How I Became a Published Author by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

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

 

I took a few writing courses and began my published, writing career (as opposed to my unpublished writing career) with a short story titled  A Hawk's Reluctant Flight, in a small magazine called Western People. With that on my short resume, I had travel and historical articles accepted by other magazines, one of which didn't pay anything to the author. Then I took another writing course and one of the speakers was Grant Kennedy owner of Lone Pine Publishing in Edmonton, Alberta.

       At the time Alberta was divided into tourist zones and I had been thinking about doing a book on what there was to see and do in each zone. I sent a query letter to Lone Pine Publishing and the senior editor responded with a phone call. We set up a time for me to go to the city and meet with her and Grant Kennedy.      

      I outlined my idea and Grant said yes it was a good one but he thought that the books should be more on the people and culture of each zone. He liked his idea and I liked mine so we decided we couldn't work together. As I stood to leave I said. "Well, at least as I research the zones I will see all the backroads of Alberta." He replied. "I've always want to do a book on the backroads of Alberta." I sat back down and that was how I began my backroads series. Over the next ten years I travelled through and wrote two books on Alberta, four books on British Columbia and one on the Yukon and Alaska.
       My favourite books to read have always been mystery novels and after much thought I decided to write one. Since one of the mantras of writing is to write what you know I made my main character a travel writer. She was headed to southern Alberta to do research for a magazine and was drawn into the mystery of a skeleton found in a septic tank. When I was finished I sent it out to a few publishers. One wrote back that they liked it but my travel background was coming out and I had too much travel information in it. I was asked to remove some. So I did and resent my manuscript. Again, I was asked to cut back on the travel info. Again I did. The third time I was told that this was a mystery and I should stick with the mystery and leave out the travel stuff. I wrote back and said that the main character is a travel writer and is working on an article. She is not going to drop that and concentrate on the mystery. So needless to say we parted ways.
      I sent out the manuscript again and another publisher said they were interested in publishing it. They had one stipulation and that was that I should add in more travel information.
      I sent the second novel of what I was calling my Travelling Detective Series to the same publisher. After about a five month wait I received a letter that told me the publishing house had been bought out by another one and that my manuscript and all my information had been sent to them. I waited a few months the emailed the new publisher to find out what was happening. A couple of days later I received an email stating that they had no record of my manuscript. My heart sunk. But a few days after that I received an email from another editor at the publishing house that they had found my manuscript and they wanted to publish it.
       However, in the time between that email and the publishing date for my novel, the publishing house was sold again. The new owner was going to honour my contracts, but in the future wasn't going to publish mysteries. I knew there was no use sending my third manuscript to that publisher and after checking around I sent it to Books We Love. They immediately accepted it and e-published it. After two years of talking with my former publisher I was able to get the rights to my first two novels of the series and now all three are published with Books We Love Ltd. as a boxed set.

     Since then I have published one more mystery novel, two young adult historical, and one adult historical romance, Romancing the Klondike through Books We Love. The sequel to that historical romance, Rushing the Klondike, will be out in September 2022.

 

Seasons and Stories by Victoria Chatham

 

COMING IN JUNE

It is now officially Spring 2022. In my part of the world, it still doesn’t feel like it. I envy friends in England who have posted pictures of gardens full of colour, from gorgeous golden daffodils to blue grape hyacinths and multi-coloured primulas. I wonder how many authors use not just the weather the seasons in creating their settings.

April has a hopeful sense of the summer to come, but Charles Dickens writes: Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade, which speaks to the duality in this more than any other season of the year.

Writers look for ways to enhance the drama in their plots and the nuances of their characters, either physically or metaphorically. Just as we sometimes use the weather to create a mood or direct the way a scene goes, we can use the seasons in both our settings and in our characters’ perspectives.

I have certainly used the seasons in my books. My character, Emmaline, is abducted on a perfect September afternoon in my first Regency romance. By the time she is rescued and returns home, it is a whole month later, and the trees in the estate park have already turned colour.

