds and hoeing the garden. As you can see I  am not a total stranger to gardening and plants. It is just that when it was my garden, my house plants, my landscaping, they died.

After my move south, for several seasons I tried container gardening. As to why containers were selected?  I couldn't decide where on the property to put the garden. Another consideration? Farm equipment and sibling labor were not available and I was not going to turn a plot over by fork and spade by myself.  Of course I didn't have any luck with the several tubs of tomato and pepper plants I attempted to grow.

This spring a local DIY (do-it-yourself) store gave away a different project each week and several family members decided to participate. The lobby pine given out died within three weeks. The milkweed seeds didn't get planted. That will happen when I build the butterfly house part of the project. 

First tomatoes harvested, 2021

Pepper and tomato plants were the next weeks project. For being the first in line the stock boy coordinating the distribution handed me a bush-type tomato plant. It was shortly afterwards paired with a vine type a family member donated to the project. The vine tomato is just now producing, Its fruit are the size of golf balls, a far cry from the large ones that were already harvested.

It has been very interesting experiment. The plant are on my covered back stoop. Besides watering (or keeping them from getting drowned in the summer storms), they were shifted against the house when they needed protection from high winds. Of course I did have to rely on someone who had successfully gardened in the locale as the climate and conditions are drastically different than what I was familiar with. (And so are the bugs, including a very aggressive green species.) So much time (think decades) had passed since those early childhood gardens, that research on the care and feeding of the two very different plants.

Authors are always told to write what you know. Which must be why none of my characters insisted they be master gardeners. So far the only one who has any real experience is Deneas whose tale is told in my current work in progress, Fire and Amulet (scheduled for release next year.) If any other of my characters are gardeners, they will probably be hydroponic engineers who are in trouble because of a brown thumb.

Here is what happened to her garden. To set the scene, it is the evening before she leaves on a journey from which she will probably never return.

An idea formed on how to thwart Karst from getting anything he hadn’t earned. Instead of sleep, she spent the cool candlemarks under the moon pulling the root vegetables that were ready for harvesting. The red fruit that hung heavy on the vine filled another large basket. Next she took the growing pots her mother had made or bartered for and by the time the moon was full overhead had half the garden in pots ready to be gifted to others in her village.

This experiment has given me a greater understanding of why some assisted living facilities have a raised garden for their residents. The daily routine of watering, snipping errant sucker vines, and monitoring for bugs and ripeness can be therapeutic.

As to whether I will try gardening again ? That remains to be seen. I prefer more interactive beings. Depending on their loquaciousness, you can actually hold conversations with a dog or cat. Our 18-year-old cat could quite clearly say "Now" and "Out." And when she's in a good mood, the husky I visit, can talk your ear off. Especially if you answer her.

 

 To purchase the Windmaster Novels: BWL

 ~Until next month, stay safe and read. Helen

Find out more about me and my novels at Journey to Worlds of Imagination.

Follow me online at Facebook, Goodreads, or Twitter.

Helen Henderson lives in western Tennessee with her husband. While she doesn’t have any pets in residence at the moment, she often visits a husky who have adopted her as one the pack.

Cool Water by Nancy M Bell

 

Chance's Way releases in September 2021. To find out more about Nancy's work please click on the cover. 

Water. It's something most people take for granted. Not me. I grew up in a house with a shallow well, every August it would go dry for a short period. There is nothing more heart stopping than turning on the tap and nothing comes out. The number of things we use water for without realizing it is mind blowing. Everything from washing dishes, to showers, to flushing the toilet...the list is endless.

Maybe I'm weird, but every time I  turn on the tap and water comes out give up a silent thanks to the earth who shares her life blood with me. In the shower I offer up a silent prayer of thanks for the luxury of having clean water pour over me, washing more than bodily dirt away. What would happen if the rivers ceased to flow? The lakes dry up into windblown plains? 

