A Chat with Jennie Marsland

War Horse

2011-12-13T13:37:00.002-04:00

Fellow RWAC member Kelly Boyce just updated her blog with a discussion of a movie she'd like to see. So, I'm going to play monkey see, monkey do. I stumbled across the trailer for Steven Spielberg's new movie, War Horse, the other day. Of course it sucked me in - the cinematography looks beautiful and the World War 1 setting hooked me. I made up my mind that I'd like to see it - unless it had a tragic ending. I did a little searching and found out it doesn't. So, I'll probably take it in over the holidays if it's in the theatres here.

It's always amazed me that the bond between humans and animals can run so deep that they will accompany us through the worst hell we can create. I'm looking forward to seeing this. People of blogland, are you planning on seeing any movies over the holidays?

Shattered Signing at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic

2011-12-08T11:47:00.008-04:00

As I’ve said before, I belong to an absolutely awesome chapter of Romance Writers of America. A few weeks ago I had a chat with Tara MacDonald, one of our members who has a marketing background and an up-and-coming company called Charlie Mac Productions, about possible promotional ideas for Shattered. I was floored when, a few days later, Tara got back to me with the news that she wanted to use my book as a test case for her company and promote it for me. She lined up fellow RWAC member Shawna Romkey and Richard Black from Rich Graphics, and in less than two weeks they had a new website in the making, promotional materials created and a signing arranged at the perfect venue – the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in downtown Halifax. All I had to do was show up.

This is the entrance to the Explosion Exhibit. Fellow RWAC member Julia Smith, a talented photographer as well as an author, snapped me surrounded by history. She took all the other photos here as well.

We had a lovely fruit wreath by Fruitful Expressions and gingerbread cookies from Sweet Smiles Pastry Cafe – which proved very popular with one guest in particular, who made off with an armful. One young guest told me that she liked eating gingerbread men, but didn’t like smelling them.

To each his own – I love the smell of gingerbread, and these were delicious.
The reading took place in the museum’s small craft gallery. Liam and Alice’s world felt very near as I talked about what life was like in wartime Halifax.

I chose to read the scene from Shattered where Liam and Alice dance for the first time, and Liam has his first encounter with Alice’s brother Carl. RWAC members Pat Thomas (my amazing editor) and Michelle Helliwell also came out in support. Here’s the whole crew after the reading. From left to right we have Tara, Michelle, Shawna, Me, Pat and Julia.

And here I am signing copies by the museum gift shop.

I confess I’m an introvert. Even after years at the front of a classroom, speaking to an audience takes energy, but talking about the history behind Shattered and reading from the novel here, surrounded by graceful masts and sails and with the museum’s Explosion exhibit close by, was a joy. The Beatles said it best...there’s nothing like a little help from your friends.

Meet Author Sara Trimble

2011-12-05T10:24:00.006-04:00

Hosting other authors on my blog is something I'm resolving to do more of in the coming year. I'm starting today by featuring author Sara Trimble, who I met a couple of years ago on Writing.com - a great place to connect with writers, by the way. Sara's a busy young mom who somehow finds the time to pen novels. She and I also share an appreciation for the simple things in life - she's a country girl to the core.

Sara is new to the world of publishing, though not to writing. She has one published novel, two in the final stages of revisions and a stack of stories ready to work on. She's also venturing out of her comfort zone of Romance to work on a new suspense novel, which she hopes to have done by December 1st. When she isn’t writing, Sara spends her time with her three children and her husband Justyn, hanging with friends, and just enjoying life. You can find her at her website, follow her blog, tweet her, or find her on Facebook. She loves to hear from her readers so send her an email at saratrimble@saratrimble.com. If anyone is participating in NaNo, feel free to buddy her at youngmomx3. Don't forget to check out the new movie trailer for her debut paranormal romance, Heart Over Mind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws0EXm5tsI8

What got you interested in writing?

The very first time I remember being excited to write was for Halloween in 4th grade. We had an assignment to write about a spooky event and I ended up writing a five page story when everyone else had only written two paragraphs. My teacher loved it. Apparently though, I've been wanting to be a writer since I was six. I have a 1st grade folder that my teacher created for us. In the section “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I put creative writer.

How long have you been writing?

I've been writing since I was little but I didn't start trying to make a career of it until January of 2005.

What advice would you give a new writer just starting out?

Don't try to be just like everyone else. If you have an idea for a story, don't abandon it just because it's different than what your favorite authors create.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Unfortunately, I have and currently am. I'm still at that stage that I've yet to figure out how to beat this horrible scenario.

To you, what are the most important elements of good writing?

Great, believable characters. I think without strong, diverse characters, the book won't do much.

Tell us about your latest book.

Right now, I'm deviating from romance to try my hand at suspense/thriller/mystery. Gemma Davis, FBI, is called to the end of the world, Bayou Point, by her ex-fiance, when an arm is found inside the stomach of an alligator. DNA results show that the limb belonged to a young girl who'd gone missing four years prior. Claude worries at the find, as there are still sixteen other girls, approximately the same age and type, still missing.

Gemma agrees to visit and gets in over her head when she discovers a sinister secret about the town, and it's occupents, that could end up getting her killed. Nothing and no one is as it seems. The deeper she digs, the worse the outcome gets for the missing girls. Who is taking them, and why? How is that they've never been seen or heard from since their disappearance? And how were these intelligent, careful girls, all kidnapped without one single witness.

Gemma has to probe carefully to answer these questions and solve the case. And she has to watch her back in the process.

What comes first for you, the plot or the characters?

To me, plot comes first. I like to develop my plot and then the scenario tends to cause the characters to evolve into who they'll be.

What books or authors have most influenced your writing?

Lindsay McKenna, Caridad Pineiro and Patricia Cornwell really influenced the type of writing I wanted to do. I enjoy each of these wonderful women's books and would love to be as successful as they are.

Are you working on anything at the present you’d like to share with us?

I started writing my new book In the Bayou for NaNoWriMo, which is when an author tries to write a 50,000 word book in one month. I knew I wouldn't be that successful, though I'd have loved to, but I did get a lot done on it and think it will be a great book when I'm finished with it.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I love to spend time with my three children, go fishing, hunting or to the river with my husband, and spend time with friends. I try to enjoy each day of my life. Everyone I know tells me I live the life of a typical country song and I can't say I'd change one bit of it.

Thursday Thirteen

2011-12-01T11:35:00.002-04:00

I'm guesting today on Julia Smith's blog, with thirteen stranger-than-fiction facts about the Halifax Explosion. Hop on over and join us!

Remembering: The Anniversary of the Halifax Explosion AND Shattered signing

2011-11-27T07:29:00.005-04:00

The anniversary of the Halifax Explosion is only a few days away. December 6, 1917 was a bright, sunny morning, mild for December, with no hint of what fate had in store as people went about their morning routines. Shortly after 9:00 am Mont Blanc, on fire and abandoned by her crew, drifted into Pier 6 in Richmond and detonated.

The watch above, stopped at the time of the Explosion, is part of the collection of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic here in Halifax. No matter how often I've seen it, the museum's Explosion exhibit still makes me shiver. A nightgown stained with soot, a young boy's schoolbag,a child's drawing of a ship - the personal items bring a poignant sense of connection. For me, the fascination of history is that human nature always has been and always will be the same. Only the circumstances change.

The item at the museum that really gives me chills is a little china souvenir cup, about the size of a demitasse, that was found in the rubble of a home, one of the only things left intact. It has 'Remember Me' written on it. And so we do.

Next Sunday, December 4, from 2 to 4 pm, I'm going to be signing copies of Shattered down at the museum. If you're in Halifax, drop by, walk through the Explosion exhibit and visit the Titanic exhibit as well. Both are well worth a visit. See you there!

The Kid is Back

2011-11-22T20:19:00.005-04:00

I've been watching NHL hockey for as long as I can remember. Growing up in Montreal in the glory days of the Montreal Canadiens, I really had no choice. The city lived and breathed the game. Players like Jean Beliveau and Maurice Richard became local legends. If you're Canadian, you know what I mean. If not, I can't explain it.

There's a beautiful novel, The Divine Ryans by Wayne Johnston, that conveys the fascination of hockey in a wonderfully poetic way, while telling a poignant tale of a young boy's coming of age. Like Draper Doyle Ryan in the novel, I hated being sent to bed after the first period, and I remember when I was first allowed to stay up to watch a whole game on TV. When the Soviet Union played Canada in the 1972 Summit Series, we watched in school, sitting on the edges of our seats. The teachers knew we weren't going to get any work done anyway.

Back then I watched the Saturday night games with my father; now I watch with my hubby. Though DH considers the Toronto Maple Leafs his team (loyalty really can be taken too far), we've followed the career of Nova Scotia's own Sidney Crosby with interest since he stepped onto the ice with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Crosby seems to one of those players who has a date with destiny. At twenty-four, he's captured every honour hockey has to offer, including the Stanley Cup and Olympic gold, and he's done so with as much class as athletic brilliance. So, last winter when he took a hit on the ice and ended up with a career-threatening concussion, I wondered if perhaps all that glory had come to him so soon for a reason. I imagine he wondered, too.

Last night, after almost a year of recovery, Sidney returned, with little advance notice. Networks scrambled to televise the game. The greatest player in hockey today didn't disappoint. Five minutes into the first period he scored a highlight-reel goal. With millions reading his lips, he roared "f**k yeah!" while the crowd went ballistic. If the lights in the arena had gone out, no one would have noticed for the joy and relief lighting up his face.

Way to go, Sidney. It's been a long year, but you're back. Enjoy it. We will.

Julia Smith: The Curtain Opens

2011-11-10T08:58:00.013-04:00

The talent, originality, determination and downright awesomeness of the people in Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada, my local chapter of RWA, are amazing. Seriously. I leave every meeting awed by the energy and intelligence that crackles in the air. Not to mention the fact that the restaurants where we lunch have learned to put us in a room by ourselves. This group just can’t contain its enthusiasm for the craft and business of writing.

One of those passionate writers is Julia Phillips Smith. Julia is a filmmaker, author and blogger extraordinaire, and today, she’s celebrating the triumphant conclusion of an eight-year creative journey. At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 2011 (cue dramatic music), I’m delighted to help her launch her debut novel, SAINT SANGUINUS.

This book is a prime example of why indie publishing is a boon for authors and readers. It’s a dark, richly layered story with complex, tormented characters that are worth the reader’s time to explore, but it doesn’t fit the mainstream publishing mold. Intrigued? Read on.

WARNING: Must love vampires.

1. Julia, tell us a little bit about St. Sanguinus. Who are the main characters? Where does the plot take them?

SAINT SANGUINUS tells the story of Peredur, a Welsh Dark Ages warrior on his last raid against the Irish who attack their settlements in the absence of the Romans. Peredur wants to gather as much battlefield spoils as he can before approaching Tanwen’s father, intending to ask for her hand in marriage. But a spear to his chest puts an end to his dreams, and as he curses God with his dying breath, his curse calls forth a member of the Brethren to gather him to their work.

Tanwen refuses to believe her beloved is truly gone. Under pressure from her family to wed another from their village, Tanwen retreats to the solace of Cavan, the wise woman’s son. His unrequited love for her sparks Cavan to reveal what has really become of Peredur—he is now a vampire.

Cavan has kept his sorcerer’s powers a secret from their village, but now he promises Tanwen that if she truly wants to reunite with her beloved, he can summon a vampire to turn her. What he doesn’t tell her is that Peredur is not like other vampires. As a member of the Brotherhood, it is his task to stand between humans and vampires, ensuring one side doesn’t completely annihilate the other.

2. Where did you get your inspiration for this story?

My first NaNoWriMo gave me this story.

Being a long-time fan of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s historical vampire series following the Count Saint-Germain--which always focuses on the less glamorous problems of being an immortal who needs to live among humans--for my first NaNo, I let myself follow the similar problems of all the baby steps of becoming a vampire, from the very first moment of transformation.

I followed Peredur’s story almost exclusively. During another NaNo, I switched POVs and followed Tanwen. The sleep-deprived dream state of NaNo made all the difference for this story, as I went to places I never normally would have gone.

3. What’s your take on the pros and cons of self-publishing in today’s ever-changing market?

I’m quite enamoured with the whole indie self-publish thing, so I can only see the pros. I always knew I had a story that didn’t fit in the parameters being purchased by traditional publishers. To be honest, I never really tried to force my story to fit that market. When I wrote it, I had no idea that there would be an explosion in e-books or a renaissance for under-used story settings and time periods.
But now – voila! The e-reader market is insatiable, and publishing has embraced niche markets, including the smaller traditional print houses. Writers can actually write the book-of-the-heart. It’s the equivalent of being able to do an art house film rather than trying to turn it into a Hollywood blockbuster.

4. You have a background in film. How do you think your training influences your writing?

Well, it makes me reference art house films rather than publishing, for a start. Also, when I was having huge challenges merging those two separate NaNo novels into one book, the only thing that made sense to me was Blake Snyder’s screenwriting how-to, SAVE THE CAT and its sequel SAVE THE CAT GOES TO THE MOVIES. I have no idea why. It’s just the way my brain works, I guess.

It also makes it easier to write and direct my own book trailers:

Peredur

Tanwen

To be honest, my screenwriting training made learning to write novels a rather hit-and-miss affair at first. To quote early critique reader Kelly Boyce: “Take it out of here (gesturing toward my head) and put it on here (gesturing toward the paper).”
That’s because screenplays only contain brief descriptions of action, minimal indications of setting, and dialogue. Period. There are no qualifiers as to how the dialogue is delivered—that’s the job of the actor and director. No details as to the tone of the scene—that’s the domain of the cinematographer and art department, and later the editor.

In writing the novel, I can’t just say:

PEREDUR takes a sword from VELLOCATUS. He swings it to get the feel of it.
VELLOCATUS
A little sparring.
PEREDUR and VELLOCATUS fight.

But if I were writing a screenplay, this would be how the scene would be laid out.
In the novel, I have to add Peredur’s emotional reaction to being reunited with a blade. I have to include the detailed specifics of the sword fight, remembering to add in the sounds of blades clashing, vampires growling, etc.

5. If you were casting St. Sanguinus, what actors would you choose to play the main characters and why?

I always cast my main characters. I find it easier that way. I generally collect screenshots of the actor in scenes with a similar emotional tone to my story, and make a character file on my computer or often a 3-D collage. It’s my film thing—I’m extremely visual.

Peredur looks and sounds and moves a lot like Gerard Butler, especially the Attila/Beowulf/300 version. Why? He’s got an exceptional warrior body type and the fighting skills to match, he’s got that crazy maniac energy running under the surface that personifies Peredur’s attachment to life, and he’s got the all-important lurking melancholy that Peredur needs.

Tanwen is very Eve Myles-like. She’s in Torchwood. She’s got that lovely Welsh face, a ferocity that Tanwen needs, and she tends to exude more of a woman vibe than a girl vibe. Tanwen can’t be girly.

Cavan most resembles retired National Ballet of Canada principal dancer Rex Harrington, but a fairer, blond version. He carries himself like a prince, which Cavan would do. He’s extremely mesmerizing in person, which is very Cavan-like. And he portrays the most haunting expressions of despair.

6. I’ve known you long enough to know you love dark, tragic stories. What is their appeal for you?

I just love my heroes to go through a lot of passionate emotion. The darker, the more tormented the better. If they’re too stoic, too shiny, their emotional journey doesn’t mean as much to me. If my hero gets pushed right to the very brink of sanity or physical endurance—or both—then where he goes from there, how he picks up the pieces and prevails really stirs my heart.

As for my heroines—I give my female characters enough edge that I don’t really refer to them as heroines. Either they carry extreme emotional baggage that they ultimately find the courage to leave by the wayside, or they behave in decidedly un-feminine ways.