In the second Regency, a lot of the book takes place at sea and in Jamaica, but Juliana calculates that she left England in January, and it’s now September. The seasons are not plot lines in either book, but more indicate the timeline.

In One for the Money, Janet Evanovich uses the season to describe Stephanie Plum’s New Jersey ‘hood: During summer months, the air sat still and gauzy, leaden with humidity, saturated with hydrocarbons. It shimmered over hot cement and melted road tar.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling writes of fall: Autumn seemed to arrive early that year. The morning of the first of September was crisp and golden as an apple.

In the movie The Winter Guest, set in northern Scotland, the husband of Emma Thompson’s character Frances dies suddenly, leaving Frances distraught. Her mother (in real life and in the movie), played by Phyllida Law, comes to stay with her. The film opens with a shot of the mother walking across frozen fields and with the camera later panning across a frozen sea. Set in any other season but winter, I’m not sure that Frances’ grief would have seemed so soul-deep. The bleakness of the setting seemed to represent the bleakness in her soul and vice versa.

Just as light and shade, time of day, rain or sunshine influence the moods we try to create for our characters, so can the season lead our readers through the seasons of our stories.

Victoria Chatham

  AT BOOKS WE LOVE

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Humorous cozies and book awards

 

 Dean L. Hovey's BWL Author Page - Details and Purchase Links

 With Whistling Bake Off being released on May 1, I felt it was a good time to talk about writing cozies and the experiences I've had with them.

My first cozy, Whistling Pines, was unintended. I'd published several hard-boiled mysteries. My friend Brian suggested that I include his hometown in a future book. Pointing out that his hometown wasn't within the geography of my Pine County mystery series didn't deter him. So, while awaiting the return of editorial input on an upcoming book, I tapped into our experiences with aging parents in a variety of care centers. I wrote two humorous chapters, set in Brian's hometown of Two Harbors. I thought I was done.

He took the chapters and returned the next day with stacks of notecards outlining plots, characters, and locations. "You've got a good start. Use these to guide you onward." Thus began the journey into cozies. 

It hasn't been a totally positive experience. The fans of my hard-boiled Pine County mysteries weren't universally excited about the nearly bloodless cozies. But I discovered an entirely new audience. Brian's wife initially couldn't believe that the Whistling Pines books were being written by the same person who was writing the bloody, intense Pine County books and suggested that I was using a ghost writer. I assured him that a car accident resulting in a concussion has allowed me to slip between genre.

One reader likened cozies to watching a Hallmark movie. As she put it, "I can read these in the evening and the plots don't keep me awake." Unlike my first Pine County mystery which my mother reported, "has kept me awake two nights checking the windows and doors."

A now defunct publisher submitted Whistling Pines to an awards competition. It didn't win, but two of the judges took me aside to tell me that they'd laughed all the way through the book and loved the characters. The winning book was a "tear-jerker", not a humorous cozy. The judges apparently preferred crying to laughter.

Inspired by the request for submissions to the Northeastern Minnesota Book Award, which requests nominations for books representing the lifestyle and culture of a northeastern Minnesota location, Whistling Pirates has been submitted for the 2022 NEMBA award, winners to be announced in October. 

Whistling Pirates investigates the death of a recreational sailor of the eve of Two Harbors' First Annual Buccaneer Days Festival. It brings in the deep Scandinavian roots of the area, including the two Lutheran churches across the street from each other; One established by Swedish immigrants. The other by Norwegians, Each celebrating services in their native tongue into the 1950s. The Sons of Norway move their annual lutefisk feed to the festival weekend and host a lutefisk throwing contest. And there's lots of discussion about the seasonal weather, regional tourism, and local tourist attractions.

There's a sailing regatta, a discussion of Lake Superior fishing, and a brief discussion of Great Lakes piracy. Yes, there were pirates on the Great Lakes. Not Captain Kidd, but small opportunists who took advantage of disabled vessels, or who built fires on the shore to lure sailors onto the rocky shoreline.