The sound of running taps or the pump kicking in and out will still wake me up from a sound sleep. Such are the lessons we learn in childhood. I currently live on a farm that depends on well water and I husband it carefully. I think of well water as 'living water' it is straight from the depths of the earth, cold enough to freeze my hands after a few minutes. It isn't treated or 'civilized' or 'purified' it is just what is meant to be....water. Life giving, life sustaining water.  

This summer is one of the driest and hottest we've had in many years here in southern Alberta. It's only June 28th and the grass is dry and brittle under my bare feet, the pavement hot enough to produce burns on unwary feet of humans and animals. The wide but shallow slough in the pasture is dark brown mud right now, the water gone from the surface but still lurking below waiting for a good rain to bring it back into the light.  

So, the next time you turn on a tap and water gushes forth, give a prayer of thanks and appreciate the bounty provided by nature. Fresh water is not a commodity to be traded or made money off of, regardless of what some think.  Fresh water is a give from the gods and goddesses, or God if you prefer. Not to be taken for granted and not to be taken lightly. Just for second imagine life without water...

Until next month, stay safe.  

Experiment ala Janet Lane Walters #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Mint Tea series #Opposites in Love series

 Opposites in Love

THE EXPERIMENT

 

Jude and I decided to do an experiment with my books. Since I write series, a lot of them we decided to start with one series. The Mint Tea series

 

So far, the series has done great, especially with my Amazon numbers. Murder and Mint Tea is free and what has happened is the rest of the books are being purchased. Also the number or ratings has climbed and some reviews added. Not all are great but reviews often aren’t.

 We have decided to do another series and see what we can do. The Aries Libra Connection is now free everywhere and finally hit Amazon. Now we will see what happens With this grouping.

 

With some luck they will take the same path that the Mint Tea Series ahs done. Then I will try a third time, this time with one of the fantasy series.

 

Such a nice birthday present for this 85 year old. Though as I tell the family, I am only one day older than I was yesterday.

 

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Life by numbers, by J.C. Kavanagh

The Twisted Climb - Darkness Descends
Book 2 of the award-winning Twisted Climb series

Life.

Is it defined by your age?

By your experiences?

By your attitude? 

The Canadian Oxford Paperback Dictionary (yes, I'm a dinosaur) defines 'life' as:

1. the condition which distinguishes active animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change preceding death

2. a) living things and their activity, b) human presence or activity, c) the human condition; existence

3. the period during which life lasts, or the period from birth to the present time or from the present time to death

There are nine more contextual definitions of the word 'life' in this dictionary. So then, what does life mean for you?

Is life for you getting up in the morning, putting in eight hours of work, taking care of kids, doing laundry, making meals, cleaning up, cleaning house, going to bed? Then repeat the next day?

Or is life a struggle - paying bills and groceries on overdraft, dealing constantly with an irritable spouse, having little or no encouragement from your boss/colleagues, and being unable to eyeball oneself in the mirror?

Well, life changes. One day it's good. One day, not so good.

In the last six months, I've been reminded of how fleeting life is. Friends and colleagues have passed away, suddenly. Young people who grew up with my children, now adults, are dying from cancer. Covid too, has claimed so many lives. 

Life is like the paint-by-number kits. Except you paint it yourself: you decide the tone, the colours and contrasts, and you decide your happiness. Your emotions. Your attitude. You pick the number, you paint it. It's what Jayden's dad tells her in The Twisted Climb series. He says, "You are the painter. Make your life a masterpiece."

Some people believe that life is defined by the number of years you've lived. I think it's defined by the number of lives you've touched. Good, bad or indifferent, we make an impact on everyone we meet and interact with.

So if there are numbers involved with life, here are my numbers to live by:

1. Smile because you can; it's contagious

2. Love. Love more. Just love.

3. Laugh, it's music for the soul

4. Be kind - to yourself

5. Be kind - to others

6. Be thankful for what you have

7. Enjoy nature's beauty and majesty

8. Gaze with awe to the heavens

9. Dream

10. Make a difference

11. Never give up

12. Be your masterpiece

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

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When World War II Turned

 

Battle of Khursk ( July 5, 1943 to August 23, 1943)

Seventy-eight years ago, a battle in a remote part of Southern Russia finally turned the fortunes of the combatants in the Second World War.

