Read to Me with Guest Blogger: Ann Putnam

The Book Boost Welcomes guest author Ann Putnam who is here to discuss her first live reading!


Here's what she had to say...

I’m sitting in Canyons Restaurant trying to eat a salad and wondering why in the world I’d ordered a meal that required so much chewing. My reading’s in an hour downtown, at Elliott Bay Books, the best bookstore in Seattle. This morning a half-page review of my book appeared in the Seattle Times. I cried when I opened the paper. So it’s for real, then, I thought. I’ve already sent out book cards to everybody I can think of and am hoping I’ll be reading to more than a handful of family and friends. But I’m not really worried about that. It’s an honor just to be reading in that storied, venerated space. I’m a college professor and used to standing in front of a classroom of students. I’m used to giving papers at conferences. But this will be much harder and I’m not sure why.

When I get there I see about thirty chairs set up and my heart catches. How will thirty people ever find their way on a Friday night to this place? I imagine all the empty seats. The bookstore manager takes me aside and buys me a latte. She sits with me to calm me down. When I go back to the room, there are over seventy chairs set up and every one of them is filled. There are a few people standing in the back. I go up to the little stage and adjust the microphone so it’s not right in my face. I check to see that I can read the pages, and I can’t quite find the sweet spot in the reading glasses. I tilt the book up and down. It will be quite a trick juggling the book, turning the pages, dodging the microphone which I seem to want to swallow, and making occasional eye contact with the audience.

But this isn’t hard.

I’ve marked up my book with paper clips, arrows and cross-outs to take the reader chronologically from the beginning to the end. I hope I can follow my penciled-in directions and not get lost along the way.

But nothing is hard.

I tell the audience about the cover, how it’s my father’s photograph of the sun {or moon} coming from behind a cloud and laying itself across the ocean. A piece of driftwood in the foreground is captured in light and shadow. And here it is: my title, Full Moon at Noontide, materialized before my very eyes and come to me across the years. My knees are trembling but cannot be seen from behind the podium.

I begin:

“This is the story of my mother and father and my dashing, bachelor uncle, my father’s identical twin, and how they lived together with their courage and their stumblings, as they made their way into old age and then into death. And it’s the story of the journey from one twin’s death to the other, of what happened along the way, of what it means to lose the other who is also oneself. Finally it asks: what consolation is there in growing old, in such loss? What abides beyond the telling of my own tale? Wisdom carried from the end of the journey to readers who are perhaps only beginning theirs. Still, what interest can there be in reading of this inevitable journey taken by such ordinary people? Turned to the light just so, the beauty and laughter of the telling transcend the darkness of the tale.”

My stomach turns over. I feel a rush of warmth up my neck, across my face. My heart catches. I cannot do this after all. I take a drink of water. I go on. Thirty five minutes later by my watch, I come to the last page. I know I will make it now.

“Writing this now in a rainy light after loss upon loss, a memory comes to me. When I was a teenager, I took voice lessons from Ruth Havstad Almandinger, who gave me exercises and songs I hardly ever practiced. I have wondered why this memory has so suddenly come to me now, and why this, the only song I remember, comes back to me whole and complete:

Oh! my lover is a fisherman/ and sails on the bright blue river
In his little boat with the crimson sail/ sets he out on the dawn each morning
With his net so strong/ he fishes all the day long
And many are the fish he gathers
Oh! My lover is a fisherman
And he’ll come for me very soon!

If only I’d known then that my true love would be a fisherman, I might have practiced that song harder and sung it with more feeling, which was what Ruth Havstad Almandinger was always trying to get me to do. If only I’d had a grown up glimpse of my true love when I was sixteen, I would have sung that song so well.

If only I’d known he would have cancer and go to the lake for healing the summer after the radiation treatments were done. If only I’d known that I would be his fishing partner that miracle summer of the sockeye come into the lake from the sea. If only I’d known that the cancer would return and that I would do everything I could to save him, knowing all along that he could not be saved, and that my heart would break beyond breaking, then break again. If only

I’d seen the sun coming up over the mountains and the sky shift from gray to purple and the pale smudge of light against the mountains turn gold just above the crest. If only I’d seen the sun glinting off those sunslept waters as my love lets down the fishing lines, and off in the distance a salmon leaps—a silver flashing in the sky as if to split the heart of the sun—before it disappears into a soundless splash, in this all too brief and luminous season, to spawn and to die—oh, how I would have sung that song.”

The audience applauds and applauds. They ask intelligent, wrenching questions. “Did writing this book help to heal you?” several want to know. I say that I don’t really know. People want this to be true. But the book recounts so many losses, I’m not sure yet. The writing of it came at such great cost. People queue up to buy the book and have it signed. After the last person has gone, I sit for a minute and look over at the podium and see myself standing there truly inside the words I’m reading, no longer giving a performance, but living it. And it’s then and only then that I realize I can answer that question:

Has writing this book helped to heal you? Yes. The answer is yes.

A Note from the Book Boost: Thanks Ann for the emotional, heart wrenching recounting of your first reading. It sounds like an incredible experience and I know it must hold a special place in your heart. Please share with us a little more about your book.