There's also a "naturist" cruise. The senior citizen residents of Whistling Pines sign up: Half anticipating a bird watching cruise. The other half expecting nudity. Discussion ensues about the idiocy of a nudist cruise on Lake Superior where the deep water rarely exceeds two degrees above the freezing point.

Come October we'll see if the NEMBA judges like the Whistling Pirates take on the lifestyle and culture of Two Harbors. In the meanwhile, check out Whistling up a Ghost and Whistling Pirates at the BWL Publishing website in preparation for the release of Whistling Bake Off:

www.bookswelove.net/hovey-dean/

How Far to Stretch the Truth in Your Writing, by Diane Scott Lewis

 

“A rich plot with building suspense, the writing is perfect and flows well. I loved this story.”   ~History and Women~

Purchase Ghost Point: Ghost Point

To purchase my novels and other BWL books: BWL

In the beginning of my writing career I was certain you couldn't move events around to suit your story. But then I read a note in a Sharon Kay Penman novel where she said she moved a battle up six months for dramatic purposes. Then I knew if you listed your 'changes' you should get away with it.

Years ago I wrote a novel that takes place on Saint Helena during Napoleon's final exile. But I wanted a twist at the end where he slips away to America. This was the farthest I've stretched the truth, or changed events, though others have hinted at the possibility, or (later on) written fictional accounts of an escape. Now I've come across a few other novels in which the French Emperor escapes his island prison. I tried to write it to where it made perfect sense and it could have actually happened. Agents at the time were horrified that I would even attempt it. No imagination!

Years later, I reviewed a novel not listed as a fantasy set in the fourteenth century where the heroine is eating tomatoes in England. Tomatoes weren't discovered by Europeans until the New World of the Americas were explored a century later. I asked the author about it. She laughed it off and said she knew.

But no author note? I mentioned in my review that she purposely had anachronisms in her novel.

Could a man survive a ship explosion in the eighteenth century and be lost for years? And the Admiralty determined there were no survivors? Well, you need to make it plausible for the reader. And you're not changing history, only stretching the likelihood that this is possible. Check out my novel, Hostage to the Revolution to find out if you agree. But to get the full story, start with Escape the Revolution.

In my recent novel Ghost Point, I do change history by combining three years of the Oyster Wars over the Potomac River into one season. I needed the drama, the murder, that happened later to enrich my plot. I made certain to mention that events were compressed for dramatic purposes.

In Rose's Precarious Quest, a novel about a woman who strives to be a doctor in the 18th c., but discovers disturbing secrets in her new village, I throw in a touch of magic near the end, though most of the novel is grounded in reality. What powers does that stone ring contain? Did the ring glow that fateful night when the villain chased after Rose's sister, or was it the protagonist's overwrought imagination?

If you want to stretch the truth, or move events around, annotate it in your author notes for readers to see. Make it as plausible as possible.

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

To find out more about her and her books:  DianeScottLewis

Focused on Story--Reading, Writing, Teaching, Listening by J.Q. Rose #BWLpublishing

Arranging a Dream: A Memoir by J.Q.Rose
Click here to find romantic suspense novels by J. Q. Rose from BWL Publishing

Reading, writing and listening to stories.

The title of my author blog is Focused on Story. I chose the title because I love stories!! Reading them. Writing them. Listening to them. Teaching how to write or record them. 

JQ presenting a life storytelling workshop

I broke into the writing business after we sold our flower shop and greenhouse operation in 1995. (uh-oh..that may be a spoiler if you're reading my memoir, Arranging a Dream!) 

Pumpkins growing in our garden. 

I had written stories and poems all my life. My dream was to write those stories and share them with readers, hoping to enrich their lives with my words. After selling the shop in 1995 and being an empty nester, I had the time to make this dream come true.