If you give me a choice between Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark/Iron Man character and Christopher Reeve’s Superman, for example, there’s no choice as to which one I’m most attracted. Don’t make me say which one.

As for female characters—Anne Elliot from PERSUASION is my favourite Jane Austen heroine, hands down. I much prefer her zigzaggy path to happiness, with much of the blame on her own shoulders, than even Elizabeth Bennett’s self-possessed and independent road to enlightenment.

7. What authors have influenced you as a writer?

Well, of course Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s magnificent Count Saint-Germain, as well as her female vampire character Atta Olivia Clemens, who has her own three-book series, definitely made me think about the missing scenes in most vampire tales—and made me want to fill those in.

Jo Beverley’s historical romances—especially her Georgian period Malloren family series and the late Regency Company of Rogues series—are my auto-buy books in that genre. Again, she sets up stories that never follow the road most taken. A twice-jilted heroine who has a club foot? Not appearing in most historical romances, but the heroine of HAZARD not only has one, but is paired up with a sketchy gentleman serving as a secretary to a viscount. Social class issues—my favourite!

I also have to say Catherine Cookson, although to tell you the truth, I haven’t read even one of her books. Hmm? How does that work? Well, a whole series of adaptations of her books were made by British producers ITV, many of which have become some of my favourite British historical dramas. The writing in all of them is so layered, and I never saw the character arc reveals coming. Favorites from those: The Girl (with Jonathan Cake), The Gambling Man (with Robson Greene) and The Fifteen Streets (with Sean Bean.)

8. Tell us about what you’re working on now.

I’m working on my dark fantasy story featuring Scorpius, the former falconer’s apprentice who keeps one step ahead of deadly political games—until he and his master are captured and held for ransom by a rival noble house. Will his freedom be worth the price he must pay to the lady for whom he now owes a life debt? Especially when her chief interest lies in learning to summon the dragons which plague their land?

9. Will you share an excerpt with us?

With pleasure:

Peredur hung forward, his arms stretched awkwardly behind him, bound behind a large tree. Now fully awake, he tried to stand upright and surge forward, but the bonds held.

His brethren gathered all around the tree. Melnak who stood farthest away in the shadows, pulled his amulet from where it hid in his robes then lifted it over his head. As he approached, Melnak said, “God our Father, our brother now descends into the trial you have given him.”

The brethren intoned, “Our Father, hear us,” just as Peredur’s body began to jerk away from the amulet as though compelled to do so. Melnak brought the shining polished bone to rest against the bottom rib of Peredur’s left side.

For a moment Peredur couldn’t see. All before him was blinding white light.

When he came to, Peredur sensed he was somewhere else entirely, no longer bound to the tree.

In the distance, a figure waited for him, a miserable bent man barely clothed in rags. Peredur tried to join him, but at the hint of motion his legs shot through with fiery tendrils. The figure turned his face to see who approached.

Such a man. His face held the expression of one who had endured a torturous vigil, rather like the one from which Peredur could not free himself. But the face also held a beauty that hurt to see. Peredur wanted to turn his face away, but the gaze of those tormented eyes held him and despite the pain, he forced a step or two forward.

I’m coming, Peredur tried to tell him, but the bent figure lowered his head as if overcome by agony after all. Peredur grit his teeth and pushed forward with all his might.

His feet finally moved, but suddenly it seemed the saint was miles from where Peredur could reach him. Peredur’s heart sank.

He remembered in his boyhood, how heavy the sword had been at first, when the sword master made him swing it again and again. His legs just now were the same. They rebelled against his commands.
_
Move! he shouted at them. Move!

Anger at the injustice of it coursed through him. As the anger rose, the binding stiffness released his legs and his steps grew easier.

Peredur wanted to race to the saint’s side, but what use would there be in that? Now that he could move, he walked with dread toward the fallen bundle of rags and limbs. Kneeling there, he took the saint in his arms and brushed the matted hair from the bruised face.

Saint Cittinus’ eyes fluttered open.

Peredur looked down at the youthful saint in his arms, made old before his time by the captivity and mistreatment he’d endured. As if for the first time, Peredur saw the clear white line of a scar across the saint’s neck, as if a rope had choked him there.

Saint Cittinus looked into Peredur’s eyes. Those cracked lips moved. Instead of ‘I thirst,’ the saint spoke clearly, if softly. “We have no one else to fear,” he said, “but our Lord God. Who is in Heaven.”

Peredur nodded. He stayed as he was and watched the saint expire before his eyes. All the while his angel never took his hand from Peredur’s shoulder.

Saint Cittinus faded from Peredur’s grip, though he still felt the weight of him in his arms. No sooner than he’d seen it, but Peredur came to.

He found himself still straining in his bonds against the tree. With breathtaking intensity, the pain in his rib returned. Melnak held the amulet to him still, with unyielding grimness.

He thought of the scar upon the saint’s neck. Instead of struggling and cursing as Peredur had done on the battlefield against the spear, Cittinus had accepted the wound that had given him the scar.

It was time to stop fighting.

Don't miss Julia's blog, A Piece of My Mind or her website, Julia Phillips Smith .

St. Sanguinus will be available from Amazon with the next few days.

Let There Be Peace on Earth

2011-11-04T07:48:00.004-03:00

Today's the day for blog blast to peace. People all over the world will be blogging, tweeting and facebooking about peace, about ways to make the world a better place. What is there to say that hasn't already been said?

This past Thanksgiving (Canadian Thanksgiving, in October), with my parents at our family cottage, after a turkey feast and a few glasses of wine, Mum and Dad started reminiscing. Dad had been reading my World War 1 novel, and the talk turned to their memories of the end of World War 2, when the soldiers began coming home. My parents were small children at the time, but two of my mother's uncles were overseas. Both returned. Mum still has letters they wrote home during the war. They are poignant for their very ordinariness, full of questions about brothers and sisters and doings on the family's small farm. Letters written by two young men who, in the normal run of things, would probably have never traveled outside of Canada.

In rural Nova Scotia there were no parades, no marching bands to greet them. The men came home one by one and each family welcomed them in its own way - a celebratory dinner, a round of visits to relatives. Then, life returned to its usual quiet routine, with a weight of anxiety removed, just as it does now when soldiers come home from Iraq and Afghanistan. But for each soldier and each family, life is permanently altered. The person who comes home is not the person who went to war.

One of my great-uncles was in Holland at the war's end. He couldn't say much in his letters and, according to my mother, he never spoke of his experiences, but they left him so badly shaken that he never recovered. I think he might have been involved in the liberation of some of the concentration camps, and he just couldn't process what he saw there.

We tend to think of war as tragedy on a large scale. Perhaps peace would be easier to achieve if we remembered more often that war is really thousands of personal tragedies woven together. Maybe that's the way to make 'never again' a reality.

Haunted Halifax

2011-10-29T19:38:00.007-03:00

Who doesn’t like a good ghost story? And where better to find them than here in Halifax? The unfortunate victims of the Titanic sinking in 1912 were brought here, and some were buried here. Then, in 1917 there was the Halifax Explosion, with its tragic loss of life, but the city’s two hundred years of colourful history before that has also yielded a rich harvest of spooky tales. With Halloween approaching, I couldn’t resist sharing some of the best with you.

Since its founding, Halifax has had its share of bars and brothels that catered to soldiers and sailors on a spree. In olden times, many of the dives were clustered in the area around Citadel Hill, close to the military barracks. Barrack Street was home to the city’s most unsavoury characters, none more unsavoury than young James Bossom.

James Bossom senior ran one of Barrack Street's most notorious taverns,and the apple didn't fall far from the tree. James junior was a bully and street tough, so thoroughly disliked that when he was murdered, some people demanded that his killer, Smith D. Clark, go free because he'd done the city a service, while James' cronies rioted, insisting Clark be hung. Apparently he was sentenced to death, but was pardoned by Queen Victoria on the occasion of her marriage, because of the extenuating circumstances (Bossom had taunted and threatened him repeatedly.)James was buried in the Old Burying Ground - with his murderer’s name on his headstone.

When I saw this stone a few years ago, I just had to find the story behind it. Here it is, briefly told by a local historian. If you'd like a complete version, click here.

Another suitable story for the season is that of the Five Fishermen Restaurant and Grill, a downtown restaurant that specializes in fine seafood – with a side of the supernatural. You see, the two-hundred year-old building that houses the Five Fishermen was once a funeral home. The bodies of Titanic victims were taken there, as were those of Explosion victims. Diners and staff have experienced mysteriously mobile cutlery, disembodied voices and shadowy apparitions. Good for the appetite? I guess that’s a matter of opinion.

The fort on Citadel Hill is also said to be haunted. Visitors to the historic site have reported strange occurrences – such as sightings of uniformed men who are believed to be costumed staff until they vanish through walls. Ghostly voices have been heard there as well.

Then there’s Canada’s oldest church, St. Paul's Anglican, just across from City Hall. From a sidewalk on the right side of the church, the shadowy silhouette of a man's face can easily be seen in an upper-level rounded window. The face supposedly belonged to a one-time assistant at Saint Paul’s, who died in the Explosion. Though the window has been replaced, the silhouette remains.

It was a ghost story that inspired me to write Shattered. A friend of mine who lives in the North End told me she came home from work one day, looked in her kitchen window and saw a man in old-fashioned clothes, sitting at her table. As she told the tale I pictured her visitor – blond, stocky, with hazel eyes and a tough-looking face. The kind of man who’d fight someone in an alley for the heck of it, then drink with him afterward. Like Liam Cochrane.

People of Blogland, do you have any good ghost stories to share?

Real Men Read Romance

2011-10-08T10:07:00.003-03:00

First things first: My Jeopardy contest isn’t over yet, so if you think you know Halifax history – or like looking up arcane facts on Google – skip down to the next post and play along!

Now on to today’s thoughts.

Over the past few days, a couple of male readers (who are also authors) have told me how much they enjoyed Shattered. This is really gratifying, as I always assumed the story would appeal mostly to a female audience. These gentlemen have got me thinking: How many real men read romance? And how many will admit it?

Here’s a hypothetical plot line for you: Loner hero with a dark past comes across an attractive young damsel in distress. He wants nothing to do with her but his protective instincts won’t let him be, so he helps the lady out. They have all kinds of adventures, and in the process the brooding hero decides being in love is more fun than brooding. The bad guys are dealt with and the happy or learning-to-be-happy couple ride off into the sunset together.

Sounds like a romantic suspense? Of course. It also sounds like a good old-fashioned Western, the kind I grew up reading, written by and for men.

I read these books as a teenager for one reason: I found them incredibly romantic. The heroes loved their women with a passion, even though the passion wasn’t explicit: Louis L’Amour once said he avoided writing sex scenes because when he read them in other authors’ books, they always seemed like an ordeal or an athletic competition, and Zane Grey was restricted by the publishing strictures of his time, though both wrote scenes that were passionate to a point. The heroes also treated their women with respect, something else that I appreciated, then and now. Cross the line between alpha and ass, and I’m putting the book down.

The difference between men’s romances and women’s romances is, of course, point of view. Which makes me wonder – why aren’t there more female and male authors teaming up to write love stories, with the man writing the hero’s point of view and the woman writing the heroine’s, so that the two are balanced and as authentic as possible? Would those books sell like hotcakes, or would it be a case of pleasing no one by trying to please everyone?

I haven’t analysed my own books to see what proportion of each story is told from the hero or heroine’s point of view, but I know McShannon’s Chance and Shattered are both weighted in favour of the hero. This wasn’t intentional on my part. The male characters just came to me first, leaving me with the job of finding them suitable mates. The fact that men find Shattered appealing makes me think I did a reasonable job of getting inside Liam’s head and writing from his point of view. So, Dan Strawn and Desmond Haas, thank you for the kind words!

It's Jeopardy Time!

2011-09-30T09:09:00.004-03:00

Okay, I'm a history geek. No, a history nerd. Trivia turns my crank. My mind is a vast storehouse of miscellaneous and utterly useless facts. In other words, I'm a Jeopardy natural.

So, it's time to indulge my affinity for the arcane in the form of a contest. The following are seven answers, Jeopardy style, to questions related to the Halifax Explosion. The first person to supply the corresponding, properly phrased questions, and subscribe to my new newsletter (see the sidebar link) will receive a twenty-five dollar Amazon gift card. All other entrants who subscribe to the newsletter before the contest ends will be included in a draw for a print copy of Shattered when it becomes available, which should be before the end of October.

Some of these facts will be known to locals, but not all. They can be found on this blog, by a quick Google search, or in the historical note at the end of Shattered. Good luck!

Remember to phrase your responses in the form of a question. Here we go:

1. On this date, the Halifax Explosion occured.

2. A shattered watch in the Explosion exhibit at Halifax's Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is stopped at this hour, when the Explosion occured.

3. The Explosion was caused by a collision between these two ships.

4. Knowing that the city was in danger, I stayed at my telegraph station to send a warning message to an incoming train. I lost my life as a result.

5. This U.S. state quickly came to Halifax's aid after the Explosion, and is still acknowledged with a Christmas gift each year.

6. The North End Halifax neighbourhood hardest hit by the Explosion, got its name from this American city.

7. The neighbourhood that was built in the devastated part of Halifax bears this name, because of the material used in its construction.

Shattered is Live!!

2011-09-24T21:39:00.002-03:00

Shattered is now available at Smashwords! It'll take a few days to hit Amazon and the other e-sellers, and I'm waiting for the print proof from CreateSpace, but the book is available. Here's the link:

SHATTERED

My third book! Squee!

Shattered Update, or Jumping Into the Deep End

2011-09-18T12:29:00.004-03:00

I received my cover for Shattered from Kim Killion at Hot Damn Designs last week. Here it is. All I can say is squee! I think she captured the mood of the story very well and produced an elegant, classy design.

So, I’m going to be self-publishing this one. The print book block is ready to go, and I’m waiting to get the formatted e-book files back from Lucinda Campbell, who’s doing them for me. Then it’ll be time to take a deep breath and upload them.

I feel a bit like I did at eight when I snuck up the ladder of the high diving board at the pool when no one was watching, and jumped. There’s a sea of what-ifs below me. What if the book doesn’t sell? What if I end up feeling that, by opting out of the months or years of querying and waiting that goes with searching for a Big Six publisher, I’ve sold my story short? What about the companion book I’ve already started writing, and the two others I have planned?

Yesterday, a very high-profile Harlequin editor visited my chapter of RWA, spoke to us and heard pitches. She was kind enough to read the first chapter of Shattered, and had some very positive things to say about it. She called it ‘a page-turner,’ but was very direct in telling me during my pitch session that the story wasn’t suitable for Harlequin. Am I jumping the gun in believing that it isn’t suitable for other Big Six publishers either?

I guess I’ll never know. Finding out would mean risking months during which the publishing industry will continue to shift, opening new doors and closing others. Months in which I could have been selling books and building a readership. Taking the route I’ve chosen simply involves different risks. I’ve had enough feedback to be confident that I have a good story to sell, with an attractive cover. I have a writing community to turn to for input on marketing. All that’s left is to take the leap and have faith that what’s meant to be, will be.

Sort of like falling in love. We all need to take a leap of faith now and then. I guess that’s what romance is all about.

Serendipity

2011-08-09T16:29:00.002-03:00

I love serendipity – the word and the thing itself. It just makes you feel like something is meant to be.

The epilogue to Shattered ends with the launching of the Bluenose in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia on March 26, 1921. For those of you who aren’t familiar with her, the Bluenose was a racing schooner, built to challenge the American fleet out of Gloucester for international bragging rights. Under her captain, Angus Walters, she earned a place in Canada’s history, and on our dime. I thought it fitting that Liam’s life as a shipwright begin with his taking a hand in her building, but when I came to write the epilogue, I realized I needed details. What was the weather like the day the Bluenose was launched? What kind of an occasion was it?