Review and Author Bio:

“Old age, death, and impermanence—it seems at first glance impossible to make a reader see these timeless and universal experiences with fresh eyes, but Ann Putnam’s luminous prose achieves that miracle and more, transforming pain, suffering, and loss into a literary gift of beauty and redemption.”

Charles Johnson, author of Middle Passage, winner of the National Book Award

Ann Putnam holds a PhD in literature from the University of Washington. She teaches creative writing and gender studies at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. She has published short fiction, personal essays, literary criticism and book reviews in various anthologies including Hemingway and Women: Female Critics and the Female Voice, and in journals, including the Hemingway Review, Western American Literature, and the South Dakota Review. Her latest work is a memoir, Full Moon at Noontide: A Daughter’s Last Goodbye.


Excerpt:

“Where do you hurt, Henry?” Susan croons to him like a love song. She’s the night ICU nurse who is an angel on this earth.

“Everywhere,” he says. “I hurt everywhere.” And in a choreography of such lightness and air, she shifts his pillow, smoothes out the blankets, adjust his meds, and he can breathe again.

Then she tucks him in for the long night, and he find his way back to the comfort of sleep.
But his feet don’t hurt. They don’t feel a thing.

“They treat animals better than this,” my mother says. She can’t stand to visit him, see my uncle like this. She spends all her time sitting by my father, who’s on the16th floor, having collapsed when his brother, his identical twin brother was moved into ICU.

“This can’t go on,” she says.

“I know. I’ll make it stop. I’ll make this come to an end. The nurse already talked to me about it.”

“Your father needs to say goodbye.”

“Are you sure he’d want me to do this?”

“Oh, yes. He couldn’t say it, though.”


It’s the next night and we’re all assembled around my uncle’s bed like a family portrait. We could be any family at the end of things, except for this strange, fierce current running between the man in the bed and the man in the wheelchair who looks exactly like him. It’s our visit to say goodbye and we all know it. My father knows it and I believe my uncle does too.

My father’s as close to the bed as his wheelchair will allow. He’s sitting there with a white blanket over his thin white legs, another blanket over his shoulders. “I love you, Henry,” my father says, taking his hand. Henry shakes his head, pulls at his oxygen mask. My husband lifts it carefully off Henry’s face. My uncle tries to speak but cannot. He twists his head from side to side. Then he wails, for all that was, all that cannot be, for the end of things, the very end. But the cry makes no sound. Tears stream down his face. The pulse on the monitor jumps. My husband puts the mask back on Henry’s face. We pat his arm, touch his forehead, his hands, touch his leg through the sheet. We do not go near the end of the bed. My father is crying. His shoulders slump. He can’t take anymore. He needs to go back to his room, lie down, shut his eyes. We leave the room with tears running unabashedly down our faces.

Nobody says goodbye, but that’s what it is.

Then my daughter and I slip back into the room and put three rose quartz crystals on my uncle’s chest for the long night ahead. I knew then that I would lose them both. That my father would not survive my uncle’s death, and I would enter that dark river of grief whose name I did not know.

As we leave I ask her. “Tell me again about rose quartz.”

“It’s for healing the heart chakra.”

Ah, for his syncopating, rushing heart. “Oh, good,” I say. “His heart needs to stop racing.”

“It’s also for self love.”

“I hope so,” I say. “He never had that.” Maybe now he will. Maybe he’d have looked around the room last night and seen us gathered around his bed and known for sure how much he was loved, and finally love himself back.

The next morning when I come into my uncle’s room he knows exactly who I am, though he has to come back from a far, far place to meet me. I kiss him and tell him I love him, and he falls back into sleep or wherever it is he is going. I sit for a little while, watching his chest rise and fall as he pulls oxygen into his lungs with the help of everything they can give him short of intubation. I walk to the end of the bed and lift the sheet an inch or two and for the first time take a good hard look. For what’s coming next I have to see for myself. His feet are charred.

They have walked through the fire. Every impurity, every affront, insult, bitterness, regret, purified by this fire spreading even now up his legs. But no pain. No pain at all. That’s why I know this is the necessary fire.

Then I leave him without looking back and go down the hall into the family conference room to meet with his doctors and nurses and the social worker, to decide what should be done, but there is only one thing to be done, and right now I’m the only one who can do it, for I am the only family member here.

They call him a “sundowner” now, a word that distances him already, and tells exactly where he’s going. The doctor counts the ways Uncle Henry’s life is, for all practical purposes, over. Back broken in two places. Months of rehab ahead. Aspiration pneumonia. Blood clots. Gangrene. The doctor goes on, but I can only think of his blackened, charred feet, and that the only thing that will save him now, though he can’t be saved, is the double amputation they’re recommending, which is too obscene to even think about.

Sitting around this conference table I think of him right there with us, and wonder what his vote would be, but he can’t tell us now, so the four of us vote to remove the oxygen mask, stop pushing the blood pressure meds, and see what happens, though I’m the only one with the real vote. It may not even happen right away. It could take hours or even days, though I can’t imagine it.

But it takes only minutes before he starts to go. All they have done is remove his oxygen mask. I’m in the hall talking to Father Bill, the ICU priest who had come by yesterday. “Why do you work here? How can you stand it?”