 I collected all of my courage to ask the regional newspaper editor, Rich Wheater if he would be interested in having some features on people and businesses in our local area. He asked me to submit an article, so I did. In October, I wrote about a local farm family who raised pumpkins and sold the plump beauties displayed in long lines in the front yard of their farmhouse. Rich accepted the story and many more that I penned about West Michigan. 

I learned a lot about reporting for a newspaper and about writing crisp, to-the-point articles. I did not like it when Rich had to shorten the story to make way for advertisements! That's when I learned all the essentials, such as location, people or business names, time and dates for events, had to be at the beginning of the article. I always appreciated his editing the articles to improve their readability. 

When we decided to make our fifth-wheel camper our home full-time in 1998, I wrote about the RV industry for magazines and newspapers as we meandered across the country. I also wrote for e-zines, now known as online magazines, as a garden editor. The internet became my go-to for research on my articles and for publication.

After a while, I tired of writing non-fiction stories and turned to penning fictional stories, a love of mine since I was in second grade. The result, so far, are three mystery novels and a memoir published by BWL Publishing, as well as self-published non-fiction books and lots of short stories. Making up stories reminds me of the joy of writing and sharing when I was 7 years old. Still a kid at heart.

I am a Life Storytelling Evangelist!

Several years ago, a member of our writers' critique group brought in her grandfather's journal he had written when he lived in London during the 1850s. I was enthralled with his account of life in that era. At that moment, I decided I wanted to record my life story for our kids and for their kids and so on.

5 Reasons to Tell Your Story

That grew from my desire to tell my story to presenting workshops on writing and life storytelling. The biggest hurdle to overcome for many new storytellers is the idea their life story is not worth telling. That is not true.

Our lives are filled with extraordinarily ordinary moments.  Our souls are illuminated by them.  Sharing them around the hearths of our hearts, we become tellers of sacred tales, artists of our lives.         --Dr. Susan Wittig Alberta, Writing from Life

Taking the advice I give to my workshop participants to sit down and write their stories, I combined my experience in non-fiction reporting and my storytelling skills in fiction, to write my memoir. 

Arranging a Dream: A Memoir, the award-winning best-seller, published by BWL Publishing, is a feel-good story about the first year my husband and I purchased and operated a floral shop and greenhouse business in 1975-76. We had no experience in the floral business (or any business for that matter), no friends or family in the town. We gave up our two check income with no guarantee of success, and I had no idea how to design a flower arrangement!!

Reviewers described the memoir as "inspiring, fascinating, and heart-warming."  The book was truly my "heart-work."

Listening to Stories

 Do you remember listening to your teacher read a story to your class? Mrs. Beyer, my 8th grade, yes 8th-grade teacher, always read a story after lunch. Even at 13-14 years old, our class loved listening to her. I had to read the heart-wrenching ending to Charlotte's Web because Mrs. Beyer was so emotional, she couldn't continue. Have you read Charlotte's Web? You'll understand.

When I taught third grade, I made a point to read to my kids after lunch every day. Every year, I read Charlotte's Web, and we all shared a teary moment. 

Audiobooks take the place of my beloved teacher reading the story. Instead, I can listen to amazing stories anytime I wish. I have discovered Libby, an app connected to your local library so you can download audiobooks on your device. I always wonder if I can say I "read" a book when I have actually listened to the audiobook. It makes no difference how I discover a story, just as long as I can read or listen to it.

****

Click here to connect online with JQ Rose through her author blog, Focused on Story.

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Celebrate Earth Day on April 22, 2022

Earth Day April 22, 2022
Quote by Rachel Carson

Starting Over by Helen Henderson

Fire and Amulet by Helen Henderson
Click the cover for purchase information

Spring is traditionally a time for renewal and starting over. Gardens are turned over. Seedlings are  lovingly cared for until the ground warms enough for planting. Even the trees shed the last of the puff balls that stubbornly clung to the branches through ice and snow storm. In a way, this post represents a transition much as the warming temperatures of spring replace the more frigid ones of winter. The fantasy series, the Windmaster Novels, is now complete and a new tale is begun. The parting of ways with Ellspeth, Dal, and the other mages is replaced by the welcoming of new friends, Deneas and Trelleir.