Last week, my husband had to spend a morning in Lunenburg for work. I gladly went along. Lunenburg is a UNESCO world heritage site due to its striking architecture, and a Mecca for a history geek like me.

While DH was working, I walked down to the waterfront and stood at the spot where Bluenose slipped into the water ninety years ago. Then I stopped by the Fisheries Museum. I walked out with the following first hand newspaper account of the launch:

Amid the cheers of the assembled multitude, blessed by a bright clear sunshine and sea upon which there was never a ruffle, Canada’s challenger for the great International Schooner Race, took the water at 10 am this morning. The launching was without a hitch. Nothing untoward marred the splendor of the occasion…

Gaily decorated and carrying her name flag, the Bluenose took to the water as her natural element, to the accompaniment of O Canada, played by the 75th regimental band and the enthusiastic demonstration of the thousands who thronged the waterfront…

So now I know. Just when I needed to. Gotta love serendipity.

Trailer for Shattered

2011-08-07T12:32:00.003-03:00

I’m waiting for feedback from a RWAC chapter mate who’s graciously agreed to read Shattered for me. Fingers crossed! In the meantime, I’ve been playing, creating a trailer for the story, with the above result. It’s an interim version, of course, as I don’t have a cover yet.

I’m going to take a little time to consider the book’s future, query a few publishers and look into the self-publishing process. I can’t even guess at a release time yet, as that will depend on the route I choose, but I’m hoping for next spring, earlier if I self-publish. I’ll post updates here, of course.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying a break and savouring the feeling of finishing another project. I’m pleased with this one and hope that however and whenever it finds its way to you, readers will enjoy it too.

Shattered is Done!

2011-08-03T08:48:00.005-03:00

I love this picture of Halifax as it once was. Old photos always give me a feeling of something like homesickness. It really makes me wonder about reincarnation.

Finished major rewrites on Shattered Monday evening. This story is almost ready to go off into the world. Yesterday I tackled the synopsis. Time to take a deep breath and a break.

I see that I’ve written another rather herocentric story. I think that’s ingrained in me, thanks to all the herocentric stories I read growing up. The plot revolves around Liam’s journey toward healing. I found him a little difficult to get to know, but of course, I eventually fell in love with him. He’s earned his flaws. He’s like the ‘Tommy’ in Rudyard Kipling’s poem:

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints

As always, some of my secondary characters have done their best to divert me. I’d like to write the story of Liam’s brother Nolan and his wife Annie (What is it with me and prequels?), and definitely the story of Alice’s brother Carl. Who might be waiting for him? He’d definitely need a strong woman to bring him around. Recipient of a Military Cross, tough as nails, with a frightened little boy hiding deep inside – Carl is definitely hero material.

But for now, after a little vacation, I’m going to switch gears and finish my children’s novel. It’s been on the back burner too long. I’ll leave you with an excerpt of Liam and Alice’s first dance, and Liam’s first encounter with Carl. What a pair of Irish hotties –er, hotheads. Enjoy.

He took Alice’s hand and drew her into his arms. Dancing and the heat had brought the blood to her cheeks, and her eyes sparkled like running brook water again. Although she blushed, he sensed no shyness in her body. She fit naturally in his arms, as if she belonged there.

Yeah. She sure isn’t a kid anymore.

Then, like a bolt from the blue an image flashed into Liam’s mind, Alice dancing close, nestled in his arms with her head on his shoulder. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, where did that come from? She’s Georgie’s sister! He loosened his hold on her, but that didn’t dull his awareness of every slender curve, of her light floral perfume. Worse, he saw in her eyes that she’d felt the awareness between them, too.

Before he could make an excuse and abandon her, the band ended the waltz with an extra flourish. The leader bowed to the crowd. “Catch your breath, ladies and gentlemen, while the chair of your Social Committee says a few words. I give you Mrs. Frances Henneberry.”

Everyone returned to their seats, Liam with a sigh of devout thanks. He angled his chair to put Stephen and Alice out of his line of sight. As far as I’m concerned, friend, she’s all yours. Good luck keeping her. Thin, sharp-faced Mrs. Henneberry stepped onto the platform with a self-conscious smile and cleared her throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s wonderful to see you all here, supporting our parish’s efforts to ease the suffering of helpless civilians overseas. There is more than one person here tonight who could tell us first-hand just how severe those sufferings have been and what our sons and brothers have sacrificed in the effort to end them. The least we here at home can do is – ”

“Shut up. That’s the least you can do.”

The words carried clearly from the corner nearest the O’Neills’ table. Every head swiveled. Georgie blushed a deep red. Alice’s face blanched pearl-white. In the shadows just beyond the lighted platform, Carl leaned against the wall, his face flushed with heat and liquor. No one at the table had noticed him come in.

An older, heavier Carl than Liam remembered, with a harder face. The tough kid had grown into a tough man, with an added belligerence. One look at his glazed eyes told Liam Georgie’s brother was a loose cannon.

He and Stephen got up at the same instant and started toward the corner. Stephen got there first and planted himself in front of Carl.

“You’ve said enough. Your sisters are here.”

“I’m not leaving ‘til I make my point.” Carl pushed Stephen back and raised his voice again. “That old windbag hasn’t got anyone at the front. She doesn’t have a clue.”

The scathing words on Liam’s tongue died there. Up close, Carl reminded him too much of men he’d seen in hospital, men who woke in the night screaming as he’d done more than once. Men who spent their days looking at the world through vacant eyes. And Mrs. Henneberry annoyed the hell out of him, too.

“You’re right, Carl. She doesn’t. This isn’t the place for either of us. Come outside and get some fresh air.”

Fists clenched, Carl took a step forward. “Don’t bullshit me, Liam. I’m not going anywhere until I’m good and ready. Who do you think you are, anyway? Your little brother isn’t the only one who’s been killed overseas, you know. Just –”

Liam didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. Rage blotted out his compassion, rage and the memory of Michael-John’s wide, sightless dark eyes. His first punch landed hard in Carl’s belly. The second hit his jaw, knocking him backward and throwing Liam off-balance. They hit the floor, fists flying. The next thing he knew, Nolan was dragging him to his feet while his father and Stephen pinioned Carl. Liam shook his brother off and dove at Carl, only to have his bad leg collapse and land him back on the floor. Nolan helped him up again and got a firm grip on his arms.

“What the hell? Liam, stop it!”

The girls stood nearby now. Georgie’s eyes sparkled with anger, but the strain on Alice’s face did more to clear the haze from Liam’s mind. He stopped struggling with Nolan, took a deep breath and swallowed. The metallic taste of blood in his mouth made his stomach churn.

“The son of a bitch insulted Michael-John.”

Nolan released his hold and took a step toward Carl, putting himself in the man’s face. “If I ever hear of you mentioning my brother’s name again, I’ll finish what Liam started. Dad, Stephen, get him the hell out of here.”

Still winded from Liam’s first blow, blood trickling from his nose, Carl didn’t offer much resistance. Liam figured he’d gotten the worst of the encounter himself, a split lip and what would likely be a magnificent shiner. A couple of older women were on the platform trying to soothe Mrs. Henneberry, who looked on the verge of tears. He should go and say something to her, but at the moment he couldn’t find the words. He shrugged Nolan’s hand from his shoulder.

“I’m getting out of here. Apologize to Georgie for me, would you?” Without waiting for an answer, he walked out.

Music and Musings

2011-07-19T08:35:00.003-03:00

Last night, my friend Kathy – the gifted musician who played at my book launch in March – invited me to hear her play in an orchestral concert downtown. The evening was a double treat, as the concert took place in one of Halifax’s beautiful historic churches, Fort Massey United, where I’d never been before.

History geek that I am, whenever I attend an event in an old church, I make a point of arriving early to explore the building and read the memorial plaques on the walls. In particular, since I began Shattered I’ve been seeking out the plaques in memory of soldiers who fell in the Great War.

Every old church in the country has these memorials. Out of a total population of eight million, Canada sent over six hundred thousand young men and women to the Great War and more than one in ten didn’t return, so that’s not surprising, but I got a surprise at Fort Massey. It has three plaques in memory of five brothers who died overseas between 1914 and 1918. Four of the Stairs boys were killed in action over the course of the war, and the fifth, who had earned a Distinguished Service Order, died of influenza less than two weeks after the Armistice was signed. I stood there looking at the names on the tarnished brass and wondered how their parents were able to go on living.

Then I settled into my seat for the concert. As the orchestra sent Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’ ringing into the rafters, I counted my blessings. I suppose part of the poignancy of old tragedies is that there’s nothing we can do about them but imagine.

Lest we forget.

Summertime and the Living is Easy

2011-07-05T10:05:00.010-03:00

Hello, long time no see! Here's a little eye candy treat to begin. This is Colin Hemsworth, my inspiration for Liam Cochrane.

Time to catch up. It has been a while, hasn’t it? Our Nova Scotia non-spring has rained itself away, and now it’s summer.

We spent the Canada Day weekend at the cottage. The weather was fine, the lake was wonderful for swimming and the Terrible Tollers were in heaven, though poor Chance paid the price yesterday. He forgot that he’s not a pup anymore, and keeping up with Echo left him sore and tired, but today he’s his usual self again.

I’m still teaching, as my Grade 10 students have not yet finished their courses due to their late start in the fall. It’s fun having the school more or less to ourselves, doing math over coffee and discussing Canadian history over lunch. I’m not sure what September will bring, but I know I will sorely miss these girls whenever we part company. They make teaching worthwhile. The slower pace is nice, too, as I spent the last half of the winter and spring juggling teaching and evening tutoring. That’s the main reason for my spell of silence here. Something had to give.

I’m plugging away on revisions with Shattered. The second half of the book needed a major overhaul. I hope to have it submission ready by the end of the month. Then, it’s on to the children’s novel. It will make a nice change, I think.

This morning, I re-read the three chapters I have written of Nathan Munroe’s book, likely the last in the Wallace Flats series. I couldn’t help grinning. There’s something about Nathan that always makes me smile, and Colin McShannon does, too, scrappy little Yorkshire terrier that he is. Each of my book people has stolen a corner of my soul. That’s why I write.

My fitness program is progressing as well – 15 pounds down and, ideally, another 15 to go. Slow but steady wins the race. It’s nice to be able to wear some clothes that haven’t fit me for a while.

A good number of my RWAC chaptermates, including Donna Alward, Kelly Boyce and Julia Smith, just returned from Nationals in New York. I won't confess to a tinge of envy – I’ll admit that I’m absolutely green! Check out their blogs for the scoop on the Big Apple.

People of Blogland, I hope you’re having a great summer. What are you up to?

A Piece of Heaven

2011-04-25T20:33:00.006-03:00

Unlike last year, when the warm weather arrived in March, spring has taken its time arriving here in Nova Scotia. That said, I think it’s finally here to stay!

To mark Easter and both our birthdays, my DH and I spent this past weekend at our family cottage. It’s on a small, secluded lake with not another building for miles, and to us, it’s our little slice of heaven.

My father, his brother and my cousins built the cottage twenty years ago. Since then, it’s hosted countless good times. The best Christmas turkey I ever ate was cooked in the old wood stove we used to have there. My father has tapped the maples and made syrup there. The road is usually impassable by car in the winter, and the first trip in each year is the real beginning of spring.

This weekend, Dad picked Mayflowers for me as he does every year.
Echo and Chance swam to their hearts’ content and came home two tired, blissful Tollers.

We had a delicious Easter dinner of roast beef with all the trimmings, with cheesecake for a birthday dessert. Delicious!

In January, I decided that my word for this year would be GRATITUDE. Among the things I’m grateful for, a place where I can wake in the night to hear owls calling, swim with loons, hear woodthrushes singing at sunrise, reconnect, rejuvenate and celebrate, is very near the top of the list.

As is my mom’s cheesecake!

A Night At The Theatre: West Side Story

2011-04-07T09:16:00.001-03:00

I’ve always had a soft spot for musicals, so, when I got the chance to attend Neptune Theatre’s production of West Side Story last night as part of their Word of Mouth program, I was delighted.

The classic tale of star-crossed lovers, inspired by Romeo and Juliet, takes place against a background of racial prejudice and street violence in Manhattan. The Sharks, a newly formed gang of Puerto Rican immigrants, are battling for turf with the Jets, an established gang of white Americans, many of whom are the children of immigrants themselves. Though the story is told with a lot of street slang that’s dated to our ears, it doesn’t matter. The conflict is timeless.

Tony, the founder of the Jets, now out of the gang, falls in love with Maria, the young sister of Bernardo, commander of the Sharks. Their love sparks a gang war, with tragic consequences. It isn’t difficult to imagine the story playing out on inner-city streets today.

I expected to see a lot of high-octane dancing and passionate acting, and I wasn’t disappointed. Choreographer Jim White has done a masterful job. I was sitting near the front of the hall, and the energy onstage hit me in waves. Chino (Dani Jazzar), second in command of the Sharks, radiated danger. Tomboy Anybodys (Allison MacDougall) made me smile. The Jets’ number “Gee, Officer Krupke” had me laughing out loud. In particular, Stephenos Christou as Maria’s brother Bernardo and Dayna Tietzen as his girlfriend Anita came close to stealing the show. Together they sizzled, and separately, Tietzen’s passion matched Christou’s menacing anger.

Anwyn Musico as Maria brought a lovely mix of innocence and charm to the role. Her strong soprano voice handled the music very well. I felt that she could have showed more angst at times, but she poured plenty into the final scene of the show, where she needed it most. Her Tony, Liam Tobin, impressed me with his handling of the music as well. Though Tobin didn’t give Tony the edge one might expect from a former gang leader, he still shone. I couldn’t help wishing the story could end happily for him and Maria, and isn’t that what a tragic romance should do? As a whole, this show was a real treat.

The Boys of Summer are Back!

2011-04-02T12:29:00.003-03:00

Well, beat the drum and hold the phone - the sun came out today
We're born again, there's new grass on the field
Roundin' third, and headed for home, it's a brown-eyed handsome man
Anyone can understand the way I feel

Centre Field, John Fogerty

The major league baseball season opened last night. I settled in with an Oatmeal Stout and watched the Toronto Blue Jays trounce the Minnesota Twins in a 13-3 romp. I'm born again, there's new grass on the field.

I fell in love with baseball during the two university years I spent in Montreal. The Expos were in their heyday then, with Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines and company. I used to listen to Dave Van Horne and Duke Snyder call the games on the radio and dream of warm summer days, even in the doubtful weather of early April.

I enjoy the speed of hockey, but I enjoy the pauses in baseball. It's a different kind of drama, with the buildup before each pitch, each at-bat like a scene in a novel. It also appeals to the history buff in me, with time for interesting tidbits about games and players past.

Last night's game had all the best ingredients - home runs, flashy defense, speed on the bases, and the right team won! Three cheers for the Boys of Summer!

The first draft of Shattered is DONE!

2011-03-27T10:49:00.005-03:00

Liam and Alice have found their happily-ever-after …or rather, they’ve found each other and promised to rebuild their lives together. Happiness will take them some time. This is definitely a book that has to have an epilogue, just as Halifax did. The above photo shows reconstruction happening circa 1918, and here's a modern street scene where destruction once reigned.

I’ve found it isn’t easy to write about the devastation of a place you know and love, even if it all happened over ninety years ago. The recent tragedies in Japan and New Zealand haven’t made it easier, but after all, Halifax’s story does have a real happy ending. The human spirit is unstoppable. Now, I have to go back to the beginning and make sure I’ve done my characters justice.

I wish I could step back in time, just for a day, and see the community of Richmond as it used to be. All the accounts I’ve read are full of real affection. I think it was a place where I would have liked to live, an unpretentious neighbourhood where people knew each other’s dogs and cats and kids, with backyards big enough for a milk cow and a few hens. The Hydrostone District that replaced it – named for the cement blocks used for rebuilding after the Explosion – is attractive, with rows of neat garden homes and a strip of fashionable stores and restaurants, including my favourite French bakery.

