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/

 

 

Why Write Fan Fiction When You Could Write Something that REALLY Blows? by Vanessa C. Hawkins

 Vanessa Hawkins Author Page

Get it? Blows... if not then read the title again, and strap in for a punderful time with your favorite fun-loving blogger/extrovert, needs-to-get-out-in-the-sun-more, weirdo. 

I know, I know... I only have one... and it's in my room.

So for those of you who don't know what fan fiction is, allow me to explain. Fan fiction is when you watch the first four seasons of Supernatural, realize that the subsequent seasons suck and Dean is obviously meant to be with Castiel, and finally after a stupid amount of time writing alternate realities in your mind, you post these alternate realities--which are obviously better and why the producers of the show didn't contact me about my ideas, I'll never know-- on the internet. 

Did you catch that? No? Okay... how about this!

Though I must admit I never actually posted my fan fiction on the internet, in retrospect I'm glad I didn't. It was entirely the fault of dial-up, mind you--the age old tradition of using one's phone line to obtain a crappy internet connection. But it was enough to keep my alternate ideas away from the public eye or becoming something like Fifty Shades. 

Yes, that's right. I'm old. PlayStation 1 old...

There's a PlayStation 5 now?!

Also yes, Fifty Shades started out as a fan fiction... and yes... UGH! I still hate it.

So, I'm not saying that fan fiction is lame. I mean a lot of it is... and a lot of it's just smutty bullhump that some people like ejaculating online, *COUGH!* E. L. James **COUGH COUGH!** but not all of it's bad! I promise! In fact, my first foray into writing fanfics--that's a little word we pros like to use to seem like we know a thing or two--was definitely what got me on the path to published writer bliss! And despite my fan fiction being anything BUT cool, it was practice, and practice makes perfect...

or at least it made me a less crappy writer...

Ahem! You weren't supposed to laugh at that...

But my point--and yes I sometimes DO have one--is that although fan fiction is a self-indulgent mess that we love developing and getting into, sometimes we ought to turn off Pornhub, go out into the world, and find a human being by ourselves that we can love and cherish and make ours forever and ever and ever!

Buffalo Bill gets what I'm sayin'!

I mean, copyright aside, I'd be cool with peeps writing fan fiction of MY work. It meant I had a fan! But then again, I'm not so sure I'd recommend any aspiring writer to get one foot in the door by doing that unless you want to change pretty much everything to avoid lawsuits. 

Did you know Christian Gray was really Edward Cullen? Did you know what's-her-face was really Bella Swan? E. L. James proves that anything can be possible! But I wouldn't bank on those re-written fanfic bucks just yet...

In fact, some writer's vehemently oppose it. Look at ol' George...

We would the blog be without George? 

He believes that it's a bad route to being a professional writer. Build your own worlds and characters! he says! I tend to agree with him... though I also agree actually finishing what you started to write is good advice too... *hint hint George* 

So! I guess the moral of the story is: Write Fan Fiction! Make bucks! But be sure to change just enough around so Lionel Huts doesn't come knocking at your door...                                                                                                Or!--the alternative--Don't Write Fan Fiction! Don't even finish your series! Make bucks! Sell out and help produce a great series on HBO that ends like a blind date with bad breath. 

Yes... I signed the Game of Thrones Petition...

And no, I have no idea what I'm doing. No one does. At least that's what I tell myself at night to feel better. 

Just do you and have fun so later you can go back to crying over your manuscript in peace...

Where are my fan fiction or didn't finish my work in progress BUCKS? *cries*

 

Weather Expressions by J. S. Marlo

 

J. S. Marlo's BWL Books

I’m in Calgary visiting my son. It’s 38C (100F) outside and it’s not 3pm yet. It wouldn’t have mattered if I stayed home in Northern Alberta since the heat wave is pretty much cooking the entire province to a crisp.

 

I’m not a summer person and I don’t function well in the heat. I would pick -40C (-40F) over +40C (+104F) any day of the year. I stumbled onto that quote yesterday: “I better get my act together…I couldn’t take hell’s heat”. I’m not sure I want to get my act together, but I don’t doubt this Canadian girl would never survive hell’s heat LOLOL

 

Since I have a few hours to kill until I must take granddoggie for a quick walk, I decided to browse the Internet for weather expressions and their meanings. Here’s what I found...

 

-       If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen

Meaning: If you can't cope with or handle the pressure in a given situation, you should remove yourself from that​ situation

 

-       To turn the heat on someone

Meaning: To pressure someone

 

-       In the heat of the moment

Meaning: At a moment when one is overly angry, excited, or eager, without pausing to consider the consequences

 

-       A breath of fresh air

Meaning: A relief in the form of a person or a situation

 

-       A ray of sunshine

Meaning: Someone or something that brings happiness

 

-       To be on cloud nine

Meaning: To be very happy

 

-       To have your head in the clouds

Meaning: To not know what is going on around you

 

-       To chase rainbows

Meaning: To pursue unrealistic goals

 

-       When it rains, it pours

Meaning: When one thing goes wrong, some other things will also go wrong

 

-       To take a rain check

Meaning: To decline an invitation that you may accept another time

 

-       To rain cats and dogs

Meaning: To rain heavily

 

-       To spit in the wind

Meaning: To waste time on something futile

 

-       To steal someone’s thunder

Meaning: To upstage someone

 

-       To feel under the weather

Meaning: To feel unwell or ill

 

-       To weather a storm

Meaning: To survive a dangerous or difficult time

 

-       A storm in a teacup

Meaning: Unnecessary anger or worry about an unimportant or trivial matter

 

-       To knock someone cold

Meaning: To strike someone so hard that they lose consciousness.