And he says, “Oh, but this is a luminous place. It shimmers, if only you can see it. There’s a thin membrane separating the physical and the spiritual. We should walk with one foot in each place always. This place reminds me to do that. It’s a thin place.”
I look up and there is Susan rushing down the hall to me. “He’s going.”

Now that the oxygen mask is gone, I can see my uncle’s face. His eyes are open. I tell him how much I love him, kiss his forehead, stroke his arm. He doesn’t mind it now. Yesterday, he had edged his arm away from me. I did not understand this avoidance of touch. He’s going to another place now and doesn’t want to be called back. But I didn’t know it then and so I kept touching him anyway. Finally I said, “Do want me to touch you?” No, my uncle had told me.

No.

Now his breathing changes. Two little puffs of breath, then a long, breathless silence that stretches out between one world and another until he catches it up again and pulls himself back into this life. He’s emptying the body of air. But there is no gasping, no death agony, as I’d been warned, just little puffs of air, little commas of breath, the sweet, soft sound of the spirit going someplace else. His eyes are open. The light has not gone out. All the times I had left him, and gone home to eat or sleep, to take up the threads of my life as best I could, and I thought please let go, please let this all be over, please just slip away softly into the night. Now I am grateful to be here and think how easily I might not have been.

“What’s happening to him?” I ask Susan. She explains how systems are shutting down, one after the other.

“What is happening to his spirit?” I ask Father Bill.

“He’s becoming pure spirit now, what he was and always will be. He’s going to it now. Everything else is falling away.”

His chest is quiet now, and the light has gone from his eyes though they are still open. “We can give him something to close them,” Susan says. Tears run down her face. I am grateful for her tears because right then she is everybody who loves him who is not here. And then as if on cue, his eyes close slowly, sweetly as in a dream, because that’s exactly where he is now.

Want More Ann?

Visit her website here: www.annputnam.com
Pick up your copy of her book today! Click here!

In the First Place with Guest Blogger: Rachel Brimble

Welcome guest author Rachel Brimble and WIN a copy of her book The Arrival of Lily Curtis...today at the Book Boost!

Rachel is here to discuss those "First Chapter Contests" that spring up daily (or so it seems).

Here's what she had to say...

First Chapter Contests – are they worth doing?

Another romance writer recently asked me whether or not I entered any of the many Romance Writers of America contests that are held each year and I admitted to entering each of my novels in at least two or three.

She stared at me incredulously. "Why?" she asked. "Why spend the money when your entry may nose-dive when compared to my fellow competitors."

After I thanked her for her sincere vote of confidence in my work, I thought it only fair I answer her question.

True, you could enter any number of contest and never final and thus win the coveted short-cut to your dream editors desk…but on the other hand, you could final and you could catch the editor’s interest, she could ask for a partial or a full, and best of all, you could sell your novel to that big New York publisher you’ve always dreamed of.

Who knows, indeed? Not me, that’s for sure. But what I do know is with each of these contests, you are promised so much more than any editor of a publishing house will promise you.

Feedback.

To me, this should be your main reason for entering these contests, not the editor, not the $50 prize, not even the nice laminated certificate to put on your wall if you final – it’s the feedback that’s valuable.

And varied.

Just recently I was given a perfect score (my first time and I am still floating on air about it!), which was 120, another judge gave me a 110 but the third scored me at 62!! The thing to remember and take heart about is these contests are subjective. Not every judge is going to love your work so this is the perfect place to get a dose of reality in preparation for the brutal form rejections that all of us experience at some stage.

My advice is to enter the contests, absorb the feedback, re-read it and then find the common statements. The ones that are really going to help you polish that manuscript until it shines. You know what I mean, the paragraphs riddled with comments or the scene that evokes some happy smiley LOLs!! from the judges are the ones you want to study. If you do this, you will be able to differentiate between the bits that aren’t working and the bits that are – and then dump the bits that aren’t, even if you think they consist of pure literary genius!

Contests are great – a great way to obtain feedback, a great way to jump the ‘slush pile’ and land on that editor’s desk but most of all they are a fantastic learning tool…one, in my opinion, that should be used again and again.

A Note from the Book Boost: You certainly have a wonderful attitude about this, Rachel. As a recent category coordinator for one of those RWA chapter contests I can tell you that you are right on point with the range of scores and comments for each entry. If only all the entrants would look at it with your positive outlook! Now, would you please share more with us about your book?

Blurb:

At the mention of an arranged marriage, Elizabeth Caughley feels her life is over at the age of three and twenty….so she hatches an escape plan. She will reinvent herself as a housemaid. Overnight, Elizabeth becomes Lily.

Viscount Westrop wants nothing more than his legacy to be passed to his own son one day. Even though he feels insurmountable pity for the unborn child already, he knows how much pain a broken promise can cause and will do what is right.

But with the arrival of his new housemaid, his plans are thrown into disarray. Lily is funny, feisty and the most beautiful creature on earth – Andrew is thunderstruck. But if anyone suspects how much he wants to ravish her and endlessly love her, Andrew’s lineage will be in peril. And he cannot let that happen…


Excerpt:

The clock ticked like a heartbeat behind him, the fire crackled and spat. Andrew unconsciously held his breath waiting to see what this unpredictable woman would do next.