It’s become a trendy and relatively expensive part of town, but it’s less to my taste than the old neighbourhood would have been. Still, the Hydrostone is a testament to the resilience of Haligonians, and so I appreciate it too.

Now back to work.

Folk Friday: Down and Dirty

2011-03-18T09:32:00.000-03:00

Surfing Amazon discussion boards the other day, I came across a comment from a reader who said she didn’t care for historical romance because ‘let’s face it – the women back then were hairy and the men stinky.’ She was actually praising a historical that she’d picked up against her inclination, but she started me thinking. Just how bad was hygiene in ‘the good old days’, meaning the mid-Victorian era where I set my stories?

There’s no denying that in some places and situations, it was awful. I’ve read of discussions in the U.S. Cavalry about allowing soldiers water to bathe once a week. For troops on the march or cowboys on cattle drives, washing would not have been a priority, nor would doing laundry. Eww! But what about the ordinary folks leading settled lives?

The wood stove was the heart of a rural home, and those old ranges really were an example of appropriate technology. We used to have one at our cottage, and I loved it. The first person up started the fire, and it burned all day, winter or summer. The stove’s boiler provided hot water for cooking, cleaning and bathing.
While getting out the wash tub and filling it for a full bath would have been a production, there were basins and ewers. I imagine most people washed at least once a day.

By the end of the Civil War, doctors had made the connection between cleanliness and health and it had started to filter down to the general population. If a man had done his time in the Army and experienced the discomfort of being truly filthy, I think he’d welcome cleanliness. So, stinky heroes? Maybe at times, but I make my guys wash!

Hairy women? Perhaps, but back then armpit and leg hair was taken for granted. It wasn’t until the advent of shorter skirts, sleeveless blouses and sheer stockings in the early to mid 20th century that advertisers set to work convincing North American women that body hair was unsightly. To this day, many European women don’t shave. I’ve also read that, due to the smaller proportion of fat in people’s diets back then, women in general had lower testosterone levels and therefore less body hair in earlier times. For facial hair, there were tweezers and, after 1903, safety razors.

The same advertisers have convinced us that all natural scent is a social crime, that we should be scentless or perfumed. We forget what a natural clean smells like. So, I’m not surprised that some readers find the thought of a hero who doesn’t use deodorant revolting, but to me the thought of a man who uses aluminum chloride as a substitute for soap and water is worse, and they’re out there.

So, when I read historicals, I don’t think too much about these things. How about you? Do considerations of cleanliness affect your choice of reading material? Inquiring minds want to know.

And for Folk Friday, here’s some classic Willie Nelson with wonderful photos to match. Enjoy!

McShannon's Heart Launch Celebration

2011-03-11T15:33:00.006-04:00

Last night I marked the release of McShannon’s Heart with a launch party at The Company House, a cosy acoustic music venue in downtown Halifax. Friends and family showed up to help me celebrate: my parents, Everett’s cousin and his wife, neighbours and members of Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada, including Tara Macdonald of Charlie Mac Productions, who along with Frances Leary from Bconnected worked hard on publicity for the event. It was great to see Judith James there, and Julia Smith kindly snapped some photos. Here I am signing Julia’s copy of the book.

Everett, my DH, and Kathy MacGillivary, friend extraordinaire, provided the music, and I chimed in on a few tunes. It’s been a long time since I’ve played in public, but I felt more comfortable than I expected. I felt even more comfortable off the stage listening to Everett and Kathy float through jazz tunes.

Normally I’m nervous reading from my books, but not this time. I guess I’m slowly getting used to it. I enjoyed sharing Chelle and Martin’s first meeting, and the scene from Chance where Beth learns the perils of baking with a wood stove.

I’m blessed to have such a talented partner in life, an equally talented and generous friend in Kathy, and a family that is always there for me. Thanks to one and all for making the evening special.

Catching Up

2011-02-27T15:43:00.001-04:00

Haven’t posted since Valentine’s Day. Life has been crazy. Can’t post the details here yet, but when I can, I will.

On the writing front, I’m holding a book launch celebration on Thursday, March 10, from 6 to 8 pm at The Company House, a cosy little acoustic music venue at 2202 Gottingen Street here in Halifax. Officially it’s a launch for Heart, but due to the twists and turns of Chance’s route to publication I never had a launch for it, so I’ll be reading from both. Everett McInnis, my other half, and Kathy MacGillivray, one of my best friends, will be providing the music. I’ll probably join in on a tune or two myself if my voice allows – right now I have a cold, so I’m not sure. It should be a fun evening. Tara MacDonald, from the RWAC marketing committee, and Frances Leary from BConnected are helping publicize the event. I can’t believe their supportive energy. I’m a very, very lucky author.

News flash – I just finished a telephone interview with Desmond Haas, a fellow author, for his online Romance Radio show! I think it went well, but I’m reserving judgement until I hear the recording. I’ll be posting links to the edited sound file when I get them. AND there’s a group book signing with RWAC at Chapters in Dartmouth Crossing on March 19. All this good, exciting stuff – and the not so good, stressful stuff – has my head in a whirl.
It also has me thinking about music for the launch party. I’m trying to come up with a few tunes that evoke the characters in my books. Here’s what I have so far:

1. She Mov’d Through the Fair: A haunting tune of love and loss, for Martin Rainnie. It’s the song I recorded for the trailer.

2. The Patriot’s Game: For Trey’s best bud, Justin Sinclair. “Come all ye young rebels and list while I sing, for the love of one’s country is a dangerous thing.” This song is about the troubles in Ireland, but it applies to civil conflict everywhere, with its tragic loss of young lives. Can’t find a good recording of this one.

3. Soldier’s Joy: For Nathan Munroe. I love Michelle Shocked’s version of this tune. War ain’t pretty. Soldier’s Joy is morphine.

Shaking hands and fingers that do tremble
Soldier's Joy has been a bitter pill
Though in battle, a brave man I resemble
Alone I am a coward without will

Since I couldn’t find a recording of her version, here’s Earl Scruggs doing the classic Appalachian version.

4. For Trey McShannon: Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring. A beautiful, beautiful piece that for me, evokes Trey’s love of the simple life.

5. For Beth Underhill: Ashokan Farewell. I love, love, love this piece, no matter how many times I’ve heard it. For me, it evokes Beth’s grace and gentleness, and her underlying strength.

6. Finally, for Rochelle McShannon: I don’t know the name of this piece because it isn’t titled in the video, but it’s lovely and evokes Chelle’s wistfulness.

I’ve missed a couple of Folk Fridays, so I hope this makes up for it. I’ll let you know how the interview turns out. And if anyone has any other suggestions for music that suits my characters, I’d love to hear them!

Music is the food of love

2011-02-14T08:24:00.004-04:00

There’s a magnet on my fridge that reads “If music be the food of love, play on.” My mother gave it to us when my DH and I moved into our house. It’s a pretty good description of our relationship.

I’ve told this story on my blog before, so forgive the repetition if you’ve already heard it. We met sixteen years ago. After a few years of not playing much guitar, I’d decided to take some lessons to get me motivated. I was working at Dalhousie University at the time, and one day I saw a notice on a bulletin board from a guitar instructor looking for students. I called the number, and the rest is history.

By the time my first lesson ended, I knew Everett was not only a fine musician but an excellent teacher – an uncommon combination. It took longer to make up my mind about him as a person. He’s quiet and reserved, not the kind of man you get to know right away. We talked mostly about music, nothing personal, but my lessons often seemed to run overtime.

I belonged to the Halifax Harbour Folk Society, and when it was my turn to act as host for the weekly coffeehouse session, Everett agreed to join me. That was a bear of a winter in Halifax, and when we left the pub it had started to snow. Hard. I insisted I’d be okay driving home, as it was only a few blocks. We said goodnight and got in our separate vehicles.

When I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment building, Everett’s headlights flashed in my mirror. I’d been so focussed on the road, I hadn’t noticed him following me. He bumped his horn and drove off.

I was impressed. He had a much longer drive home. We weren’t dating at the time, just beginning to become friends, but he’d gone out of the way to see that I got home safely. That was the night I began to wonder if he might be a keeper. When he stopped charging me for lessons, I knew he was thinking the same way.

We complement each other musically as well as we do in other ways. I can hear lyrics once and, if they affect me, I’ll remember them. Everett doesn’t remember lyrics, but he can lift the most complicated chords from a recording. He’s a true musician, while I’m really more of a poet who likes to sing. We also share an interest in science. Being a creative person, he understands when I glue myself to my laptop to write . He isn’t a fiction reader – technical manuals or science magazines are more his style – and he hasn’t read my books, but he supports me and gives me my space. We’re still playing on.

Colorado Dreaming

2011-02-07T10:16:00.002-04:00

I had an amazing, vivid dream last night. It went on for what felt like hours, and at one point I woke, fell asleep again and tumbled right back into the dream.

It all took place in Wallace Flats, with my characters from McShannon's Chance. There was the town, laid out like a set from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. There was Neil Garrett’s saloon, the Bakers’ mercantile, and a lovely lake I wish I’d thought to put in the book.

In keeping with the Dr. Quinn theme, Beth looked a bit like an auburn-haired Jane Seymour. As for Trey, he surprised me. He had straight, coal-black, shoulder-length hair (I’ve always pictured him with shorter hair), a close-trimmed moustache, and a face something like Jude Law’s in Cold Mountain, almost fierce-looking. Of course he had deep, molasses-coloured eyes. Sigh. And his beautiful bay stallion, Flying Cloud. Another sigh. The only other characters to appear were a blond teenage boy – a version of Ben Reeves – and a young girl of eight or nine, Samantha (Sam). I have no idea where she came from. Perhaps she sprang from my mental image of Beth and Trey’s daughter Chelle. Sadly, no Nathan. I missed him and Lorie.

The only action I remember clearly was a horse race around the lake, which Trey and Cloud won in a thrilling finish. Everything else is hazy, but I woke feeling like I’d spent a wonderful few days with my characters in an idyllic setting, free (After all, I was dreaming!) of the harsher realities of the time. I wouldn’t mind going back every night.

Is the universe speaking to me? I hope so. I'm at a bit of a personal and writing low point right now, and I sure could use some inspiration. People of blogland, do you have any dreams to share?

Release Contest and Excerpt

2011-01-26T10:07:00.003-04:00

I’ve had a busy few days, arranging a book launch – tentatively set for March 10 – and generally tending to the stuff that comes up with a new release. Which brings me to one of those things – a contest!

I’m going to keep it simple. I’m always looking for ideas for this blog, so all I’m going to ask in order to be entered in a draw for a copy of Heart is that you comment on this post with a suggestion for a topic you’d like to see here – writing craft, historical, or otherwise – and that you follow my blog. I’ll run the contest until Valentine’s Day.

I also promised an excerpt, so I’ll give you the McShannons saying goodbye, not to be together again until the third book in the series (out next year if the Lord is willing and the creek don’t rise.) Enjoy!

Seagulls skimmed the harbor, their harsh voices at odds with their grace as they dipped and swirled, free as the sea breeze that carried them. Chelle took in a breath laden with the scents of salt water, tar and refuse, pungent and unfamiliar.

If the worth of a thing could be measured by the price paid for it, then freedom was precious indeed.

She’d never seen anything like New York before. She stood on the pier with her father and Trey, watching as sailors and stevedores went about their jobs, their shouts rising above the voices of other passengers saying their own farewells to family and friends. The city loomed in the background, its tall buildings creating a wall of brick and stone as cold and unforgiving as the light of the gray April morning. The scene didn’t seem real.
Rory had let her go without saying goodbye. Not a word, not a note.

Through the blur of shifts and changes as they made their way North, Chelle had refused to look back. If what she and Rory had felt for each other was love, it wasn’t worth regretting. Truth was truth, even if it broke her heart.

She felt miserably selfish. Everywhere along their route, people had been sober and preoccupied, preparing for what was all but certain to come. What right did she have to waste tears on a man who hadn’t wanted her, when the whole country was holding its collective breath, waiting for the first shot to be fired? If Rory could have seen the factories, the thousands of people in the New York streets, perhaps he would have understood why she couldn’t stay with him. The war was over before it had even begun. What would become of home, of the peaceful landscape she loved?

The McShannons had been exploring the ship, putting off the moment of parting, but the time had come when Trey had to go ashore. When they couldn’t delay any longer, Chelle threw her arms around her brother. She looked into his eyes and knew that this was tearing him apart, too.

He’d be traveling West, alone, through country that could be as dangerous as any battlefield. Her childhood playmate, her best friend. Trey might be capable and strong, but in so many ways, he was still a boy. Chelle didn’t want to make this harder for him, but she couldn’t let him go. She hugged him closer and laid her head on his shoulder.

“Trey, come with us, at least until the war is over. You can always come back then. Please. If we can’t get you on this ship, we’ll wait for another one.”

“It’s for the best this way, Chelle.” He lifted her chin and ruffled her hair. She felt him take a deep breath as he fought to control his voice. “It wouldn’t be any easier to leave you and Dad after the war, and what about Cloud? He’s waiting for me in that stable in Washington, remember? I’d have to sell him and that would take some time, even if I could do it, which I can’t. Maman wouldn’t want to see us going on like this.”

Somehow, Chelle steeled herself and stepped back. She couldn’t show less courage than Trey. “You’ve been the best brother a girl could have. Be careful. Write as soon as you get settled.”

“I will. You look after yourself too. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. And so will you.” Trey hadn’t spoken to her about Rory, but his silent sympathy had done wonders to help Chelle through the days since leaving home. He forced a grin. “Someday you’ll be able to visit the finest breeding farm west of Kentucky. Give my regards to Uncle Jack and Aunt Caroline.”

Her vision blurring with tears, Chelle watched as Trey turned and wrapped his arms around his father. “Goodbye, Dad. The two of you take care of each other. I’ll write as soon as I can. You’d better get aboard.”

“Aye.” Colin put his hands on his son’s shoulders and looked up at him with suspicious moisture in his eyes. “I’m proud of you, lad. Always have been. Remember that, and remember you’re your mother’s son. Goodbye.”

Trey stepped away with a bleak, young smile. He looked like he couldn’t speak, and Chelle knew she couldn’t. How many years would pass before she saw him again? She followed her father back across the gangway. As the ship started out of the harbor, Chelle pulled her mother’s shawl closer around her, stood at the rail and watched her brother’s figure dwindle to a lonely gray dot at the end of the pier. The life she’d always known disappeared with him, and at the moment she didn’t think she had it in her to build a new one.

In Print...Again!

2011-01-22T12:38:00.003-04:00

I picked up my copies of Heart from Purolator this morning. My second book! You can probably see my grin from where you are.

The cover looks better in reality than it does as an image. It has a lot of bright, vibrant color, and it looks good next to Chance on my shelf - as different from each other as blonde, blue-eyed Chelle is from black-haired, dark-eyed Trey. I'll have to pick up a bottle of wine and celebrate tonight. These are the moments that make writing worth it.

Another excerpt coming soon!

Folk Friday: Weird and Wonderful Words

2011-01-21T12:22:00.005-04:00

English really is a crazy, wonderful language. This morning, my co-worker in the ESL department arrived with a couple of calendars she picked up on sale last night. One of them gives a new unusual English word each day, and some of them are gems.

Frigorific – Sounds rather vulgar, doesn’t it? It means ‘to make something cold’, as in ‘a frigorific blast of wind’. When I relay this one to my DH, I’m sure it will find alternate meanings.

Grok – Huh? Sounds like a noise a bird makes. It means ‘to understand profoundly and intuitively’, as in ‘Margaret Mitchell really grokked character description’. The word was coined by Robert A Heinlein in his 1969 Science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land. It’s supposed to be Martian.

Acedia – apathy or boredom. This one has its origins in Latin. Acedia is a common condition this time of year, I’d say.