The Nazi forces had just suffered a devastating defeat in Stalingrad but Hitler was determined to regain momentum. Desperate to defeat the Soviets, he gathered his forces for one final assault in the summer of 1943 at the city of Khursk, seven hundred kilometers west of Stalingrad, near the Ukrainian border.

The numbers associated with the attack and siege of Stalingrad are mind-numbing. Fought between August, 1942 and February, 1943, the Axis forces totaled 1,040,000 men while the Soviet force totaled 1,143,000.

By the final count, the Nazi forces had lost perhaps 900,000 soldiers while the Soviets lost 1,130,000 men. Half the German Luftwaffe had been shot down. The fate of the civilians who stayed behind to defend the city was worse. Thousand died of starvation and disease. Indeed, people were reduced to eating rats and straw. The ferocity of the battle can be gauged by these two facts: the average life of a soldier in that battle was just one day and, second, only 4,000 German soldiers returned home alive after Stalingrad. It remains the largest and most deadly battle ever fought in human history.

The defeat humiliated Hitler. Determined to regain momentum and to defeat the Soviets once and for all, he ordered a counter- attack in the beginning of July, 1943. He aimed to encircle the Soviet forces inside a bulge in the battlefield at the village of Khursk. He reinforced his army with tanks, aircraft and men from the Western Front. In all, 900,000 troops, 2,700 tanks and 2,100 planes took part. The Soviets anticipated the battle and heavily fortified the area. Stalin replied with 2,500,000 men, 7,360 tanks and up to 3,500 aircraft.

In contrast to the battle of Stalingrad, the battle of Khursk ended quickly and with finality. The battle turned out to be a disaster for the Nazi army. In just five weeks, the Soviets fully defeated Hitler’s armies. It remains the largest armored (tank) battle in history, with the Germans losing 7,000 cannon and tanks, 3,000 airplanes, while suffering 710,000 casualties.

The battle of Khursk finally dismantled the Nazi war machine. The vaunted Luftwaffe was almost completely destroyed. The Nazis hardly had any motorized artillery or tanks remaining. From being the most feared offensive juggernaut the world had ever seen, they were reduced to a purely defensive role. Before Stalingrad, the Nazis had never lost a battle; after Khursk, they didn’t win a single major combat for the rest of the war. The Russians proceeded westwards and pushed the Nazis slowly back across Eastern Europe.

It was only time before the Third Reich fell. While the Soviets rolled into Eastern Germany in June of 1944, the Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy. In less than a year, on May 7, 1945, Nazi Germany surrendered.

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

Aurochs, oystercatchers and children...by Sheila Claydon

 

Visit Sheila's BWL author page for book and purchase information

I live in a small coastal town in NorthWest England. It lies on the eastern shore of the Irish Sea where it is fronted by 20 miles of a wild and scientifically important beach whose main characteristic is a dune landscape that is continually transformed by the sun, the rain and the wind.  This is important because the movement of the sand dunes is what creates a habitat for local rare species such as the natterjack toad, the northern dune tiger beetle and the sand lizard, all of which need to be protected if they are to thrive. 

I used this, although in far less detail and far more romantically, as a backdrop for part of my book Reluctant Date, because, if you live here,  as well as the rare fauna you soon learn that dune heath is one of the rarest wild habitats in the UK. It is formed by the lime in seashells being washed out by rain over hundreds of years until the sand becomes acidic enough for dune heath heather to grow. Once I had briefly mentioned the importance of the dunes (it really was relevant to the hero of the book!) the rest of the story was set on the gulf coast in Florida. Then I moved onto another book and forgot about it...until recently! 

Although I was born in the south of England, I have lived here for 31 years! Longer than I've lived anywhere. And yet I still thought of myself as a 'blow in', which is the local term for anyone from outside the area. Because of this, although I love living here, I've never taken much notice of the local history, preferring instead to delve into genealogy to discover everything I could about my family while ignoring the living history all around me. 