One minute she seemed so full of grace and intellect, the next full of fire and resentment. The two distinctions in her personality shouldn’t have fit but they did— inexplicitly so.

“Well, what do you say?” he pressed.

She dropped her gaze and curtsied, throwing him off-guard once again. He felt his jaw tighten as he looked at her bowed head.

“I thank you, sir,” she said. “But I know my place and to sit with you and your guests would be most unacceptable.”

He stared at her. “Unacceptable?”

“Yes, sir.”

Andrew watched her for a moment longer before slowly crossing his arms. “You have a very genteel way about you,” he said. “One would almost suspect you have been educated.”

She snapped her head up, another flash of color darkening her cheeks. “Not at all, sir. I…I try to better myself and the way I speak, that is all.”

He smiled. “Really?”

“Yes, sir.” She paused, a sudden glint in her eyes. “Of course, if it is not to your liking, I can always revert to common speech and bad manners. It comes easily to me either way.”

Andrew felt the burst of laughter bubbling beneath his diaphragm and could do nothing to stop it erupting. It burst from his mouth and reverberated around the room. Uneasy laughter
rippled around the table, joining him in his amusement. He ignored them, not caring about
anything else but this enigma in front of him. His friends clearly laughed because of who he was rather than their shared delight, Lily on the other hand didn’t seem to care who he was and would say just what she pleased.

“You are quite agreeable just the way you are.” He grinned. “If you wish to continue with your duties, then I will not stop you.”

He walked back to his chair and sat down. “Nicholas, another bottle of wine if you please. I have the distinct feeling a long night is ahead.”

“Of course, sir.”

Andrew tried and failed to wipe the smile from his face as Lily threw him a look of satisfaction before obediently following Nicholas from the room. He picked up his glass and took a long mouthful.

Lily Curtis may be just what Cotswold Manor needed.

Want More Rachel?


Visit her website here: www.rachelbrimble.com

Pick up your copy of the book today! Click here!

Contest Time:
Leave a question or comment for Rachel and be entered to win a copy of The Arrival of Lily Curtis. Winner selected about one week and posted in the Recent Winners box on the right hand column of this blog. Please check back to see if you've won and contact us to claim your prize!

Author Interview with Nancy Lee Badger

Welcome to our Author Interview Day with our Featured Author Nancy Lee Badger!

Nancy is back to tell us more about herself and her latest book.

TBB: Nancy, do you have a message to your readers that you'd like to share?

NLB: I am excited to be here! Dragon's Curse is my first paranormal novella so I am riding a whirlwind of joy mixed with a spoonful of stress. I love it! I have entwined my love for all things Scottish with a bit of folklore and historical fact to being my characters to life.

TBB: I think you've got a hit on your hands with this one. Paranormal and Scottish romance are both very hot right now! Can you share a little more about yourself with us?

NLB: I was born and raised in Huntington, New York on Long Island, in the shadow of New York City. I attended college in New Hampshire, married, bought a house, and raised two sons. We sold our home to live closer to my family and now call Raleigh, NC home.

TBB: When and why did you begin writing?

NLB: This is a story I tell often, mostly because I am so proud. In October of 2006 my son, Eric, returned safely from a tour of duty in Iraq with his U. S. Army battalion based in Darmsdadt, Germany. Hubby and I drove down from New Hampshire and picked him up at the Raleigh, NC Airport where my extended family waited with hugs. Then we three drove to our home in New Hampshire. We also spent a day visiting Eric’s older brother, Rob, in Vermont. The whole time I sat in the back seat, scribbling. I finished the book in a month. It was like the floodgates of stress opened wide and all this pent-up creative energy escaped.

TBB: What does your family think of your writing?

NLB: My immediate family, which consists of my darling husband, quietly agreed to sell our NH home and move 900 miles south. Doing so let us pocket a few bucks and buy a small house for cash. Hubby continues to ‘play’ at a job for forty hours a week while I write from home. My sons will pass judgment, soon, once they get around to down-loading my stories. My two younger sisters are always asking questions and offering story ideas. One teaches college computer science and the other is a veterinarian so they are brilliant. My parents have been behind me from the start. Even long-distance, they ask how I am doing, edit my work, help with ideas, push me to take writer courses, and are busy telling all their friends to buy my books.

TBB: What authors have inspired your writing and in what way?

NLB: I have read Harlequin series titles since high school and was surprised to find authors such as Emilie Rose (Desire), Abby Gaines (NASCAR), and Deb Marlowe (Historical) in my local RWA chapter here in Raleigh, NC. I listen every time Sabrina Jeffries speaks to our group, and have learned so much sharing dinner out with Claudia Dain, Jenna Black, and many other talented men and women. Our chapter is very active and I look forward to each monthly meeting. Each meeting gets me recharged and ready to write and write. I currently serve as Vice President, in charge of membership, which has helped me remember names!

TBB: That sounds like an amazing group of support. What is your latest news?

NLB: This has been a very busy time in my life. My first two books have just been released under two different names by two different publishers! I recently sold another novel to the other publisher. I plan to attend the annual Romance Writers of America conference in July in my continuous search for an agent, so I’m polishing up a wonderful Scottish paranormal filled with present day witches, a little bit of time travel, bad guys, and lots of men in plaids.