When I was growing up, my family had an elderly Nuttall’s English dictionary. It’s a great source of old words. One of my favourites is ‘slubberdegullion’, meaning a mean, dirty fellow. Drat, I should have had Chelle call someone that in McShannon’s Heart – but no, the word went out of use a couple of hundred years before Chelle was born.
What writer doesn’t love finding new words?

And yes, it’s Folk Friday. Since I’ve started rambling about language, Here’s a tune in Scottish Gaelic sung by Nova Scotia’s own Mary Jane Lamond. I love her pure, clear voice.
One thing I enjoy about Gaelic music is that the meaning of the lyrics is sometimes at variance with the mood created by the music. This piece is a good example. These songs weren’t written as art, they were written as forms of gossip and storytelling for people who had no time or reason to learn to read. At least this one isn’t about a grisly murder, as was one beautiful song I heard at a folk club meeting one night. I wished I’d been content not to know the meaning. Enjoy this one!

("Dómhnall Mac 'Ic Iain")

English Translation:

Ma dh'eugas Dòmhnall mac 'ic Iain If Donald son of the son of John dies
Eugaich e an cosnach He'll die employed
Ma dh'eugas Dòmhnall mac 'ic Iain If Donald son of the son of John dies
Bidh sinn air a thòrradh We'll be at his funeral
Ma dh'eugas Dòmhnall mac 'ic Iain If Donald son of the son of John dies
Eugaich e an cosnach He'll die employed
Ma dh'eugas Dòmhnall mac 'ic Iain If Donald son of the son of John dies
Bidh sinn air a thòrradh We'll be at his funeral

Gheobh sinn aran agus ìm We'll get bread and butter
'S càise na banaraich And the milkmaid's cheese
Gheobh sinn aran agus ìm We'll get bread and butter
Uisge-beath' an Tòisich And the Toiseach's whisky
Gheobh sinn aran agus ìm We'll get bread and butter
'S càise na banaraich And the milkmaid's cheese
Gheobh sinn aran agus ìm We'll get bread and butter
Uisge-beath' an Tòisich And the Toiseach's whisky

Back to the Future: An interview with the McShannons, Rainnies and Cochranes

2011-01-16T20:43:00.003-04:00

“Everything that can be invented has already been invented.” Charles H. Duell, Chief of the U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

My ESL students worked with future forms last week, and we read a series of predictions, the above among them. It got me thinking about the times in which I set my stories, and what my characters would think if they got a glimpse of modern life.

What would Trey McShannon, who went to war on horseback, and Liam Cochrane, who experienced trench warfare at its worst, think of stealth bombers and ‘smart’ missiles? What would Martin Rainnie think of modern nightclubs, rap and hiphop? If they had to live in our world, what would they and their wives miss most about their own times?

Let’s say I’ve borrowed a transporter and beamed each of my couples down in 2011 for a week. (Of course, their memories of that week will be erased in the process of transportation home. No messing with history!) Before sending them back to their own time, I’ve gathered them at my home for lunch and a chat. More turkey soup, anyone?

Beth McShannon: Yes, please. Jennie, I have to say it’s been quite a week. To see art from all over the world on your computer was amazing.
Jennie: I thought you’d enjoy that. If you could stay a while longer, you could learn how to create your own art that way as well. It’s called graphic design, and I think you’d find it interesting.

Beth: Thank you, Jennie, and I’ll have one of those biscuits as well. (Butters a biscuit and tastes her soup.) Graphic design, you say? It’s tempting, but I think I prefer my brushes. Though being able to listen to music at home and have it sound as if I were in a concert hall - I am going to miss that.

Martin Rainnie: (helping himself to biscuits) Aye, so will I, though I don’t know if I could ever get used to playing or singing into a machine, with no real person to hear me. Give me a crowd in a dance hall, I say.

Jennie: Martin, what did you think of the pub where we ate last night?

Martin: (With a frown) Pub, is it? Well, the fish and chips were edible, and the ale wasn’t bad. Speaking of ale –

Jennie: I read your mind, my friend. Who else is thirsty? (Cracks open a Clancy’s for all)

Rochelle Rainnie: (sips her beer with a sideways glance at Martin) No, it wasn’t bad, though the girl who brought it wasn’t wearing enough to keep from catching her death.

Trey McShannon (Tips back his beer with a grin) I noticed that.

Beth and Chelle exchange eye rolls. Martin grins at Trey.

Martin: Aye, so did I. But the place was so loud I couldn’t hear myself think, let alone talk to anyone, with the lights bright enough to put a man’s eyes out and no dart board or live music. It was like that song I heard on your – what do you call it again?

Jennie: A CD player.

Martin: Aye, well, You know the one. (Begins to sing)
What have they done to the old Rose and Crown?
The Ship, the King's Arms, and the World Upside Down.
For oak, brass, and leather, and a pint of the best
Fade away like the sun as it sinks in the west.

Jennie: Yes, the Ian Robb song. I see your point, Martin. As for the clothes, not to worry – to everyone else in the pub, you appeared to be dressed in the latest fashion.

Alice Cochrane: Heaven help us, Jennie! As for the music, I felt the same as Martin. And when we left, that noise coming from the place across the street – WHAT did you call it?

Jennie: Hip-hop. It’s very popular.

Alice: If you say so. I did like the jazz you played for us on your machine, though. Do you suppose I could take some sheet music home with me?

Jennie: That might not be smart, Alice. You might alter musical history. Liam, you’re being very quiet.

Liam Cochrane: I just can’t believe how Halifax has changed. All concrete and glass on the waterfront, and the new – what was it? – oh, condominium - going up where old St. Joseph’s used to be. Though the school is still there across the street. And the traffic!

Trey: I hear you, Liam. I’d like to try my hand at driving a car, though – something that went where I steered it and didn’t have its own ideas about things.

Liam (laughing) Our Model T has a mind of its own, I think.

Alice: It certainly does. It’s more temperamental than any horse I ever knew.

Trey: Well, Flying Cloud and I have an understanding, when it comes to that. He’s got good pasture and the best mares I could afford, and he deserves it. We saved each other’s hides more than once.(Shakes head)My war was bad enough, but from what you tell me I wouldn’t want to fight in yours, Liam. Too much killing from a distance.

Liam:(stretches out his bad leg) Yeah, there was. I think there should be a rule in war, that you have to look a man in the eye and know his name before you can kill him.

Martin: Maybe you should have to drink with him, too. Trey, I’m looking forward to meeting your Flying Cloud. Your father speaks of him often still. The fastest colt he ever raised, he says.

Trey: Yeah, he was, and he can still run. You’ll meet him next summer when you bring the family to visit.

Rochelle: Little Trey is so like you, but Greer and Sidonie are both the image of Martin. I can’t wait to meet your Chelle, too, though how we’ll keep the names straight I don’t know, any more than I know how we’ll keep Dad out of trouble.

Jennie: I’m not sure even I can do that. Chelle, if I wasn’t able to send you home, what do you think you’d really miss about your time?

Rochelle: Writing letters. With Trey so far away, we’ve written a lot of letters over the years. From what you say, very few people in your time do that.

Beth: I’d miss that too, but more than anything I think I’d miss cooking and baking on my wood stove – now that I know how.

Trey:(with a sly look at Beth) The house is still standing, too. Remember –

Beth: (blushing) Of course I remember.

Liam: I don’t know...I think I could get used to your time. It’s great to see how Halifax has put itself back together since the Explosion. I’ll always miss Richmond the way it used to be, but I think most of all I’d miss working on boats, using my hands, having the time to get to know the owners.

Martin: I’d miss live music at the Mallonby pub, playing with the people I’ve played with for years. Seeing all ages at the Carston hall dancing to my music.

Trey: Well, if I was ranching in your time I’d likely still do a lot of the work on horseback, so I guess I’d get along, but there’d be more people and less open range. That’s what I’d miss. I’ve never been one for crowds.

Jennie: No, you haven’t. Now, has everyone finished their drink? It’s been wonderful having you. Now, step this way to the transporter room, everyone...

Folk Friday: Running in Second

2011-01-14T19:23:00.004-04:00

McShannon's Heart is currently second in the Preditors and Editors readers' poll! Go Heart! If you'd like to vote (nudge nudge), here's the link again: VOTE HERE

For Folk Friday this week, I've chosen a tune that Eleanor Rainnie, Martin's first wife, used to sing. I love this melody, and I like the touch of grit in this version. Enjoy!

News: McShannon's Heart nominated for Best Romance in P&E poll

2011-01-13T09:18:00.004-04:00

Woke up this morning to an e-mail from Bluewood, telling me they've entered Heart in the romance category of the annual Reader's Poll at Preditors and Editors. I'm thrilled! Echo says please vote!

Can you resist those eyes? Here's the link: VOTE HERE

Folk Friday - A Passage to India

2011-01-07T20:51:00.003-04:00

I’m late with Folk Friday today. This was testing day for my ESL students and I just finished the print errata for Heart, so I haven’t had time until now to prepare this week’s post.

This is the time of year when I often reread Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. I find it a great book for winter because it’s a feast for the senses, full of spicy food, brilliant colors, hot, dusty, crowded bazaars and exotic characters. Kipling managed to use all the senses to perfection, without overkill, as in this passage, where Kim, who is traveling across colonial India with a Tibetan lama, stops for the night at a roadside campsite.

By this time the sun was driving broad golden spokes through the lower branches of the mango-trees; the parakeets and doves were coming home in their hundreds; the chattering, grey-backed Seven Sisters, talking over the day’s adventures, walked back and forth in twos and threes almost under the feet of the travellers; and shuffling and scuffling in the branches showed that the bats were ready to go out on the night-picket. Swiftly the light gathered itself together, painted for an instant the faces and the cart-wheels and the bullocks’ horns as red as blood. Then the night fell, changing the touch of the air, drawing a low, even haze, like a gossamer veil of blue, across the face of the country, and bringing out, keen and distinct, the smell of wood-smoke and cattle and the good scent of wheaten cakes cooked on ashes. Te evening patrol hurried out of the police-station with important coughings and reiterated orders; and a live charcoal ball in the cup of a wayside carter’s hookah glowed red while Kim’s eye mechanically watched the last flicker of the sun on the brass tweezers.

I can smell the cattle and smoke and cakes, see the birds against the darkening sky, feel the day’s heat fading. Without wasted words, I’m there. This book is one of the reasons I’d like to set Nolan Cochrane’s story in India. But, for now, I’m here in Halifax with Liam, who has just found himself in a heap of trouble.

Reading through Heart to do the errata made me think about songs Martin Rainnie would enjoy. He’s more of a fiddler than a singer, but he does sing a couple of times in the story, and one of the songs he chooses is ‘The Water is Wide.’ It’s also a favourite of mine, especially the melody.

I think Martin would like this version. It’s simple and heartfelt. Enjoy!

New Year's Musings

2011-01-03T12:59:00.005-04:00

I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions. To me, if feels like setting myself up for disappointment, so I set goals instead, and take some time to look back on the year that’s just ended.

I have to say 2010 was a much better year than 2009. I began the year by finally landing a job, which I started on January 4. This term I’m teaching ESL and Grade 10, a nice low-stress combination. My father’s health scare had a positive outcome, there were no crises in Everett’s family, I got one book written and published and am closing in on finishing another. I’m playing guitar again, and making slow but steady progress on getting in shape. Officially, nine pounds and 11.5 inches down since starting at Curves. At this rate, meeting my goal of 20 pounds by mid-March seems doable.

Personal goals for 2011: To stay with my exercise and healthy eating program permanently and let my body find its natural weight. To contact friends more often, on and off-line. To remember to be grateful, each and every day, for all the good things in my life. I read somewhere once that if the only prayer a person ever says is ‘thank you’, that can be enough.

Writing goals: To finish Shattered, Home Child (my half-completed middle-grade novel), and McShannon’s Land (Nathan Munroe’s story). To become more savvy and efficient at publicity for my books (Yeah, there’s a reason why I write books set way before the computer age. I like blogging and I like playing on the ‘net, but to really USE it is another story.) To reach out more to other bloggers – there’s a lot of good stuff out there. To continue to grow my craft, in every way possible, so that each book is better than the last.

I’ve got another story brewing in my mind, about Liam Cochrane’s older brother Nolan. I’m thinking of an exotic setting, perhaps colonial India at the turn of the twentieth century. I think it would suit Nolan’s adventurous spirit. Perhaps, when I get all my WIPs off my plate, I’ll hop on a clipper ship with my black Irish sailor lad and do some traveling.

People of blogland, how are you seeing the year ahead?

And The Winner Is...

2011-01-01T16:37:00.003-04:00

Time to announce the winners of my contest...I put all the names in a hat and drew last night. The winner of the editor's critique is Candace, and the winners of e-copies of Heart are Carol Burge, Lighthouse Sandy and Lorilyn! I'll be contacting you to get e-mail addys so I can send you your prizes! Congrats!

Contest Update: There's still time!

2010-12-29T13:40:00.002-04:00

The holidays are rushing by, but there's still time to enter my contest to win a free e-copy of McShannon's Heart AND a critique of fifteen manuscript pages by editor of critically acclaimed novels, Patricia Thomas. Just post a favorite holiday recipe as a comment to this post. I'll be drawing for the prizes on New Years Eve. So far I have seven entries, so your chances are good!

A Christmas Gift for You

2010-12-24T15:45:00.005-04:00

Christmas Eve. We're heading out to spend the evening with my parents in a few minutes, but before I go, here's a gift for you.

A few weeks ago, a writing friend of mine suggested I write a Christmas story about Trey and Beth McShannon and their children. The idea grew on me, and here it is. It takes place thirteen years after McShannon's Chance. I hope you enjoy it, and may all of you have the best of holidays and the brightest of New Years. Enjoy!

“Matthew, for goodness’ sake, close the door.”

Matthew McShannon made a face at his older sister as he stamped the snow from his boots. “Chelle, for goodness’ sake, quit bossing.”

Chelle tossed her dark curls and went back to cutting biscuits to go with the beans Ma had baked for supper. Matt deliberately kicked some snow in her direction on his way to the stove. Chelle might look fourteen and try to act twenty, but she was still only twelve and needed to be reminded of it often.

The scents of salt pork and molasses wafting from the oven made Matt’s stomach rumble. He pinned his gloves and scarf to the line over the stove, where years of stored sunshine poured from the fire, forcing back the chill of the December afternoon. Winter had come early to the Colorado foothills this year.

Steam started to rise from Matthew’s jacket, carrying the unmistakable smell of damp wool. He rubbed his hands to warm them, then fumbled with buttons. The lamp glowing on the table turned the dark window beside him into a mirror, reflecting the cabin’s log walls, the bright Indian rug on the pine floor and the ladder leading to the loft. Pa had added rooms on either side as the family grew, but this room hadn’t changed since he’d settled here in ’65. Somehow, the older Matthew got, the smaller it seemed. Now, at nearly twelve, there were days when it seemed too small. Today was one of those days.

Lamplight struck the glass ornaments Ma and Ethan were hanging on the Christmas tree across the room. Matt had always loved the glittering blue and gold birds with their tails of real feathers, treasures from Ma’s childhood home in Philadelphia, but not this year. He frowned in the glass at Ma and Ethan’s ruddy heads, at little freckled Abby sitting on the floor near them, and at his own blond, blue-eyed reflection. A hop out of kin, Mrs. Baker at the store called him. Knowing he looked like his grandfather McShannon, whom he’d never met, didn’t help.

He dipped water from the stove’s boiler into a basin, diluted it with cold from the pump and washed his hands. Ma looked over her shoulder, smiling. “Will your father be in soon?”

“Yeah, he’s just checking on Diamond. He’ll be done in a minute.” Matt hung his jacket by the door and curled up on the bunk where Dad used to sleep before Ma had come along. Ethan tucked a paper snowflake among the branches of the little pine and brushed his hands together with satisfaction.