Very recently, however, this has changed. In a previous post I wrote about knocking on doors for a petition to resolve parking problems, and how by doing this I met  people who were born and bred here, and whose stories so intrigued me that I wanted to discover more. So I've been looking and I've discovered there is more to those moving sand dunes than a habitat for wildlife. Over thousands of years the wind blown sand has hidden buildings, damaged crops and destroyed whole communities. Then, in the fickle way of nature, storms have suddenly exposed old land surfaces. 

So many things have been discovered about the history of the town and its surrounding area that I could keep blogging about it for months, but by far the most exciting is what has been discovered on the shore itself. Trails of human footprints and the tracks of mammals and birds were imprinted in the hard baked silts deposited as sea levels rose and fell at the end of the last Ice Age. These can be seen at low tide where they clearly show large numbers of wading birds such as the oystercatcher and the crane. There are even some overlapping circular tracks that indicate a courting ritual being enacted. Then there are the tracks of roe deer, red deer, wild boar, unshod ponies, wolves and domestic dogs and, most exciting of all, auroch tracks. Precursors of cattle, it is thought that these huge animals were hunted to extinction during the Bronze Age. All we have left nowadays on the beach and in the surrounding fields are oystercatchers and a very few roe deer plus many, many domestic dogs!

The human footprint trails are even more fascinating because the researchers who spent hours studying them and taking plaster casts have been able to build a complete picture of life here thousands of years ago. They can tell which are male or female footprints from the stride and the shape of the foot, and from this they have extrapolated the height and even the age of these long ago humans. Apparently while the men averaged 5ft 4 inches the women were only about 4ft 7 inches. As their female counterparts in Scandinavia were 5ft, and the early settlers are known to have migrated here from Norway and Denmark, the researchers deduced the the female footprints indicating shorter women are in fact those of young teenagers and children, not adult females, and that they would have been gathering shrimps, razor clams and other sea food from the reed beds bordering the lagoons and creeks. The male footprints trails, which are often deeper, appear to be tracking the red and roe deer, however, as the deeper footprints indicate an increase of speed as they hunted wild animals for food. 

The overall impression from the footprints, including several showing deformities such as missing toes, is of family groups searching for food along the prehistoric shore. Best of all though, is a site showing a turmoil of tiny sun-hardened footprints, evoking the image of a small group of carefree children mud-larking one baking hot summer day five thousand years ago.

I am, of course, hooked now. And there is a lot more to discover. Maybe one day some of it will feature in one of my books. In the meantime I'll visit those footprints often and try to imagine what life would have been like living here so many thousands of years ago.

The Play's the Thing...

 

find my books here!

When writing my novels I often lean for help on my time in educational, community, and just-for-fun theatrical productions. 

Why? STRUCTURE!

When involved in theater, either before or behind the footlights, either acting or directing or stage managing or providing costumes or lighting...I got to hear the play sliced diced, taken apart, tinkered and experimented with, then put back together and performed, with high hopes, towards the delight of audiences. It this process the structure comes through!

Choose the best, you'll be living with it for awhile!

Some of what I learned: 

1. If it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage!  Translated: if I'm going to spend all this time with a project, it had better be well written! So I've always tried to find good theater or movie projects to give my time to. For my books: SAME...anything less than striving for excellence is not worth my time.

2. Plays are about PEOPLE, just like novels. In my first draft, I am also creating a cast list, a dramatis personae in theater. Who's who? Are they all necessary to tell my story? Do two perform the same function and so can be combined, or one of them eliminated? Are they of various ages, genders, backgrounds to help my story have multiple perspective and generations?

3. Plays are composed of SCENES. So are books. I find it more helpful to look at my manuscript as scenes, rather than chapters, then dissect...do I have too many scenes in the same room or place? Do I mix up daytime and nighttime locations? Does each scene have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and a consistent point of view? Will each scene leave the reader satisfied and/or wanting more?

scenes: leave 'em hanging, when necessary!