TBB: Wonderful! I'll see you in Orlando then! How about a blurb and excerpt for your book Dragon's Curse?

Blurb:

Sometimes a special gift and an unwanted curse cannot keep destined lovers apart.

Brianna Macleod has accompanied a shipload of her guardian’s friends to a remote island off the coast of Scotland. She eludes these Highland hunters to keep her innocence…and her gift of sight. Her attitude against falling for womanly desires changes when she nearly drowns. Saved by the talons of a terrifying winged beast, she awakens—naked—in a cave, beside an unusual man.

Cursed by a vengeful witch to transform into a dragon at inopportune times, Draco MacDonald hides on this deserted island to live alone: until he plucks a servant girl from certain death. Fueled by jealousy, and tempered by fear for her safety, he succumbs to an unfamiliar desire to mate. Her kisses propel him to dare to make her his own.

Set in 1592 Scotland on the Scottish island of Staffa, the cursed hero battles a ghostly witch, a hunter set on rape, and his own growing desire for a young woman with premonitions of his death.

Excerpt:

Pleasure mingled with a sudden sense of cautious clarity. “Please, sir. Do no’ dishonor me in such a way.”

His quiet murmurs soothed her as she gazed deep into his eyes. Brianna inhaled a sharp breath at the flames dancing in their centers. Fear threatened to undo her, yet curiosity enticed her to press her fingers against his lips, forcing them apart. He growled.

“Ah, I see. Ye are a beast.” The calm strength behind her words must have taken him aback, for he loosened his grip on her.

“I am more, I am less. I am cursed, yet I feel blessed at this moment. Lay with me and soothe my pain, and I shall do my best to pleasure ye.”

Brianna nodded. The realization she possessed no control over her actions proved the man had cast a spell. He bent lower and kissed her with a tenderness she never hoped to share with a man. Any man.

Certainly no’ Ranald.

“Who is this Ranald? I plan to kill him, so tell me where to find him or I shall feel compelled to remove the head of every man on this island to make sure I have laid him low.

She laughed. “Ranald is a pig, though I doubt he tastes as fine. Gregor, Cook, and Nia pledged to look out for me. He shall no’ be a problem.

Her words seemed to sway him because he returned his lovely mouth to hers and continued his satisfying assault with fingers, lips, and tongue.

TBB: Thanks so much for joining us today, Nancy. We hope to have you back soon!

Want More Nancy?

Visit her website here: www.nancyleebadger.com
Visit her blog here: www.RescuingRomance.nancyleebadger.com
Pick up your copy of her book today! Click here!

Take it E-asy with Guest Blogger: T.M. Hunter

Win a Free Book and chat with author T.M. Hunter who is here to discuss the ever evolving world of e-book publication!

Here's what he had to say...


The E-volution of Reading


Anyone who’s been following the news lately has likely heard Amazon and Barnes & Noble are both undergoing a price war on their e-readers (Kindle and Nook). Although neither has dropped below the hundred-dollar mark yet, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it happen in the next year or so. We have Joe Konrath running statistics on his blog where Kindle sales have netted him ten thousand dollars last month. Yet, I hear so many people claim they just can’t get into reading a book on a computer screen, that the smell and feel of a book is just too overwhelming to switch. So, the question is: What does the future hold?

In my personal opinion, e-readers and e-books will become the reading method of choice. Much like most mediums of entertainment (8-tracks to CDs, VHS to downloading off the internet, etc.), people have eventually embraced new technologies once they became cost-effective to use. Let’s face it, younger generations will come along, and many of them will have never lived in an era where they couldn’t do all of their communication and viewing of entertainment on a personal cell phone. An e-reader is just the natural extension of this phenomenon. Someday, you likely won’t even see hardbacks or paperbacks unless you’re visiting an antique store.

Add on top of that, publishers won’t be able to ignore the cost advantages of distributing their books in electronic medium. Printing books is expensive, and with publishing undergoing such a shock to the system during this last economic downturn (if we’re even out of it yet), there has to be someone in a place of authority wondering why they’re spending money on so many books which may or may not sell. There’s something to be said about a fixed cost model where each book takes the same amount of editing and up-front costs. With an electronic sales model, there’s no guesswork on how many copies need to be printed, wondering whether you’ll have excess inventory to dispose of months down the road. In the end, publishers will have no choice but to switch to e-books. And for folks who can’t get away from a printed book, they’ll print it on-demand and make the reader pay for the privilege.

So, what’s an author to do?

Change is hard, and so is embracing it. But ultimately we as authors must do so. Not to say we shouldn’t continue striving towards print deals and the like (even if authors like Konrath can make far more money off the material that the big publishers rejected) in the interim. The future is not yet here, but it’s not far away. We must be ready. That means cultivating those contacts now which will lead to our material being available in e-books and other online media in the future. Once it arrives, it’ll come crashing down on us all in a whirlwind. So, get your foot in the door now, and you’ll have the inroads needed when e-readers become the primary reading method.

The future is coming, folks, and we must embrace this inevitable change.

A Note from the Book Boost: As a published author of both e-books and print books, I can understand the dilemma that many go through at the thought of completely "giving up" our print books. Great insight here, T.M. and thanks for sharing your views with us today. Now let's hear more about you and your book!