Fire and Amulet is a twist on a dragon shifter tale. Trelleir is the last dragon. Desperate for companionship, he uses his magic to take on human form. Deneas is his best friend. There is just one problem. She is a slayer, sworn to kill all dragons.

New projects can take on different forms. Some reveal themselves in a sequence of scenes, rolling through your mind like a movie. Others fight every step of the way, refusing to divulge what comes next.Then just when you think you're done, the characters refuse to leave. Whether there will be more adventures of slayer and dragon remains to be seen. Until the decision is made, learn about her world as Deneas explores it.

To help celebrate the release of Fire and Amulet, my participation in the 2022 AtoZ Challenge is dedicated to the people, land and creatures that inhabit the world of Fire and Amulet. Hope you'll visit my blog to check it out.  

What might be the best part of having a new release is the cover. I love it. If you look closely, you can see the dragon's tear. Having a slayer as a friend is dangerous when you’re a dragon

To purchase Fire and Amulet: BWL

~Until next month, stay safe and read.

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. 

April is Poetry Month by Nancy M Bell

 

For more information about Nancy's books click on the cover.

BREAKING NEWS

HIS BROTHER'S BRIDE IS NOW AVAILABLE IN AUDIO FORMAT

Since April is National Poetry Month I thought I'd share some different poetry formats with you.

Poetic form is the physical structure of the work. It consists of the length of the lines, the rhythms and repetitions. Poetic forms are applied to works that are shaped into a pattern. Free verse is not constricted by poetic form and is indeed a type of form in its own right.

The Idyll. This is a short poem describing rustic life and is usually written in the style of Theocritus’ short pastoral poem ‘Idylls.  Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King is an example.

Blank Verse - written in a precise metre - usually Iambic Pentametre 

Sonnet- which Shakespeare liked  A sonnet consists of 14 lines and was made popular in the 14^th century and the Italian Renaissance. Sir Thomas Wyatt is credited with introducing the sonnet into English literature in the 16^th century. The rhyming theme in a Petrachan sonnet is abba abba cdecde, the Shakespearean sonnet follows the rhyming pattern of abab cdcd efef gg

Ode  The word Ode is from the Greek aeidein which means to chant or sing and belongs to the tradition of lyric poetry. This form in it’s earliest incarnation was accompanied by music and dance, but later evolved when used by the Romantic poets to convey their strongest thoughts and emotions. William Wordsworth for example. It is generally a formal address to an person, thing or event that is not present.

Haiku. This is a short poem which conveys the essence of an experience of nature. Written in English in the Japanese haiku style

Ballad  This is often a narrative set to music. The word Ballad comes from the Latin ballare which translates to dancing song. A Ballad is a form meant for singing, connected to its origin of communal dance and a product of oral traditions among peoples who cling to oral histories as opposed to written.

Epic  This is a long narrative in verse form telling of a heroic person, persons or journey. Homer’s Illiad and the Odyssey for example.

Elegy   This is a funeral song. It is a melancholy, nostalgic poem created to mourn the death of someone close to your heart. The first elegies were in Roman and Greek.

Lyric  Lyric is a form of poetry sung and/or accompanied by a musical instrument or a poem that expresses intense emotions on a personal level in a way that is suggestive of a song or singing. A Lyric makes the poet vulnerable by showing their thoughts and feelings and often evokes those emotions in the listener.

Poetic form is the physical structure of the work. It consists of the length of the lines, the rhythms and repetitions. Poetic forms are applied to works that are shaped into a pattern. Free verse is not constricted by poetic form and is indeed a type of form in its own right.

My favourite is a Sestina.