WWC Festival For Readers and Writers - Online again and free

                                Please click this link for book and purchase information

My favourite writing festival, When Words Collide will be happening August 13-15, 2021. This year's online event will feature a full program with up to ten options every hour from Friday to Sunday. Most events will take place on Zoom. The festival is free, but you have to register in advance to prevent Zoom bombers from disrupting the panels and presentations. 

This year I'll be participating in six events, the most I've done since I attended the inaugural WWC ten years ago. A few of my panels were carried over from last year's cancelled in-person festival. The others are topics that appealed to me and needed volunteers to fill remaining spots. WWC is entirely organized and presented by volunteers, which contributes to its atmosphere of equality among writers and readers. 

  

"Roaring Twenties" banquet: me with author Will Ferguson at WWC - this year's socials will be online 

Friday, August 13th, I'll be driving back to Calgary from a hiking holiday in Jasper, Alberta. I hope to get home in time for the keynote speeches by the festival's five special guest authors. These are often thought provoking, hilarious, or both. 

My first panel, Chapter One: Your Debut Book, is scheduled for Saturday at noon. I'll moderate a group discussion on the experience of publishing a first book and how to attract readers. This is a timely topic for me, since my new novel will be released in August. Much has changed since my first book appeared ten years ago, but I hope to apply what I've learned to our increasingly digital world. 

            Signing Ten Days in Summer, book # 2 of my Paula Savard mystery series, at my book launch

Next on tap is Killer Dialogue, a panel about how to make your evil characters sound evil but real. My contribution to this topic might be different from that of my fellow panelists, since my bad guys tend to be regular people who do bad things and simply talk like themselves. Some of the other panelists write 'noir' books with heavier lingo. I'll probably learn as much from them as the viewers who tune into the discussion. 

Then, for something completely different, is a panel called Prophet and Loss: Cults and Extreme Beliefs in Fiction. My last novel, To Catch a Fox, was primarily set at a cult-like retreat in California. Despite the costumes, life at the story's New Dawn Retreat is a touch more mainstream than the experience of one of my fellow panelists, a former member of the Unification Church, colloquially called the "Moonies."   

I enjoyed dressing my characters in costumes like these at the retreat in To Catch a Fox 

Saturday night features social activities on Zoom. I skipped these last year, but people said they were almost like the real live thing. Especially popular were break-out rooms, where attendees got to know others in small groups. I hope to get involved this year, dressed in my pajamas from the waist down. 

Sunday I'm back at ten a.m. on a panel called Book Clubs for Readers. I've belonged to the same book club for 25 years, although the membership has changed through time. We all met though a group organized by the Calgary Public Library and used to meet at the Fish Creek branch. Since last September we've been getting together on Zoom. The online platform has worked well to keep our group going, but we look forward to discussing books in person next fall. 

The last minute addition to my schedule is a panel titled Imagery, Theme and Titles Aren't So Tough. I find all three of these tough at times, but interesting. My first writing instructors taught me to start each story with an image. While I can't say I've continued to do this all or most of the time, it was a good way to learn fiction writing. What makes the perfect title? I think it's often one that ties imagery and theme together on multiple levels. For instance, the title "A Red Balloon" (I made this up) might be a story with an actual red balloon. As the story progresses, the balloon and its colour signify meanings of increasing depth.    

Finally, this year I'll be doing my first WWC presentation: In the Beginning is the Sentence. Editor Tania Therien and I will geek-out on sentences. We'll talk about opening sentences, sentence length and type, sentences we've loved and hated, what makes a sentence a sing? We both feel out of our comfort zones, but trust we'll pull each other through. We also secretly hope that by our time slot - four p.m. Sunday afternoon - listeners will be too tired from the busy weekend to notice our goofs.  

My presentation and five panels are a small portion of the hundreds of offerings at When Words Collide next month. This online year is a chance for non-Calgarians to check the program out.  There's bound to be something for anyone interested in writing or reading books. In 2022 WWC hopes to return to its usual Calgary hotel, but  probably with online components.     