 

-       Revenge is a dish best served cold

Meaning: Revenge that takes place far in the future, after the offending party has forgotten how they wronged someone, is much more satisfying.

 

-       To be snowed under

Meaning: To be extremely busy with work or things to do

 

-       A snowbird

Meaning: Someone who leaves their home to stay in a warmer climate during the winter months.

 

-       In the dead of winter

Meaning: The coldest, darkest part of winter

 

I like winter and I’m French Canadian, so my favorite weather is actually a French expression: Faire un froid de canard. It means “to be bitterly cold”, but it literally translates to “to be a duck’s cold”.

When it’s really, really cold, we say “Il fait un froid de canard” (“It’s duck’s cold”). Why? Because the best duck hunting days are in the winter, when hunters have to keep still for long periods in freezing cold weather in order to allow their prey to get close enough to be shot. Thus, that bitter cold that seeps into the bones is known as un froid de canard.

 

Side note: I didn’t know the origin of the saying until I looked it up ten minutes ago, but my father loved saying it.

 

My brain is fried and I have a doggie to take outside, so that will be all for today.

 

Stay cool and stay safe! Happy reading!

JS 

 

 

 

J. S. Marlo's Website

 

Low Tide, High Hopes by Jay Lang

 

Jay Lang BWL Author page https://www.bookswelove.com/lang-jay/

In an overstuffed creative writing class, I managed to extract one impactful sentence out of the day’s instruction: “Write about what you know.” With this in mind, I embarked upon my first novel, Hush, and set it against the rustic backdrop of Gabriola Island. I lived there with my father and his then wife when I was in my late teens. Imprinted in my memory as a magical place were the serene beaches and the untouched forests – the perfect setting for my first book. 

 

Delving into my memory of the small island, I outlined a murder plot, creating diverse, colorful characters, and then put pen to paper (or fingers to keys.) By the time I'd finished the first paragraph, I was already transported to Silva Bay, my bare feet in the cool sand, soft summer wind dancing around me, and at my ear the cadence of the small swells landing on the shore. I had started out on my journey. 

 

To their credit and my benefit, the locals were open and generous with information about Gabriola. They were excited that my story took place on their little island. The local newspaper even did a great interview with me about my upcoming novel. 

Like any first-time writer, I was insecure about how Hush would be received. However, when I saw messages on my Facebook page from those who’d read it and then gone to Gabriola to find the locations mentioned in the story, I realized the response was very positive. Some people were kind enough to send pictures of their findings. Very cool!

 https://www.bookswelove.com/lang-jay/

 

Women's Fashions in the First Half of the 14th Century ~ Part Two by Rosemary Morris

 

To see more of Rosemary's work please click on the cover.

 

Women’s Fashion in the First Half of the 14^th Century

Part Two

 

In my novels Yvonne, Lady of Cassio, Volume One of The Lovages of Cassio, and in Grace, Lady of Cassio, Volume Two, which begins in 1331, (to be published in August 2021) I describe the characters’ clothes to help readers visualise the protagonists. As I write, I imagine the contrasts between wealthy ladies’ sumptuous apparel, well-to-do women, and poor people’s clothes.

Stockings

Stockings were supported by garters, strips of wool or linen, often embroidered, above or below the knees. Women who could afford them wore stockings made from either wool or linen. Poor women wore coarse woollen ones which, I imagine, were itchy.

Footwear

Shoes with points at the big toe were cut well and shaped to fit either foot around the ankle. They were fastened with laces on the inner or outer edge. Other shoes were designed like slippers, cut away over the instep and fastened with a strap and buckle around the ankle.

Wealthy women’s footwear was often embellished either with embroidery or charming patterns of squares, dots or flowers punched into the leather.

Short boots for walking, and possibly riding, ended below the calf, and were usually laced on the inner side or, occasionally on the outer.

Hair and Headwear

Women plaited their hair and coiled it around their ears. Their hair was always completely covered in various ways.

A veil and wimple.

A veil held in place by a fillet.

A barbette, a strip of linen passed under the chin and on either side of the face over a hairnet secured by hairpins.

A fret, hairnet, often brightly coloured.

Many pins were required to secure each of these headdresses.

Hoods were always worn by country women, and by other women when travelling and for warmth.

Accessories

Gloves were worn by women of every class. Wealthy ladies wore linen gloves to protect their hands from sunburn.

Aprons did not have bibs and tied around the waist. They were worn by ladies to protect expensive clothes and by working class women. Sometimes a band of embroidery decorated them below the waist.

Jewellery. Made of gold or silver set with precious stones, rings, brooches, buckles etc.

Girdles either plain or ornamented with gold or silver, sometimes set with gemstones, or worn around the hips and buckled or tied in front.

 

www.rosemarymorris.co.uk    

 

http://bookswelove.net/authors/morris-rosemary