“I’m done, Ma. Matt, is Diamond going to have her foal?”

“Pa says any day now.” Matt shrugged, annoyed at himself. What’s wrong with me? Last year I would have been as excited as Ethan about the foal. Why not now?

The lamp flickered in a gust of cold air as Pa came in, banging the door behind him. Now the room felt even more crowded. Matt and Pa seemed to rub each other the wrong way more and more often this winter.

Ma came across the room and slipped her arms around Pa inside his unbuttoned coat. “Trey, you’re freezing.” A little woman not much higher than his shoulder, she stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “Hurry and sit in. Supper’s ready.”

“And I’m ready for it, Beth.” Pa shrugged out of his coat and hurried to wash up. Chelle took her biscuits from the oven and put them on a plate while Ma dished up the beans. Matt took his seat and bowed his head with the others as Pa said grace.

“Thank you, Lord, for this Your bounty and for allowing us to be together on the night of Your Son’s birth. Amen.”

The trace of a Southern drawl in Pa’s voice irked Matt somehow. It made him think of places he’d never seen, and wouldn’t be able to see for years, if ever. Like Ma’s ornaments. He sighed into his plate. Things had come to a fine pass when you couldn’t enjoy a Christmas tree.

Ethan spoke around a mouthful of beans. “It’s my turn to name the new foal, isn’t it Pa? How about Thunder?”

Pa nodded. “Thunder Cloud would be a fine name if it’s a colt.” All the colts born on the place had Cloud in their names after Flying Cloud, Dad’s old stallion. A horseman already at six, in a way Matt knew he would never be, Ethan’s round face beamed with pride.

“If it’s a filly, I’ll call her Glory.”

Matt dropped his fork. It clattered against his plate as words tumbled out like water bursting a dam. “Glory’s a stupid name for a horse. Can’t you think of something that makes some kind of sense?”

Ethan’s quick temper flashed as Matt knew it would. “That’s what you think, mister big-for-your-britches. Speak when you’re spoken to, come when you’re called.”

A warning spark lit Pa’s dark eyes. “That’s enough, boys. Eat your supper.”

Ethan stuck his tongue out. Before Matt could think, he snatched up half of the buttered biscuit on his plate and pitched it at Ethan’s head. It grazed him, leaving a smear of butter on his fore head before hitting the floor with a dull splat. The next thing Matthew knew, Pa’s rough hand grabbed his shirt collar. “Up to the loft. Now.”

With the strength of anger, Matt tried to jerk free and almost managed it. “He – ”

“Now!”

Eyes stinging, Matt scrambled up the ladder and dashed between trunks and boxes. He threw himself on the bed jammed against the back wall. His hands balled into fists as he stared into the shadows that hid the roof’s peak.

Four more years, no more. I’ll scrape the money together somehow, get on the stage and never show my face in Wallace Flats again.

He stayed there, nursing the painful knot in his chest, while the family finished eating. He heard the click of plates as Chelle cleared the table, then Ma’s light step on the ladder. Matt closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. In a moment, he felt her hand on his hair, then heard her soft tread as she retreated.

“He’s asleep. I hope he hasn’t picked up that flu that’s going around the school. He hasn’t been himself today.”

Pa answered, murmuring something about age that Matthew didn’t quite catch. He lay still, listening to the familiar sounds of supper being cleared away.

It came upon a midnight clear, that glorious song of old
With angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold.

Chelle’s soprano rose clear and light as a feather above Ma’s lower, richer voice carrying the melody. Pa joined in the next verse, his baritone a touch off key but still somehow pleasing to the ear.

Silently, how silently the wondrous gift is giv’n...

A gift. What gift was there in Christmas when everything worth having was beyond your grasp, like the silly girls’ stuff Chelle oohed and aahed over in the shop windows when they made a trip to Denver?

They sang Once in Royal David’s City next, then O Come All Ye Faithful. The carols went on until the dishes were done and the door of the pantry cupboard clicked shut.

“Ethan, Abby, bed.”

“Aw, Ma, it’s only seven thirty.”

The smile in Ma’s voice carried up to Matt. “Ethan, you know Santa won’t come until you’re asleep. Go on now. Abby, come here.”

The cabin grew quiet. Matt pictured Ethan asleep in the room they shared, curled up in a ball, his mouth open. Abby would be lying on her stomach in her crib, her carroty hair tumbled across the pillow, and Chelle would be on the hearth rug reading, her long legs folded Indian style. The thin rustle of tissue paper and Ma and Pa’s muted voices told Matthew they were wrapping gifts. The knot in his chest grew tighter. Should he even bother pretending he still believed in Santa Claus this year? Last year he’d had his doubts, but now, without anyone saying anything, he knew.

By the time Pa blew out the lamp, Matt’s eyelids were growing heavy. He let them close. The next thing he knew he was staring out the loft window, shivering, his quilts kicked off onto the floor.

A few ragged clouds blew across the remains of an old moon, fading the sharp shadow of the barn roof. His back ached from the lumps in the little-used chaff tick on the loft bed. Why hadn’t someone wakened him to go down to his own bed? Grumbling under his breath, Matt climbed down the ladder.

The dim moonlight showed him the presents under the tree, but he ignored them and padded across the room. He’d acted like a kid and he’d have to say sorry at breakfast, but that wouldn’t cure what was eating at him. Nothing would, until he figured out what the problem was.

It was so still he nearly jumped out of his skin when the front door creaked. He whirled around and saw Pa’s tall shape silhouetted in the moonlight.

“Pa, is it Diamond?”

“Yeah.” Pa’s shadow leapt as he stepped to the table, then vanished when he lit the lamp. He poured a cup of coffee from the enamel pot on the stove and scraped back a chair at the table. “What are you doing up?”

“You left me up in the loft.”

Pa ignored his peeved tone and gave Matt one of his thoughtful looks. “I meant to wake you in a minute. Diamond had a little filly.”

Shame for the way he’d acted at dinner heating his cheeks, Matthew stood rooted in place, torn between going to Pa and turning away. It always seemed to be like that now. “Are they all right?”

“Couldn’t be better. She only laboured for a couple of hours. Come here, son.”
Pa patted the chair next to him. Matt shuffled across the floor, the chill seeping through his socks. Pa still had his coat on; the smell of hay and horses began rising from it in response to the stove’s heat. Pa’s smell. Matt slid onto the chair and parked his elbows on the table, the scent pushing and pulling at him both. He sighed and said what had to be said.

“Sorry about dinner. Ethan just makes me so mad at times.”

“I know.”

Pa sipped his coffee while the silence built between them. Then, with a suddenness that made Matt jump again, he set his empty cup on the table.

“Get your coat on and come out with me.”

It didn’t occur to Matthew to argue. He bundled up and followed Pa out into the star-swept night, into the rich, still, dark air of the barn. Instead of lighting the lantern, Pa just sat on the grain bin, his shape barely visible in the darkness. The soft scraping of hooves in straw was the only sound until he spoke.

“You don’t seem much interested in Christmas this year, Matthew. Last year you were almost as excited as Ethan.”

Matt kept his distance, leaning against the half-door of old Flying Cloud’s stall. “Santa and all that stuff...it’s for kids. I’m not six anymore.”

He heard Pa’s dry chuckle, could almost see the glint in his dark eyes that would accompany it. “You sure aren’t. You’ve grown like a weed this year. At this rate you’ll be almost as tall as me next Christmas. You’re growing up, and growing up is never easy.”

“Growing up? Hell, I won’t be twenty-one for – ”

Dad didn’t chuckle this time. He roared with laughter, drowning out Matthew’s words, ignoring his ‘hell’ completely. “Twenty-one? For Pete’s sake, Matt.”

“What’s so darned funny?”

Pa shook his head, his laughter dying away into the rafters. “I’m not laughing at you, son. In a year or so you’ll understand.” He drew a deep breath and let it out, the steam showing in a patch of moonlight. “Matt, you’re all McShannon on the outside and all Surette on the inside.”

Matthew said nothing. After a pause, Pa went on. “When I was your age, there were times when I felt like the only thing keeping me from everything I wanted to do was time. Do you ever feel like that?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. I remember. Where I was, was never where I wanted to be. Even at Christmas.”

“Yeah, even at Christmas.” Matt pressed his back tighter to the wood behind him and tried to swallow his anger, but he couldn’t quite manage it. It might have been easier if he’d known why he was angry. “Pa, why do people lie to kids about Santa Claus? Because I know he is a lie.”

“Who told you that?”

The way Pa spoke, Matt could picture one dark brow lifting. Feeling foolish, he scuffed a heel on the frozen floor. “No one. I’m smart enough to put two and two together. The tags on the gifts are always in Ma’s writing, and Chelle never even mentions Santa any more. It’s all just a story, like the one you tell about the animals being able to talk at midnight on Christmas Eve. Only, if you wait up to hear them, they won’t. Because it’s just a story.”

Pa let out another smoking breath, Matt’s stinging tone rolling off him like water. “Are you sure? Have you ever waited up to hear them?”

“Of course not. You and Ma would never let us.”

“Well, it’s just about midnight now. Be quiet and listen.”

Pa sat very still on the grain bin. For the next minute or so Matt strained for every sound, but he heard only the sounds of the horses in their stalls and a coyote down in the river valley, a mile or so off.

Just a story.

Then he thought of the books he liked to read that took him to places all over the world, of the stories in the carols they’d sung after supper. Of the way Ma had touched his hair when she came up to the loft. Of the excitement on Ethan’s face at the thought of Santa coming. Matt listened with his heart, and he understood.

“Pa, light the lantern.”

A match flared. Pa hung the hurricane lantern on its hook in the middle of the aisle. He held Matt’s gaze for a long moment, then smiled.

“What did you hear?”

“Nothing special, with my ears at least.” Matt shrugged. “I guess there’s more than one kind of truth, isn’t there?”

Pa nodded. “Yeah. Matthew, don’t wish your life away. Twenty-one will come before you know it. And don’t let Ethan get to you. He’s only six, after all.”

“Yeah.” Matt crossed the aisle to look into Diamond’s stall. The black mare lay stretched out on her side. The color of dark chocolate, with the same white star on her forehead as her mother, the new foal lay curled up beside her, her spindly legs in tangle. Pa came to lean beside Matt, his warmth reaching through to dissolve the knot in Matt’s chest. They shared a smile that brought them closer than they’d been in a while, then he turned back to the mare and foal.

“Merry Christmas, Glory.”

McShannon's Heart is Available!

2010-12-14T12:16:00.003-04:00

This morning I checked on Bluewood Publishing’s website to find McShannon’s Heart listed in the bookstore as available. Here’s the link: Bluewood Bookstore Now, I can go around calling myself a multi-published author, at least when no one can hear me. SCROLL DOWN TO ENTER MY CONTEST TO WIN A COPY!

It feels good. I’m fond of Rochelle and even fonder of Martin. He reminds me of some of the musicians I knew in my time as a member of the Halifax Harbour Folk Society, including my DH.

We met through music. After putting my guitar aside for a couple of years while I completed my Masters degree, I decided I wanted to start playing again. Everett had posted a notice at the Dal Student Union, advertising for students. I phoned the number and started taking lessons from him.

I knew he was a gifted musician the first time I heard him play. By the time my first lesson was over, I knew he was also an excellent teacher. That’s a more unusual combination than you might think – many gifted players don’t know how they do what they do, they just do it. My guy is a quiet, reserved type, much like Martin, so I didn’t begin to figure out what kind of a person he was until a few weeks later.

After my second lesson, we agreed to meet at the Folk Society’s weekly coffee house. It was my turn to host that December night. When the song circle ended, we stepped outside to find that it had started to snow. Hard. I insisted I’d be okay driving home, as it was only a few blocks. We said goodnight and got in our separate vehicles.

When I pulled into the yard of my apartment building, lights flashed in my mirror. Everett’s lights. I’d been so focus on the road as I drove that I hadn’t noticed him following me. He bumped his horn, backed out and drove away. He wasn’t looking to be asked in, wasn’t looking for anything, he just wanted to be sure I was all right. We didn’t know each other well at all, but that was when I started to think of him as a possible keeper.

I think of Martin as the same type of man, well worth knowing once you get past his reserve. I hope readers will enjoy him as well.

Folk Friday, and Heart edits have arrived!

2010-12-10T14:59:00.004-04:00

I received my edits for Heart the other day, have gone through them (no major changes - phew!) and am ready to ship them back. It looks like I'll have an e-book release by Christmas! If you'd like to enter my CONTEST win a copy, or a critique by freelance editor Patricia Thomas, PLEASE SEE MY LAST POST.

I'm including an excerpt below, of Chelle's first meeting with Martin. And, for this week's Folk Friday, Kathy Mattea's beautiful rendition of "Mary, Did You Know?" Enjoy!

Excerpt:

She hurried down the slope and, as she expected, found a young lamb caught by its fleece in the bramble’s thorns, nearly exhausted from struggling.

“You’ve got yourself in a fine mess, haven’t you?” Chelle didn’t relish the thought of getting her hands in among those thorns, but she didn’t see much help for it. After a quick glance around, she wrapped one hand in her cloak and started pulling the branches away from the lamb’s fleece.

In spite of the protection, the thorns reached through to her skin. The lamb didn’t help. Not as exhausted as Chelle had thought, as soon as she freed it from one clinging branch it struggled and got caught by another. By the time she lifted it out of the bush, she’d earned a couple of nasty scratches and mislaid her temper.

As she bent to set the lamb on its feet, a dog’s bark startled her. Still crouching, Chelle spun around and faced a grizzled black and white Border Collie, standing a few feet away with its teeth bared and hackles raised. Luckily, the dog’s owner stood close by. Her heart in her throat, Chelle released the lamb and slowly raised her gaze from a pair of heavy boots to eyes the color of a stormy sea.

“Come, Gyp.” The dog returned to the man’s side at the curt command. Hands in his pockets, he watched Chelle straighten up. She felt herself blushing under his cool stare.

He’d be as tall as Trey, perhaps an inch or two taller, but with his bulk he didn’t look it. He reminded her of Charlie Bascomb at home, broad in the shoulders, thick in the legs and torso, but the resemblance stopped with his build. Charlie was quiet and easy-going, always wearing a smile, but there was nothing approachable about this man with his lowering brows, grim mouth and slightly freckled face. His features, along with his rusty hair, told Chelle who he must be.

“Hello. I’m Chelle McShannon. You must be Martin Rainnie.”

The Collie stood braced beside his master, the fur still standing up on the back of his neck. Mr. Rainnie looked no more welcoming. He spoke as curtly as he had to his dog.

“Aye. What are you doin’ out here?”

It seemed Jean had done the man a favor by saying little about him, or perhaps Dales farmers were usually rude. Chelle lifted her chin and showed him her bleeding hand.

“That’s obvious enough, isn’t it? That lamb’s fleece was caught in this bush. I freed it.”

Mr. Rainnie looked her up and down with those cold gray-green eyes, then softened his tone and made an effort to curb his broad Yorkshire. Perhaps he’d recalled that his daughter was living with her family.

“So you’re Jack’s niece. I didn’t know you’d arrived yet.”

“We arrived yesterday.” Chelle fished a clean handkerchief from her skirt pocket and wrapped it around her scratched hand while she fumbled for something to say. “I’ve been out for a walk to the end of the fell. The view is lovely.”

His tenacious-looking mouth twisted in a sardonic grin as he stepped closer. “Aye, but it’s not very sustainin’. Not much but sheep will grow up here. This is Carswen fell, and the village down below is Carston.”

Chelle took in his well-worn work clothes and large, work-roughened hands. Martin Rainnie’s face showed the effects of wind and weather, but she thought the lines around his mouth and eyes came from bitterness. He looked like he could do with more sleep and less of the whiskey she smelled on him. With the breeze plucking at the sleeves of his faded canvas jacket, he seemed as much a natural part of the landscape as the sheep and the moorland grass, and just as rugged.