  

         

You Learn the Funniest Things When Reading, by Karla Stover

 

                

 I just finished Duet in Diamonds: The flamboyant Saga of Lillian Russell and Diamond Jim Brady in America's Gilded Age. Both characters are in the book I'm working on so I was looking for info about them. That's where I came across hokey pokey. 

When I was growing up, the hokey pokey was a silly dance for kids, but now I know it's more than that. Hokey Pokey has a history. Who knew? It actually dates to 1857. According to todayifoundout.com, in 1857, two sisters from Canterbury, England who were visiting Bridgewater, NH, brought a little English/Scottish ditty with accompanying gestures across the pond.  The song is thought to be based on the Scottish “Hinkum-Booby.” (“Booby” here referring to the “stupid” definition, rather than the more modern alternative definition you might think of when shaking things about.) The song went a little something like this: 

I put my right hand in,
I put my right hand out,
In out, in out.
shake it all about.

Now, skip ahead eighty-three years when, "during the Blitz in London, a Canadian officer suggested writing an action party song to English bandleader Al Tabor. The song’s title, “The Hokey Pokey,” was supposedly in homage to an ice cream vendor from Tabor’s childhood, who would call out “Hokey pokey penny a lump.  Have a lick make you jump.”  In this case, “hokey pokey” was supposedly a slang at the time for ice cream and the ice cream seller was called the “hokey pokey man”. That's how the term was referred to in the memoir I read--it was in reference to a New York ice cream vendor. That fits with New Zealand where a hokey pokey is an ice cream flavor consisting of plain vanilla ice cream with small, solid lumps of honeycomb toffee. (Hokey pokey is the New Zealand term for honeycomb toffee.)

Of course, claims abound.

Some say "the song originated with Scottish Puritans in the UK as an anti-Catholic taunt. A “hokey cokey was supposed to be a jab at the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, the belief that the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Christ during the Mass."

More recently, though, if the 1940s can still be considered "recent" , Gerry Hoey, a British band-

leader claimed authorship under the title "The Hoey Oka."

In 1944, two musicians from Scranton PA named Robert Degan and Joe Brier made a record of a song called “The Hokey Pokey Dance.” It provided amusement and entertainment to the summer crowds at Poconos resorts. 

Four years later, "Charles Mack, Taft Baker and Larry Laprise, a group known as The Ram Trio, made their own version of the song, which is closer to the version we all know and love today." When Degan and Brier heard about it, they accused Laprise for "ripping off their song" and sued. "Laprise’s lawyers must have been top-notch, because even though his version of the song was released after Degan and Brier’s, Laprise walked away with the rights to the “Hokey Pokey Dance.”"

I want to work a hokey pokey ice cream vendor into my book, but the use will require an explanation for the reader.

No matter. I wouldn't have learned this delightful history if I wasn't a reader myself.

Friendstrip (No, it's not misspelled)

Baldwin, Barbara - Digital and Print EBooks (bookswelove.net)

 FRIENDSTRIP (No, it’s not misspelled)

 

               Friendstrip: the act of traveling (or hanging out) with another who adds

                passion and humor to your sense of adventure.

                As the COVID restrictions are easing somewhat, I have been thinking more and more about getting back to traveling; if not worldwide then at least within my immediate area. That means it’s time to awaken my dear friends and make plans for a friendstrip. Do you have people you can call with an “are you ready?” and they say “yes” without even knowing what you have planned? It might only be a coffee date and a browse through your favorite store. Ours was Pier One, but now that it’s closed, we need to find another. This is what happens when we visit a Pier One:

                “Look at this coffee mug,” I say, turning to face my friend, who has the exact same mug in her hand.

                “Isn’t this the cutest ornament?” I hold up a small reindeer with loose, dangly legs.

                “Mm-hmm,” she replies, trying to hide the two she already has in her basket – one for her and one for me.

                It’s not that we’re twins or anything. In fact, we couldn’t be more “not” alike. I’m at least fifteen years older than her. She wears beautiful flowing dresses; her red hair pulled up with flowers in it and gorgeous eye makeup and I…well, I do not.