A complex French verse form, usually unrhymed, consisting of six stanzas of six lines each and a three-line envoy (The brief stanza that ends French poetic forms) The end words of the first stanza are repeated in a different order as end words in each of the subsequent five stanzas; the closing envoy contains all six words, two per line, placed in the middle and at the end of the three lines. The patterns of word repetition are as follows, with each number representing the final word of a line, and each row of numbers representing a stanza:

          1 2 3 4 5 6
          6 1 5 2 4 3
          3 6 4 1 2 5
          5 3 2 6 1 4
          4 5 1 3 6 2
          2 4 6 5 3 1

          (6 2) (1 4) (5 3)  

Below is my humble attempt at a sestina.

Seasonal Sestina

 

Why is it that the first flowers of Spring

Are so special and the green of new leaves

Wakes a wild joy in my heart

Is it because they signal the end of Winter

Filled with the promise of long summer days

And the lazy hum of honey bees among the flowers

 

The tiny white snowdrops are among the first flowers

Along with the purple crocus of Spring

Courageously piercing the snow with their leaves

Small purple clusters to gladden my heart

Throwing a gauntlet in the face of Winter

Shining brightly through the short Spring days

 

The snow retreats with the lengthening of days

The garden paths are strewn with clots of flowers

The sweet bouquet of flower scented Spring

Bright daffodils dance above their pointed leaves

The tulips glowing red as the sun’s heart

They chase from the path the last of snowy Winter

 

Now only under the brambles lies the evidence of Winter

Soon that too will retreat from the sunny days

The lilacs burst into a froth of fragrant purple flowers

The scent mingling with the sun warmed air of Spring

Slow awakening summer flowers break the soil with their leaves

Heralding the coming of Summer’s heart

 

Spring passes softly into summer; the pulsing green heart

That rules the year opposite the white of Winter

The long halcyon green and gold days

Forged by the fire of the sun and the glory of flowers

There is just the faintest memory now of Spring

The full heady bounty of Summer canopied by trees of leaves

 

In due course fiery autumn will colour the leaves

And the flames of October will quicken the heart

The winds of snow will welcome the Winter

The frosty silver and blue of early winter days

Will make us forget the summer of flowers

Too new and beautiful yet to make us wish for Spring

 

By January we will be wishing for green leaves and Spring

Our heart will have hardened against the silver beauty of Winter

And we will hunger after the days of Summer and flowers 

Til next month, stay well, stay happy.

Memories Raised by a new bio by Janet Lane Walters. #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Imagination #Apology #New Bio #Old Memories

 

 

Since I have a new book coming, I decided a new bio would be nice. The one I've been using for years was bit tired and out of date. I began the bio in a different manner, since people oftenremark on y imagination. I began to look at the way this imagination was honed. Among other things such as reading at an early age and wanting to read everything that had been published, one memory became vivid.

I was a child during the Second World War and this ahd quite an impact. We lived in a town outside Pittsburgh between steelmills and Westinghouse. Union Switch and Signal Company was located across the railroad tracks from the houses. The street I lived on was a short street, starting against a hill and ending a block later. One fascinating place was the concrete stairs leading from out street to the one above. I think there were about fifty steps, at least it seemed that way to me. Wide steps with a handrail great for haging on.

I lived in a row house. Also among my friends were a dozen boys and two girls of around the same age. Since the war was in progress and we were in a rather essential area, there were no street lights at night. We used to sit on the steps to the porch on summer nights and tell stories of round robing. Often these stories featured ghosts, ghouls and other unsavory creatures. Great fun for a summer night.

There were other kinds of stories and great plans we made in case we were invaded. We invented stories of daring-do. Sometimes we put these plans to work. We dug holes in the hillside woods where we played. We wove tin branches and disguised these holes. Imaginations ran wild and sometimes were dangerous. Like the time we found some little snakes. We wanted to know what they were. At my church, there was a man who taught biology. We took out pail of baby snakes to show him. He killed him. Seems they were copperhead, snakes that are born venemous. Lesson learned.