“I thought as much. Dad mentioned it, so I came out for a walk to see it for myself. I was on my way back when I decided to follow this trail and heard the lamb.”

He shrugged and stuck his hands back in his pockets. “You could have spared yourself the trouble. This is my flock, and I check on ‘em every day. You’d best get home and look to those scratches.” With that, he strode past her toward the sheep, his dog at his heels.

Chelle watched him go, his shoulders high, his broad back stiff with annoyance. Because she’d rescued one of his silly sheep? She turned on her heel and started back toward the village, muttering under her breath.

“I’m sorry for your daughter, Mr. Rainnie. As for me, the next time I find one of your animals in trouble, I’ll be leaving it alone.”

McShannon's Heart Holiday Contest!

2010-12-07T18:43:00.004-04:00

I don't have an exact release date for McShannon's Heart, but I'm expecting it to be available as an e-book before the end of the month, so it's contest time! Here's how this is going to work: post a favorite holiday recipe as a comment, and you'll be entered in a draw for one of three e-copies of Heart, AND a very special prize: A critique of fifteen manuscript pages by freelance editor Patricia Thomas. Pat is an RWA chaptermate of mine, and a good friend. She's worked for several publishing houses and edited critically-acclaimed novels including Drive-by Saviours by Chris Benjamin. The winner of her critique will be a lucky writer indeed. So, bring on those yummy sweet or savory holiday recipes, and good luck in the draw!

Folk Friday: The First Canadian Christmas Carol

2010-12-02T18:40:00.006-04:00

I love traditional English Christmas music, but this uniquely Canadian carol has always been a favorite of mine, as much for the story behind it as for the music.

The Huron Carol was written in 1643 by Father Jean Brebeuf, a Jesuit missionary priest to the Huron nation in Quebec. Written in the Huron language, the song was Brebeuf's way of conveying the meaning of Christmas to his charges.

By all accounts Brebeuf was a capable, well-intentioned and highly charismatic leader, but the success of his mission among the Huron became a double-edged sword. A split occurred between those who wished to hold on to their own traditions and those who embraced European ways. Weakened by division and by European disease, the Huron were overrun and destroyed by the Iroquois, and Father Brebeuf became one of the first Canadian martyrs.

Blame it on the writer in me, but to my mind the sad story behind the Carol adds to its poignancy. I've heard it performed in French, English and the original Huron. I enjoy playing it myself. The English lyrics are as poetic as the melody is haunting. Enjoy!

Folk Friday: Sugar and spice and something nice

2010-11-26T11:34:00.000-04:00

I had my second monthly weigh-in at Curves yesterday, the first since recording my baseline. Five pounds down and five inches lost. Not bad, considering I really haven’t been dieting. Slow and steady wins the race. Now, as long as I don’t undo the progress over Christmas! But I don’t intend to forego the pleasures of the season. I just have to remember that one small piece of Mom’s cranberry pudding – with a little less rich cream sauce (sigh) – is enough.

Fortunately, there are delicious deserts that are actually healthy. Here’s a recipe for one. I find that this custard has all the yum factor of pumpkin pie, without the calories of pastry. Hey, pumpkin is a vegetable! The maple syrup gives it character, and the crystallized ginger on top adds zing.

PUMPKIN MAPLE CUSTARD

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c milk
4 eggs
¾ c maple syrup
¾ c pumpkin
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
¼ tsp salt

Heat milk until steaming, not boiling. Whip eggs and syrup together until smooth. Whip milk into egg mixture slowly, stirring to avoid cooking eggs. Add pumpkin, spices and salt Mix until smooth, then pour into 6 custard cups. Skim foam if any. Place custards in a pan, put in pre-heated oven, then pour boiling water into the pan until it reaches half-way up the custard cups. Bake at 325 degrees for 45-50 min or until set. Serve warm or cold, with whipped cream and grated crystallized ginger on top.

As for this week’s music selection, the word about this has been going around. It’s far from folk, but I couldn’t resist including it. It epitomizes the spirit of the season. Enjoy!

Folk Friday, and 'Tis Almost the Season

2010-11-19T13:20:00.002-04:00

November winding down and December almost upon us. The flood of Christmas advertising has begun. I find that the older I get, the less interest I have in the Christmas rush. There are no children in our family to buy for, and we’ve agreed to forego drawing names for stockings this year. I’m looking forward to a simplified holiday season.

I’ve always loved Christmas rituals – decorating the tree, baking, carols, parties with friends and family. We’ll be celebrating with my parents, and it will have extra meaning this year after my father’s health scare earlier in the fall. He’s fully recovered from his surgery now, and we can’t be thankful enough.

I haven’t yet included a Christmas scene in one of my books, but I’d like to some day. Perhaps I will in Shattered – a Christmas a few years after the Explosion, when Liam and Alice are enjoying their HEA. A couple of years ago, I did write a Christmas carol for Beth and Trey from McShannon’s Chance –I’ll post it a little closer to the day. I find it easy to picture them celebrating in their cabin, with a candle-lit tree, home-made ornaments and gifts for their four children (If you haven’t noticed, my imagination carries me away sometimes.) Chelle, the oldest, is dark like Trey, but with her mother’s blue eyes. She has Beth’s independent streak and wants to study art in Europe. The second, Michael, is tall and rangy like his father, but he’s blond like his grandfather Colin. He’s the dreamer in the family and wants to go to sea. The next, Ethan, has his mother’s red hair and freckles, and so does the youngest, Abby. They’re both children of Trey’s heart, as attached to the ranch and the horses as he is. I have a few chapters of a WIP that takes the family forward fifteen years, when young Chelle is getting headstrong and has a crush on Nate Munroe’s son, who is a chip off the old block. Maybe someday.

We might be getting a dusting of snow tomorrow, the first of the season. I like snow. I’d much prefer a white Christmas to the endless November that sometimes passes as winter in Nova Scotia. Time for comfort food recipes, brisk walks with the Terrible Tollers and lots of writing. And for Folk Friday, here’s an old favourite ‘comfort tune’ – John Denver’s Song of Wyoming. The simplicity and poetry of this one always get to me, and the video is very easy on the eye. Enjoy!

Passionate characters in fiction and life

2010-11-09T13:14:00.002-04:00

Model writing postcards, Carl Larsson, 1906

Tomorrow night, I’m scheduled to do a workshop at a local senior’s centre on “passion in our lives”. I’ll be talking about my characters from McShannon’s Chance – about Beth’s passion for painting, Trey’s passion for Thoroughbreds, and their passion for each other. It’s got me thinking about the many meanings of ‘passion’ and how it applies to the characters I write.

In real life, we’re all attracted to people who have passion in their lives, whether for their work, their family, an art or an idea. For me, the same is true in fiction. Characters draw me in and hold me if they come across as passionate people.

Sometimes that passion can be in the form of hate. Think of Moby Dick. Sometimes it’s a passion for justice, as in many classic Westerns. It can be a passion for freedom, as with Cat in Judith James’ Highland Rebel. For my Beth, it’s her art; for Martin Rainnie in McShannon’s Heart and Alice O’Neill in Shattered, it’s music. These are the things I latch on to when I’m getting to know my characters.

In some romance novels, the sexual passion between the hero and heroine is not just the main element, it seems like the only element. And some of these are still great stories, but they have to be extremely well done. So far, I’ve tried to give at least one of my main characters another passion as well. I just find it easier to know them and write them that way.

I’m really looking forward to the session last night. I’m sure the audience will have some great stories to tell about the things and people they’ve been passionate about in their lives. Who knows, I may come up with a few new story ideas. People of blogland, what do you think? Is it important to you that fictional characters live with passion?

Dona Nobis Pacem

2010-11-03T19:09:00.002-03:00

‘Dona nobis pacem’ means ‘grant us peace’. It’s the slogan of the annual Blog Blast for Peace, which takes place today, November 4.

I found out about this event from RWA chapter mate and blogger extraordinaire Julia Smith. It’s an opportunity for bloggers all over the world to raise their voices for peace. Participants post about peace on their blogs and fly a peace globe for the day.

There’s nothing I can say about peace that hasn’t already been said, so I’ve chosen a series of quotes on the subject. I hope you find them inspiring. I’ll leave you with Vince Gill’s version of ‘Let There Be Peace on Earth”.

War does not determine who is right - only who is left. ~Bertrand Russell

It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers. ~Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs

I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?" ~Eve Merriam

The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. ~Albert Einstein

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. ~David Friedman

"There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes. ~James Morrow

Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him. ~M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter

If we do not end war - war will end us. Everybody says that, millions of people believe it, and nobody does anything. ~H.G. Wells, Things to Come (the "film story"), Part III, adapted from his 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come, spoken by the character John Cabal (Thanks Bill!)

A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. ~German Proverb

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living. ~Omar Bradley

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world. ~Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864

Everyone's a pacifist between wars. It's like being a vegetarian between meals. ~Colman McCarthy

Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both. ~Abraham Flexner

Draft beer, not people. ~Attributed to Bob Dylan

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. ~John F. Kennedy

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. ~Ernest Hemingway

You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. ~Jeanette Rankin

You are not going to get peace with millions of armed men. The chariot of peace cannot advance over a road littered with cannon. ~David Lloyd George

Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come. ~Carl Sandburg

In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. ~José Narosky

We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage. ~James Russell Lowell

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war. ~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun's energy.... If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago. ~Sir George Porter, quoted in The Observer, 26 August 1973

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. ~Voltaire, War

Folk Friday and middling

2010-10-29T10:02:00.001-03:00

Friday again. This week has gone by with the speed of lightning. I’m waiting for my students to arrive, so I thought I’d better turn my attention to Folk Friday.

I’m smack dab in the middle of Shattered right now. Had a good writing evening last night, got the first scene transition in Chapter 10 worked out. Not a huge number of words, but a roadblock out of the way. I think the next couple of chapters will go quickly.

So far, the middle of a book has been the most difficult part for me. I start quickly, full of the momentum of my new characters, and with an idea of the ending clear in my mind. Then I hit chapter eight or nine and the flow of words slows to a trickle. I know where I’m going, but which of the countless possible routes will I take? Do I need to go back and add plot threads to keep the middle from sagging? Do I need to throw in a twist that will take my characters in a completely different direction?

I know this is a common problem, especially with writers who are pantsers like me. With McShannon’s Chance, I solved it by writing the end and working backwards. Eventually the two halves met in the middle. Once I allowed myself to stop trying to write linearly, ideas started popping into my mind to fill the void.

Authors who can plan their plot in detail – and then follow it! – amaze me. So do authors who write scenes in no particular order. There are as many ways to deal with a book’s sagging middle as there are authors. Some use a collage or storyboard. I’ve tried collaging and enjoyed it, but didn’t find it particularly helpful as a writing tool as I have a strong visual image of my characters and setting from the beginning, and end up simply looking for pictures to fit that image. Perhaps I’ll experiment with a storyboard. Writers of blogland, how do you deal with the middle of a story? Anyone have any innovative ideas to share?

Oh, yes, folk Friday! Last week, an RWAC chapter mate of mine, Carolyn Laurie, posted a wonderful video on Facebook of Raylene Rankin, Cindy Church and Susan Crowe performing together in Alberta. It’s been a while since I heard three such wonderful voices that blend together so well. Enjoy!

Dialogue and Layering and Stuff

2010-10-26T13:30:00.001-03:00

I’m working on Chapter 10 of Shattered, where Alice and Liam tentatively decide to take a chance on a relationship. The chapter involves a lot of dialogue between them, and with Alice’s family. When this happens, I often handle it by just writing the dialogue, omitting the thoughts and body language that go with it. Afterwards I go back and fill in the narrative.

I find this useful in a couple of ways. If I have trouble adding thoughts or actions, it makes me take a second look at the dialogue. Would Liam really say that, and if so, why? What does Alice really mean by her reply? Leaving the narrative until later also lets me write the dialogue quickly, without stalling on the exact words to describe what someone is thinking or angsting over whether I have too much narrative or not enough. I still do that when I go back to write the next layer, but having the dialogue already in place makes it easier.

Then I often find myself going back to add a third layer – emotion. I usually don’t include a lot in my first draft. I used to think that having a rather flat, unemotional first draft was a weakness, but now I understand that it’s part of my process. First I have to tell the story.

In a recent blog post, my RWAC chapter mate Donna Alward used the term ‘discovery draft’. That’s what this run-through of Shattered is becoming. Writers of blogland, how do you approach a first draft? Do you write a lot of words and scenes and then prune later? Do you layer like I do? Do you sometimes write dialogue only?

P.S. on my fitness program – got my monthly weigh and measure done yesterday, the first one. This is my baseline. Instead of updating each week, I’m going to wait until my next weigh and measure in November. I’m making my workouts and watching what I eat, so at this point I’m pleased. Slow but steady is the plan.

Folk Friday: Wild Women and motivation

2010-10-22T08:52:00.001-03:00

I’m really not an analytical person – a bit surprising for a former lab technician I admit. I guess that’s why I’m not in a lab anymore. When I write I just tell that person’s story as it comes to me. Now, after brainstorming at our yearly RWAC retreat last weekend, I want to see my characters from a different angle.

Take Liam, for instance. What does he want? To heal emotionally and physically and get on with his life. What else would an injured war veteran want? But let’s get specific. He needs to work, and he likes physical work, but would he want to work for someone else? Maybe he’d rather have his own company. Maybe he’d like to build houses. Perhaps he was in the process of starting his own construction business when the war intervened.

As for Alice, she wants to teach music to gain some independence, but would she really rather perform? If she didn’t need to support herself, what would she do? I think she’d rather be on stage, where her dyslexia wouldn’t matter.

The joy of a first draft is discovering the characters. The joy of retreating, and brainstorming, is the creative energy it generates – and, of course, the plain old fun.

This week’s Folk Friday is a tribute to my chapter mates - those ‘wild women’ full of creativity. Enjoy!

Folk Friday: Heroes

2010-10-15T06:00:00.001-03:00

Looking back at my posts over the last couple of months, I see that I’ve said very little about McShannon’s Heart. I’ve heard from Bluewood and the word is that a Christmas release should be doable, so I’m expecting edits very soon.

I haven’t looked at the story much since submitting it, so I’m looking forward to seeing it with fresh eyes. I love the Yorkshire setting, and of course, Chelle and Martin. Which brings me to a topic dear to my heart: heroes.

So far, I’ve written four heroes: Trey McShannon, Martin Rainnie, Nathan Munroe and Liam Cochrane. I’ll count Liam and Nathan because they are fully formed in my mind, even though their stories aren’t finished. I love them all or I couldn’t write about them, but could I choose a favourite?

Trey is resourceful and tough, a country boy who would look after and protect his woman come hell or high water. He also has a deep-seated romantic streak . He loves for keeps, and would choose an evening at home with Beth over a night out on the town. He’s my ideal cowboy. Nathan, on the other hand, is a born hell-raiser, the type to challenge a woman and keep her on her toes. I find his streak of deviltry irresistible, and the vulnerability underneath it doesn’t hurt.

Martin has the soul of an artist in a rough-hewn body. He expresses himself through his music, and only shows his real self to the people closest to him. He’s very much like my DH. How could I not love him?

Liam is a quick-tempered, Irish-as-they-come lad who would fight a man for fun and then drink with him afterward. I could probably find him in any Halifax pub on a Saturday night. He’s solid and dependable, with a soft spot for anyone down on their luck. He’s the kind of man a woman could trust absolutely, an every-day hero.

One of the joys of writing romance is spending time with the men of my dreams. Another is seeing how others respond to them. I’ve had one reader tell me that she thinks Martin is a very hot hero. Several have told me they prefer Nathan, and for others, Trey is the one. I have to confess that I’m partial to him myself. There’s something about a cowboy.