I have found that traveling with another is not always easy; however it usually takes a trip to find out that you’re not compatible for long hours in a car; you have completely different ideas on what constitutes fine cuisine and you’re a night owl and your hotel roommate is not. Some of my trips have led to me imagining less than desirable consequences. You know the kind I’m talking about – like how long a jail term I’d get for throwing my travel companion off a bridge.

That is not the case with this particular friend and the train trip we took to Michigan. Well, the train went from Kansas City to Grand Rapids, then we proceeded north by car, stopping along the way whenever and wherever we wanted. We generally arrived at our reservations late but we were in no hurry. We ate in little, out of the way places like the “Real Food Café” and “The Wicked Sister”, toured turn of the century reenactment villages and talked non-stop. Of course, you can’t go on a friendstrip without mishaps. We parked along Lake Michigan to wad and however it happened, my friend landed on her fanny in shallow water, but definitely deep enough to get completely wet. As any good friend would do, I first took a picture, and then I laughed.

Traveling to Mackinac Island involves a ferry, lots of breeze and the chance to reenact “Titanic.” As writers, we weren’t on a research mission but everything about the island swamped our senses and triggered our muses. I later used much of the island as setting inspiration for “Prelude and Promises”, a contemporary set on a fictional island off the Washington coast.

                You can’t go to Mackinac Island without visiting the Grand Hotel, setting for the epic movie “Somewhere in Time.” I will say I am probably one of only a handful who hasn’t seen the movie because I read the book and didn’t like how it ended. However, in my opinion, the Grand doesn’t hold a candle to the Murray Hotel, right across the street from the ferry harbor, because the Murray Hotel is haunted.

               

We arrived on the afternoon ferry and checked in, depositing our suitcases, barely opening them before we went out exploring. When we returned, I found my copper ring on the floor next to my open suitcase; however I hadn’t opened my jewelry bag beforehand. The next morning after breakfast, we returned to the room to ready ourselves for sightseeing. My friend couldn’t find her sunglasses, which she swore were in her suitcase. After long minutes of searching, she found them behind the huge wardrobe that housed the TV and that sat next to her suitcase. Both strange incidents but easily explained as negligence on our parts.

                However, (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?) the day we were to leave, I was out getting some last minute post cards and she texted me that the porter was there to get our luggage for the ferry and needed our return tickets. I told her exactly where they were – in the zipped pocket of my carry bag, which sat on the extra chair across the room from the bed and which hadn’t been moved in the three days we were there. She couldn’t find them; the ferry was going to leave without us, so I hurried back to the hotel. After thoroughly searching all our luggage and purses, we started looking in everything in the room and bathroom, although I had made a point of putting the tickets where they wouldn’t get lost. Sometime later, I looked under the bed and there, lying on the carpet just past the bed skirt, were the two pink tickets needed to get us back on the ferry. They were the length of the bed and a chair from where my purse sat. Neither of us had any trouble believing our room was haunted. This is what friendstrip is all about! You can’t come home without a story!

               

We continued our trip through the Upper Peninsula, staying in a lighthouse B&B, taking a boat ride out to Painted Rocks, touring the locks and visiting a coffee shop that would also outfit you for kayaking and paddle boarding. The few rules for a great friendstrip are 1) you don’t eat or drink at anyplace you have at home, 2) you do things you don’t do at home (like stay in lighthouses and ride horse-drawn carriages,) and 3) you believe in magic.

               

I found a unique clock at a little shop in Sault Ste. Marie that explains friendstrip. You’ll note it doesn’t have the traditional numerals but rather is made with a compass. As with all my good friends, we are willing to go in any direction, at most any time or for any amount of time, and we never go straight but rather tend to zig and zag as the winds of adventure send us.

                I challenge you to take a friendstrip. It doesn’t have to be long, or exotic or expensive. But there’s nothing better when you’re out exploring than to be able to turn to a friend and say, “Oh my gosh, would you look at that!”

 

Barb Baldwin

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/