T. M. Hunter has always had a fascination with interstellar travel, spacecraft (and aircraft) and beings from other worlds. Twice a top ten finisher in the P&E Readers Poll for his short stories (2007, 2009), his book Heroes Die Young earned Champagne Books’ Best-Selling Book of 2008 award. Friends In Deed is his latest novel.



Blurb:

Aston West was condemned to life on the prison planet Lycus IV for spitting in a man’s face. Being forced to reside with the likes of murderers and thieves, he owes his freedom to Lars and Elijah Cassus, who orchestrated an escape. Now the twin brothers call in the favour and force him to return with their team to Lycus IV to rescue crewmate Leah Jordan.

Aston discovers Leah’s desire to leave the twins forever, but Lars and Elijah use fear and intimidation to control their group and no one leaves alive. It’s a case of kill or be killed and Aston will need to become more like the brothers than he ever wanted.

Excerpt:

Even in the depth of my nightmares, Lycus IV was a formidable hell. The scenery misled one to think of mighty grandeur. Lush green trees lined the banks. Sporadic cloud cover offered broken views of a pale blue mountain range.

This prison planet’s terror was not found in its natural surroundings, but from its unwilling inhabitants.

A wide, slow-moving river flowed in front of me over a deep bed of rocks. My filthy clothing was ripped and shredded, and exposed bloody skin. I gazed back across the clear, inviting water.

A bellow filled the air and I turned. A pale, naked giant rumbled through the brush, still yelling at the top of his lungs. High above his head, he gripped his makeshift mallet, a boulder strapped into the fork of a tree branch. I jumped aside as the weapon crashed down.

He stared with one wide eye and the other glazed over. Saliva dribbled from his lips.

“I am King of the wooded realm! You dare invade my territory?”

This wasn’t a fight I planned to stick around for. Psychotics were the worst type of violent.

He hoisted his club and swung it at me. I stumbled back and it came so close I felt the breeze. I turned toward the opposite bank and sprinted across the riverbed.

“Your punishment is death! Vengeance is demanded!”

I high-stepped through calf-deep water while the beast screamed bloody murder. I dared not look back, because there was no doubt he gained on me with every step.

My foot caught a cluster of rocks under the surface and I splashed down, drenched by the cool, clear water. I flipped over and faced my attacker as he left me in a cold, dark shadow. Milky-white foam oozed over his lower lip.

“Prepare to meet your maker!”

He raised the mallet high above his head. At least death would be quick, but I couldn’t say much for painless. I closed my eyes and waited for the crushing blow.

A whistle filled the air and the giant beast gasped and choked. My eyes flashed open as the beast dropped his weapon into the river behind him.

Only one object stood between me and oblivion, a homemade arrow buried in his neck. He couldn’t pull it from the front, so reached back. His mind gave up hope as soon as his fingers probed the stone tip. The monster’s eyes rolled up out of the way, then his body fell backward.

The corpse splashed down and huge waves rolled past me. I scrambled around and gazed at the opposite bank. There, a bow in his left hand and more arrows strapped to his back, stood the man who’d just saved my life.

Elijah Cassus.

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Take a Guilt Trip with Guest Blogger Lorrie Struiff

Ready for a Guilt Trip? Author Lorrie Struiff joins us today to tell us how we can Let Go of Writer's Guilt.



Here's what she had to say...

Letting Go of the Guilt

Most fairly new writers are prone to heed the advice they read on famous author blogs, or in the “How to” books they read. When I was in that position, I was no different.

One piece of advice I had read/heard at conferences and practiced religiously was to “write every day,” to discipline myself and no matter the garbage that flowed from my fingertips, I had kept to the discipline. I exercised so as not to allow that blank page to daunt me. I told myself, “Just spew on that blank screen, gal. There is no such thing as writer’s block, and something will click in your brain even if you fill up the pages with nonsense. It’s the routine that matters, and who knows, you may get a usable paragraph or sentence out of it worth keeping.”

I carried my computer on family vacations and such, and once to the hospital while spending long days with a recuperating family member.

If I missed a day, oh my, the guilt was unbearable. I was a writer for gosh sakes, I had to write every day. The guilt of missing a day due to real life only added to the pressure of those oh so wise words.

Guilt is a horrible burden. It enhances the blank page to look even blanker, if that’s possible. When I started filling pages with-- Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party—I realized I was losing it. So, that’s when I smartened up. I gave myself the permission to not write every day. I told myself, “It’s not like you’re earning enough to quit your day job. This is supposed to be fun, indulging in your passion.”

It took a while to believe myself, but it finally sank in. I write now when I’m in the mood, or I have a brilliant idea for a plot line, or a great character who wants to tell his/her story. Or if I’m writing an exciting scene and I can’t wait to finish and find out what my characters are going to do next. Or, when I’m so caught up in the story, I can’t wait to get it all down on the pages.

In the meantime, I enjoy my family more, take the real life interruptions as they come, and even take time to smell the roses. My stories are much better for my permission to take time off, and the guilt, the pressure is finally gone. I can once again truly enjoy my passion.