Fromhere we went on to write and produce plays for the neighbors, mostly our families. And that is part of the reason I have this really odd imagination.

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They're everywhere, by J.C. Kavanagh

 

The Twisted Climb - Book 1 of the award-winning series

They're everywhere now. Robins, that is. They made the trip from lands in the southern U.S.A. and Mexico, flying several thousand kilometres in order to eat, nest and mate here in the spring/summer climate of southern Canada. I have about a dozen that come back every year - or their babies do. According to the National Audubon Society, robins live an average of two years, though some have been tagged and tracked for up to 14 years. According to a North American bird-tracking system, in 2019 there were 370,000,000 robins, the highest recorded, followed by red-winged blackbirds, the European starling, mourning doves, then house finches.

The American Robin

You won't find a robin in your bird feeder - their preferred diet is found in the ground - grubs, insects and worms, or berries. They sing and chirp with apparent delight at dawn and dusk. You'll find them 'running' across your lawn, pausing with head inclined as they appear to listen for their next meal. 

Living in a rural area has given me the pleasure of watching many Mama Robins build their nest (males are not invited for this task). Between April and July, robins will lay between three and five eggs, called a 'clutch,' and the eggs are famous for their light blue colouring (Robin Egg Blue). Mama Robin will lay up to three broods per season, building a new nest for each brood. 

At my home - Mama Robin feeding her brood.

According to Wikipedia and the Audubon Society, robin eggs will incubate for about two weeks. Once hatched, Mama Robin devotes herself with food delivery - specialty of worms and crushed insects for the wee ones. Papa Robin assists with the meal prep, and also removing baby-bird-waste. It only takes another 14-18 days for the baby robins to be robust and ready for their first steps and flight. It has been a joy to watch the young robins finally leave the nest, hop around and then fly to the nearest tree. 

I'm hoping that a new brood graces my property again this year. So far, I've counted six hopping robins.

Be kind and loving to one another, especially this Easter weekend 🥰

Until next time, stay safe everyone!

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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www.amazon.com/author/jckavanagh
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Spring-time Gardening Mohan Ashtakala

 

    Many of us are long-time gardeners. Some, looking at the rising cost of vegetables, have decided, for the first time, to venture into this rewarding pastime. Here are a few tips for first-timers:

 

1.          Know your geography: It is of paramount importance to know your growing season, which varies by altitude and latitude. A growing season is calculated as the date between the last frost in spring till the first frost in fall. Do not plant outside the growing season.

 

2.          Choose a site: The ideal site for a garden should receive at least six hours of sunlight per day, have adequate drainage (as rain is common in the spring) and can be watered easily.

 

3.        Prepare the bed: About a month before planting, clean the garden area of old leaves and dead branches. With a spade, turn the topsoil over. Soil rotation breaks lumps of hard dirt, allows for aeration and brings nutrients deep into the soil.

 

4.          Indoor germination: Many plants require indoor germination, depending on the species. They need to be germinated indoors, before being transplanted at the appropriate time. To determine which seeds require this treatment, please look on the seed labels, or do an on-line search. Typically, paper-cups, yogurt containers and ice-cube trays make excellent starters.

 

5.          Wait for the soil to dry: One mistake to avoid is the transplanting of seedlings when the garden is too wet. Pick up a large handful of dirt and roll it into a ball. If the ball crumbles when pressed with your fingers, or shatters when dropped a distance of three feet, the soil is dry enough for transplanting.

 

6.      Choose the correct seeds: Here are some of the best vegetables to grow in the springtime: Peas, Spinach, Lettuce, Radish, Beet, Potato, Tomato, Cucumbers, Rhubarb are all planted at this time of the year. The correct seeds to plant depends on the growing season and the site’s properties.

 

 Happy Gardening!

Mohan Ashtakala (www.mohanauthor.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.)