A Note from the Book Boost: Very inspiring story, Lorrie. I, too, suffer from guilt trips about not writing as much as I "need" to. What I've found is that if I force myself to do something that I'm not inspired to do--it shows in the quality. You're right on point here. Thanks for sharing your writer experience with us. Won't you please tell us all about your book?


Blurb:

Everyone has secrets.

Homicide Detective Rita Moldova has a secret, a crystal amulet from her Roma bloodline that shows her the last image a victim had seen before they died. Now, a ritual killer is terrorizing her town and the crystal’s magic has suddenly stopped.

FBI agent, Matt Boulet, is sent to lead the task force and gives the group strange orders. Worse, Rita senses he is holding back a deep dark secret about the killer.

When she confronts her seer mother’s advice, she learns another secret about their clan that she finds impossible to swallow.
Rita swims through a whirlpool of confusion as the investigation continues. Can Rita deny the lore of the ancients? Can she deny her growing feelings for Matt Boulet?

Excerpt:

Doc read from the screen. “Body completely exsanguinous. Time of death between eleven p.m. and one a.m.” He looked up at Rita and pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “Like the others, this woman was alive when the killer began extracting the blood from her jugular. Once drained, he excised the vein with a sharp instrument, postmortem. Why does he bother?”

Rita shrugged. “He’s performing some sort of a ritual, then taking a trophy. Doc, I still think the women had to be unconscious or bound while he took their blood. Any rational woman would fight, or run like hell.”

“The evidence disagrees. There are no ligature marks on the wrists or ankles of any of the bodies. The bruises on the arms indicate a frontal assault, as if they were pinned or held still. Other than the bruises, no needle marks were apparent, no drugs in any of the stomach contents, no contusions on the heads to indicate they were unconscious until the loss of blood weakened, then killed them. Lack of tissue under the nails also indicate they didn’t struggle at all.”

“This doesn’t make any damn sense.” Rita shivered, imagining the women awake, not fighting, as the life drained out their bodies.

Doc rubbed his jaw, shook his head. “And, no matter what weapon I come up with, nothing matches the excised wounds. All evidence so far suggests the killings took place elsewhere, then the bodies were moved.”

“That’s what my gut is telling me, too.” She glanced through the glass at the woman on the table, the Y incision was puckered and ugly under the harsh lighting in the examining room.

“The jogger who found this one on the river path yesterday freaked. Can’t say as I blame her.”

Rita had become familiar with a few of the prostitutes during a previous case and found the women to be friendly and open, once they knew she wasn’t there to hassle them. When she had inspected the first victim, the dead woman’s eyes reflected another working girl Rita had met before. Carmella.

Carmella told Rita that she had bummed a cigarette from the woman before a black van pulled to the corner. Her brief glimpse as the interior light of the van flashed on revealed a dark-haired man with a noticeable bump on his nose. Carmella didn’t bother to look at the plates. The woman who had entered the van turned up dead in an alley a day later. Rita had confirmed Carmella’s alibi.

Her confusion deepened with a different reflection in the eyes of the second dead prostitute. The pizza delivery boy remembered seeing the woman at the Ridge Motel, but his alibi also proved solid.

She should see the last person the victim’s eyes captured--the killer’s. Damn. The crystal had never failed her before. She rubbed her arms to ward off a feeling of dread creeping over her skin.

Rita glanced at her watch. A little after twelve. She had time to find out how good ol’ Bobby
Driscoll fit into this scenario.

She jumped when Doc nudged her elbow.

His thin lips tightened into a scowl. “I’m still trying to determine the gouging tool. We’ve made the impressions, but nothing matches. Tell the Chief I’ll fax what I have to him in a few hours. You know, he’ll want you on the task force.”

“Yeah. He already set up the meet.”

The only ones who knew of the crystal’s abilities were Chief Lipinski, Rita’s mother, and her uncle. Her gift had spooked the Chief, but he had sworn to keep her secret. If the others found out, she may as well have “Freakazoid” stamped on her forehead.

Rita patted Doc’s hand. “Thanks, I really appreciate the heads-up.” They left the cubicle. She looked at the dead woman again and sighed. “Damn it, Doc, we need to nail this dude’s ass fast. The newspapers are already calling him ‘Keyport’s own Jack the Ripper.’”

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Around the Block with Guest Blogger: Kaye Spencer

Win a Free copy of The Dance and Learn about how to get around Writer's Block with guest author Kaye Spencer!

Welcome, Kaye!

Here's what she had to say...



Prompting Yourself out of Writer’s Block with Story Prompts


Writer’s block happens. Fortunately, as a writer I’ve never hit that brick wall, but as an English teacher (junior high through community college), I’ve encountered many students who, when faced with a creative writing assignment, complain that they can’t think of anything to write about. So to help nudge them out of their writing reluctance, I give them story prompts (story starters) to kick-start their metaphoric writing motorcycles. I’m always amazed at the different perspectives that result from the same story prompt.

Several of my own stories began as story prompts, although my prompts tend to visit me via pictures/images, song lyrics, and off-hand comments. I tuck these ideas away until the time comes when I need a story idea, then I pull one out and dig in. This works so well for me that I have a 100K+ words western historical, Broken Bridges, that spawned from a picture of a man and woman leaning out of the windows of parallel taxis and barely able to reach each other for a kiss (I turned the taxis into carriages). Everything in this story grew from that single picture.