The 25 Mile Accent Rule....by Sheila Claydon

Find my books here

So I got it wrong! My latest book, Many a Moon, Book 3 of my Mapleby Memories trilogy, is not due to be published until June. I said April in my last post. So what to blog about? The April 11 blog by Karla Stover, a Books We Love fellow author, soon gave me a topic.

Karla has written a very entertaining piece about an English TV series, Midsomer Murders. In it she wonders, tongue in cheek, how true to life in the UK it is. As an English person who has lived in a number of different parts of the UK I can assure her that some of it only too true while other bits are vastly exaggerated. I will leave you to read Karla's blog if you haven't already done so, to decide for yourself which is which. All I am prepared to say is that nobody in the UK would dream of moving to the fictional village of Midsomer because of all the murders that take place there. Apart from Oxford in the Inspector Morse series if you have been lucky enough to see that, it must be the most dangerous place in England.

However, her blog made me think about the background of other TV series and remember Ted Lasso, one of the most enjoyable I have watched this year.  It is about an amateur American baseball coach who somehow ends up in England coaching a poorly performing football team. Watching him slowly become an honorary Brit is both engaging and, at times, very touching. Learning to drink English tea for instance! Facing the fans when he visits the local pub after his team has lost! Making friends as he walks to work through narrow cobbled streets...often in the rain! Learning how reserved many English men are emotionally. Accepting the quirks and humour of some of the very English characters.

These are things that are a small part of a much larger story, but for anyone who is interested they certainly highlight the peculiarities of life in a small English town. The characters, who apart from Ted Lasso and his sidekick, are all British, are often larger than life, but only just. There is a kernel of truth in every relationship and behaviour. And Ted himself gives the English viewer a very heartwarming view of an American who wants to fit in and eventually manages to do so. 

Then I thought about other UK TV programmes. Series set in the North East of the country, in Yorkshire, in Shetland, in Dorset, in Wales, Ireland and Scotland, in Liverpool, and London, and how they are all fairly true to their roots. Not just because of the different accents and an occasional word of local dialect but because of the different attitudes, geography and lifestyles. 

Although the UK is geographically small, the ancestors of its modern population arrived around 10,000 years ago and for thousands of years lived scattered across the land. During that time each tribe or group developed its own language and dialect and it was only when people began to travel that a more universal language evolved. Even today people from different parts of the country still have to concentrate hard to really understand someone with another accent and dialect. In the UK accent and dialect changes approximately every 25 miles, which is an almost unbelievable statistic in the modern age. Living where I do, close to Liverpool but in a small seaside town that still likes to think of itself as a village, it's not unusual for me to hear at least 9 different  accents in one day from the visitors who travel from nearby towns and  cities.  And I add to them because I'm a southerner, or a blow-in as I'm known locally, so my accent is very different from those of my northern neighbours!

Because I've lived here for a long time, however, I have adopted quite a number of local customs, words and phrases. Some, however, are impossible. For example, I cannot conceive eating chips (fries) with gravy, or having what is known as a chip butty, which is thick fries in a  heavily buttered bun (also known as a chip barm, chip sandwich, chip cob or chip roll depending of which part of the country is selling it) Why? Because although in recent years it has started to travel, it is not a southern thing so I never had it when I was growing up. To me chips (fries) must be dry and salty.  On the other hand I have learned to abandon my southern reticence and, like most northerners, talk to anyone and everyone, and what a joy that has proved to be.

Many of the series on UK TV portray just how different every part of our small country is which has made me realise how much we unconsciously learn from fiction, not only as viewers but as readers and writers too, because most of those series are an adaptation of different books. 

That got me thinking about my own books and how amazing it would be if someone discovered them and decided to televise one of my stories or, even better, all of a series. Pie in the sky of course but it does no harm to dream. To know too that all the best writers work hard at making the background to their stories authentic even if, at times, the story is fantastical...unless, of course, you believe in all those murders.  In which case, keep well away from anywhere in the UK that resembles Midsomer.