My current book at Cobblestone Press, The Dance, began as a writing prompt for a contest. This was the prompt: Character A is a quirky critic who's secretly attracted to Character B, an eccentric artist who lives in the apartment right above Character A. Character A is on a deadline to get her review finished but Character B is making a lot of noise and it's very distracting.

In fact, my next book will launch the western line at Breathless Press in November 2010, and it also began as a story prompt.

Here is an example of the story starter activity I use my students:

Choose one of the five story starters/prompts listed below. Write a 500-1000 word opening for your story using that story starter somewhere very close to the beginning of your story. Try using the prompt as the very first line of your story, but it’s not critical that you do so. [note: for extra creative fun, come up with story “enders”]

The prompts are in 3rd Person, but you are at complete creative liberty (and encouraged) to change the Point of View (POV), change the genders, and tweak the story starter itself to suit your inner Muse.

Remember, the story starter you choose should be the opening line of your story, however, to paraphrase Captain Barbossa…the word count and exact wording of the story starter are more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules…so don’t let either limit or hamper your creativity.

1. They had nothing to say to each other…
2. The last time he saw her, she…
3. Ghostly shadows quivered on the wall, the storm raged outside, battering the castle walls. She moved her chair closer to the fireplace, desperately wishing…
4. Trembling and blinking back tears, she punched his number into the phone…
5. She tore down the alley, burst through a darkened doorway and crouched low. Behind her, the noise escalated…

So, let your creative thoughts run freely and don’t hamper the words with grammar, conventions, and mechanics at this point. JUST WRITE!!! When you’ve finished your mini-story, tuck it away for that rainy writer’s block day when you need just a nudge of inspiration to begin writing your next book.

A Note from the Book Boost: This is amazing advice, Kaye! Thank you so much for sharing your teaching expertise with us. I'm sure a lot of folks will find this very helpful. For me, I don't have trouble knowing what to write only finding time to actually write it all! LOL Thanks for joining us and please tell us more about The Dance.


Blurb:

Janae Palmer, a reclusive city girl facing a book review deadline, is at her wit's end with her upstairs neighbor, rodeo bullfighter Owen Quinlan. He's cranked-up his music, and she's on a mission to give him a lesson in manners. Having fantasized about getting him in bed, she gets more than she'd planned after a knock-out introduction. Owen is more than willing to share in her fantasies, but when his rodeo life comes between them, the words of a song will either give them the courage to go on together or leave them with only bittersweet memories of The Dance.


Excerpt:

Her eyes popped open. Divorce? That would account for why he hadn’t seen his boys for a while. Running back through the days since she’d discovered Owen Quinlan’s existence, she couldn’t recall a woman or children visiting him and, having been so fervently confident that he was single, she’d never noticed if he wore a wedding ring. Craning her neck, she peered at him, but he’d shoved his left hand into his front pocket. Giving the living room a cursory appraisal, she found no evidence of a family. No pictures or toys and certainly nothing suggesting a female influence, but a trip to the bathroom would tell her for sure, and she appeased her conscience with the excuse that she wanted to see her face so it wasn’t really snooping. Besides, he had told her to make herself at home.

Dropping her key lanyard on the end table, she made her way to the bathroom and closed the door. While soaking a washcloth in warm water, she tilted her head to inspect the reddish-purple mark rising over the bridge of her nose and the tiny hint of bruising developing under her eyes. She wiped away the remnants of dried blood, but gave her shirt up as hopelessly stained. Satisfied she’d cleaned herself as best she could, a quick search of the bathroom drawers and medicine cabinet revealed only a sundry of the usual male toiletries. A glimmer of hope returned. Spying a bottle of Brut cologne, she removed the lid and breathed in the heady aroma. Closing her eyes, she imagined smelling this on Owen’s skin. Good God, this scent should be illegal.

Leaving the bathroom, she peeked into his bedroom and a perfunctory scan lifted her spirits further. It was definitely a guy’s bedroom. Stealing a sheepish glance over her shoulder, she tiptoed into the bedroom to check it out more thoroughly. Boots and jeans were in a heap by the opened closet door. A cowboy hat was perched on its crown on the dresser. There were rodeo photographs tacked to the walls and stacks of magazines and books beside the unmade bed. She ran her fingers along the sheets where the slight indention of his body remained then lifted a pillow to her face and breathed in the lingering scent of his cologne.

With a reluctant sigh, she replaced the pillow and returned to the living room, this time to look around with serious interest at the myriad of rodeo paintings and photographs propped, hanging, or strewn about the room. Eventually, her gaze came to rest on the easel and the eight-by-ten, black and white photograph tacked to the wall beside it. Walking to the canvas, she studied both painting and picture with the slow realization that Owen was creating a color rendition of the moment in time when a bucking bull charged a rodeo clown leaping to the aid of a cowboy tangled in the rope around the bull’s girth. Under closer scrutiny, she recognized him under the grease paint, spandex, and baggy cut-off overalls.

Owen strode into room, alternately talking and listening, and stopped beside her. Stealing a peek at his left hand, she bit her bottom lip to conceal her delight that he didn’t wear a ring while jealously wishing the smile on his face was for her and not for the woman on the phone.

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