This afternoon, I’m off to an RWA retreat, where my chapter mates and I will eat, drink and talk of ‘shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings’ – and our fictional heartthrobs. What could be more fun? For me, nothing. People of blogland, what qualities do you look for in a romantic hero?

I’ll leave you with this Friday’s tune, Willie Nelson’s ‘My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys’. So have mine. Enjoy!

Inspiration and Perspiration

2010-10-06T20:10:00.003-03:00

Inspiration of the Poet, Nicolas Poussin. Oil on Canvas, The Louvre

I’ve always found this time of year inspiring. I’ve spent a large part of my life as either a student or a teacher, so fall has always been the real start of a new year for me. January? Forget January. Nothing starts in January except diets and Christmas bill payments.

I’m feeling inspired creatively and personally these days. I’m dabbling in writing poetry for the first time in years, I’m getting to the fun stuff in Shattered, and I’ve made a resolution to get myself into better physical shape over the next few months. OK, I’ll put a number on it – I want to lose twenty pounds by March Break.

I know how to do it. I’ve done it before. Being hypothyroid as well as vertically challenged, weight control is a life-long issue for me. It doesn’t help that all the things I love to do most – writing, reading, painting, playing guitar, cooking and eating – are either sedentary or fattening. I’ve accepted the fact that for me, exercise will always be something of a chore. Not an unpleasant chore, but a chore nonetheless.

About four years ago, it started to hit home that the big 50 was edging ever closer, and I didn’t like what I saw ahead for my health or my self-esteem. I looked in the mirror, said ‘enough’ and joined Curves. It worked. I built muscle, cut back drastically on sugar and starches, and watched the weight melt off. Six months took me from a size 14 to a size 6.

For two years I kept working out and kept the pounds at bay. Then my teaching job ended and I spent a year on the road selling insurance. Hours sitting in the car every day, stopping for junk food on top of the lunch I took with me, getting home at eight or nine o’clock at night, eating supper and falling into bed. When I wasn’t working I was writing. That year was plain hell on my body. Relentlessly the weight crept back.

For me, exercise has to be a no-brainer, a part of my routine. No fixed routine, no workouts. Now I’m teaching again, with a regular schedule, and it’s time to get back on track. This will be my third three-workout week, and I’m seeing the results already.

One of the things I appreciate about circuit training is that I don’t have to think. I change machines on cue, my muscles working hard while my mind is elsewhere. Not bad for the creative juices. Neither is having more energy and focus.
I’m taking it slower this time. Instead of dieting, I’m focusing on the exercise and trying to eat sensibly and sustainably. After all, for me, there is no life worth living without chocolate and cheesecake, or even better, chocolate cheesecake. All things in moderation, including moderation itself. I’ve lost five pounds and a size so far, so I’m moving in the right direction. I’ll update my progress here as part of Folk Friday, starting next week.

Inspiration? Right now I’ve got it.

Folk Friday and Poetry

2010-10-01T20:40:00.003-03:00

'Musikgesselschaft, Petworth', oil on canvas, by Joseph Mallord William Turner

Here it is, Friday again. Today was one of those days when I had to wonder why I’m being paid for what I do. I took our ESL students to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, then we had a scrumptious lunch at Le Mercato. I can’t think of a better way to spend a work day.

It’s been a busy week. Last night I went to an open-mike session with a friend of mine at Local Jo, a cosy coffee house here in Halifax. This session takes place on the last Thursday of each month, and if you’re in town and feel like hearing a widely diverse selection of fiction, poetry and spoken word performance, I’d recommend it. Shauntay Grant, Halifax’s poet laureate, was among the performers and she is amazing. I couldn’t find a sharable video, but here’s the link to her myspace page, where you can hear her perform.

Shauntay Grant

The evening inspired me to write a poem for the first time in years. A little background: My husband, a professional-level musician, inherited his talent from his mother, who taught piano into her eighties. When she passed away two years ago we inherited her piano, and playing it has been great therapy for him. In music, ‘Father Charles goes down, ends battle’ is a memory crutch for learning sharp key signatures and the reverse works for flats.

Chopin falls soft on the ear,

The remembered cadence of childhood

Lessons learned. Father Charles goes down, ends battle.

Battle ends, down goes Charles’ father.

Through worn ivory keys

Mother comes to you

Speaking words of wisdom. Let it be.

The Plot Thickens

2010-09-30T13:24:00.004-03:00

I finished Chapter 8 of Shattered last night. It’s leading me to the middle of the story, where all the plot threads start to interweave. Now I have to decide just how that’s going to happen – or rather, being a pantser, I have to sit at the keyboard and see how it all plays out.

One of the reasons being a pantser creates angst for me is that I’m just not a linear thinker. The past, present and future of my characters don’t always come to me in the right order. I come up with an idea, and it sprouts offshoots that lead me in a dozen different directions. I want to follow them all, even though I know most of them will come to dead end. Of course all those extra words can still be useful, but sometimes I wish I didn’t write quite so many of them.

Then there’s those secondary characters. I fell in love with Nathan Munroe, Trey’s nemesis in McShannon’s Chance, and now I’m smitten with Nolan, Liam’s older brother in Shattered. That doesn’t mean I love Liam any less as a hero, but Nolan’s backstory keeps cluttering up my mind. He’s a harbour pilot, once a merchant seaman with the proverbial girl in every port. He makes me think of Stan Rogers’ song, Lockkeeper:

‘She wears bougainvillea blossoms/ You pluck them from her hair and toss them to the tide/ Sweep her in your arms and carry her inside/ Her sighs catch on your shoulder, her moonlit eyes grow warm and wiser through her tears/ And I say ‘how can you stand to leave her for a year?”

But Nolan, unlike the sailor in the song, chose to settle down with his Annie, a down-to-earth farm girl from outside Truro. How did they meet? Was she working or visiting friends in Halifax when Nolan came home from one of his voyages, perhaps with his heart broken by a woman like the ‘tropic maid’ in Lockkeeper? Or did he go to sea in the first place to nurse a broken heart?

Another prequel in the making? Perhaps, but right now Nolan is a distraction. Maybe if I politely ask him to go away...but not too far away...

I refuse to think of my convoluted way of thinking as bad for my writing. After all, I’ve read and loved many novels where several plotlines are interwoven and secondary characters are fully developed. I’m thinking of Melanie Wilkes and Gerald and Ellen O’Hara in Gone With The Wind. It’s arguable that the story would have been tighter if we’d been told a lot less about Scarlett’s parents and Ashley’s wife, but would it have been as rich? No. Judith James’ masterfully plotted historicals – her latest, A Libertine’s Kiss, is amazing – come to mind as well. I love a full-figured plot.

But I’m trying to create a good, believable romantic arc for Liam and Alice and tell their story in under 80000 words, without writing 160000. The middle is always the toughest part of a book for me, so perhaps my distractibility is really avoidance behaviour. Writers of blogland, do any of you do this to yourselves?
And does anyone have any good research material on what it was like to be a merchant seaman at the turn of the last century, in Nolan’s time?

I know, I know. Liam and Alice first.

Fall Flavours

2010-09-28T12:03:00.005-03:00

Everywhere I look in blogland this week, I see food. As a confirmed glutton, I love this time of year. Roasted veggies, comforting casseroles, hearty stews - yum! Speaking of which, there are some great recipes posted right now on one of my favorite blogs, Petticoats and Pistols.

In the spirit of the season, I'm posting a favorite family recipe for apple pie. For me, its the apples and the touch of brown sugar that makes this one special. Enjoy!

Gravenstein Apple Pie

Gravenstein apples (see photo above)are an old variety that, I discovered today online, came from Denmark. In Canada, they are grown in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley and, as far as I know, almost nowhere else.

Tart and flavorful with mottled red and yellow skin, they are delicious straight off the tree, but unfortunately don't store well. They are a seasonal delight and the best pie apples on the planet. This recipe brings back memories of fall days in windy orchards in "The Valley", as it's known here. When my mother calls herself a valley girl, she isn't talking SoCal.

Pastry: Stir 1 tsp salt into 2 cups of flour. Cut in 1 cup cold vegetable shortening until the texture is coarse and crumbly. Do not overmix. I use my grandmother's old pastry bowl - I think it knows the recipe by heart.

Stir together 1 egg, 5 or 6 tbsp ice cold water and 1 tbsp white vinegar. Add to dry mixture, stir to form dough. When it comes together turn out on a floured surface and knead two or three times, just until workable. Pastry making is a metaphor for life - you get better at it with practice, and you spoil it by trying too hard,
Wrap and chill for 30 - 60 min. Makes enough for two 9-inch double-crust pies or one larger pie and a turnover.

Filling: for one generous ten-inch pie, peel and slice 8 or 9 fresh Gravenstein apples. Sprinkle with 1 tbsp lemon juice. Combine 1/2 cup flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/3 cup brown sugar, and about 3/4 cup white sugar (taste apples and adjust as needed.) Pour over apples and mix.

Assemble pie and bake at 425 for 15 min, then reduce temp to 350 and bake for another 45-60 min or until apples are tender. Serve with sharp aged cheddar cheese.

Folk Friday and a lesson in canine grammar

2010-09-24T13:53:00.003-03:00

Friday again!

This week has flown by with lightning speed. We have very few students in our ESL program right now, so I’ve been busy doing the prep work I didn’t have time to do before the term started. That includes dusting off the grammar lessons I’ve had packed away since I took my CELTA course in the summer of 2009.

I’m having a wonderful time (not!) with verb tenses. I think of it in dogspeak.

Chance woofs. Present simple
Chance is woofing. Present continuous
Chance has woofed. Present perfect
Chance has been woofing. Present perfect continuous
Chance woofed. Past simple
Chance was woofing. Past continuous
Chance had woofed. Past perfect
Chance had been woofing. Past perfect continuous
Chance will woof. ‘will’ future
Chance is going to woof. ‘going to’ future
Chance will be woofing. Future continuous
Chance will have woofed. Future perfect
Chance will have been woofing. Future perfect continuous

No wonder English is such a hellish language to learn. Good grief, my head is spinning! Generally only one of these applies to Chance at any given time, but two or three are likely to apply to Echo all the time. She woofs a lot. She is woofing most of the time. She will woof when I get home tonight. She woofed this morning at 5:30 to get me up, just because she felt like it. I’m convinced that she will have been woofing most of her life when she crosses the Rainbow Bridge. The rest of her time will have been spent eating my shoes.

I like to believe my grammar is fairly good, but the thing is, I was never actually taught grammar. I absorbed it by reading and listening. Tenses make me tense! But it’s Friday, so enough grammar woes. For today, I found a clip containing a few of Stan Rogers’ best tunes, including his national anthem, Northwest Passage. The man and his music need no introduction, but I haven’t listened to him for a while and I thoroughly enjoyed this. One caveat: it’s eight minutes long. If you’re like me, you’ll consider it time well spent.

Priming the Pump: Writing Exercises

2010-09-21T08:18:00.002-03:00

I don’t know a writer who doesn’t experience times when the ideas flow freely, and times when the creative juices dry up. We all need a kitbag full of strategies to prime the pump.

From writing groups, workshops, and other sources, I’ve come across a few good quick writing exercises here and there. I like to use them when I’m feeling stale and uncreative, when I need to solve a problem with a manuscript, or sometimes just for fun. Here are a few of my favourites:

1. Free writing. I think every writer does this once in a while, for good reason. It’s a great way to unblock and release your muse. Simply take a picture or a word as a starting point, set a time limit – one minute, five minutes – and WRITE. That’s the only rule. You cannot stop writing, even if you write the same word ten times. It’s as simplistic as it sounds, but you just might amaze yourself with what you produce.

2. Write a scene using DIALOGUE ONLY. No body language, no description, no narrative. I had a lot of fun with this one writing a dialogue between two partially deaf people who kept misunderstanding each other. It really gets you thinking about how to show instead of telling.

3. Think of a character as different from yourself as you can imagine, and write a scene showing that person getting up in the morning and starting their day.

4. Take a very familiar scene, like your bedroom or backyard, and write about a blind person in that setting. I’ve mentioned this one before, and it’s a great way to get away from dependence on visuals and learn to include all the senses in description.

5. Take a scene you’ve already written, with two characters, and write it in the other character’s point of view. I did this with several scenes in McShannon’s Chance. It helped me figure out if I really had written those scenes in the POV of the character with the most to lose.

6. Tell a story in ten words or less, newspaper headline style. The best one of these I’ve ever seen: ‘Spinster aunt sold wedding dress today.’

Hope you enjoy this, and may your muse be kind! Feel free to add to this list if you have ideas.

Folk Friday #8

2010-09-17T12:31:00.000-03:00

I’ve been off track with Folk Friday lately, what with vacation followed by work craziness and family responsibilities, but it’s time to get back into a routine now. I’m looking forward to a busy fall, teaching ESL full time and working on my goal of having the rough draft of Shattered finished by March Break. I’ll also be putting on a set of four workshops at Northwood, a local seniors’ centre. The workshops have a theme of ‘passion in our lives’, and I’ll be using McShannon’s Chance as a springboard to get attendees to tell stories about the places, activities and people they have been passionate about in their lives. Some of these people will be war veterans and war brides, so I’m hoping they’ll be able to relate to my characters. I’m certainly looking forward to hearing their stories.

Dad is home from the hospital now and doing well. I can’t say often enough how grateful I am. For me, Thanksgiving will have more meaning this year than it’s ever had before.
For this week’s Folk Friday I’ve chosen a clip by Ardith and Jennifer, a Nova Scotia harp duo who manage to put me under a spell every time I hear them. I’m ashamed to admit I’ve never heard them play in person. To me, there’s something magical about the sound of a harp.

Enjoy this clip. Happy autumn to all.

Counting my Blessings

2010-09-10T21:14:00.002-03:00

These two cardinals are my father's work. He loves to carve, mostly birds and other expressions of his love for the outdoors.

I'm counting my blessings tonight. On Tuesday, Dad underwent surgery for a gastrointestinal tumor. I haven't said much about it, mostly because my father is a private person and I respect that, but now that it's over and he's expecting a full recovery, I need to express my gratitude.

Like most girls, I grew up thinking of my father as my hero, always there and always strong. This has been a wake-up call for me, a reminder not to take one precious moment for granted. Dream like you'll live forever, live like you'll die today.

A Few Days Out of Time

2010-08-31T10:41:00.004-03:00

Last week, we got unexpected news that my DH’s sister had bought a cottage on Grand Manan, a jewel of an island in the Bay of Fundy, off the coast of New Brunswick. The house needed work, so we piled Chance and Echo in the car and headed off for what turned out to be a magical few days.

Grand Manan is the kind of place where people don’t wear watches. Things happen in their own time. The closest thing to a spectator sport is watching the Cape Islanders chug out into the bay in the morning and return at sunset, or watching whales and porpoises from a windy cliff top. There are places with names like Whistle, Seal Cove and Dark Harbour. The local take-out makes the best lobster rolls I have ever tasted, and the restaurant by the ferry terminal specializes in succulent fresh scallops and fish. If we hadn’t burned off the calories painting, wallpapering, laying floors and hiking, I would have brought a few extra pounds back with me.

The cottage is a five-minute walk from this beach, which was all but empty the whole time we were there. The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world, so at low water the beach stretches out almost to the horizon, and at low tide the water laps at the feet of the cliffs. The dogs were in heaven, and so were we.
The place is tailor-made to be a setting for a romance. I can picture a couple trysting at Southwest Head,where the picture at the top was taken, the best location on the island for sunsets. And the best part of it all is that we’ll be able to go back next year. Life is good.

Art is Art

2010-08-21T13:23:00.001-03:00

A writer friend of mine, Janet Corcoran, just posted on her blog Janet’s Journal about a talk she recently attended, given by three women who were artists in residence for the past year in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia . Janet’s post got me thinking about the connections between different art forms, including writing. It’s a topic that fascinates me, so I thought I’d run with it.

My DH writes with sound instead of words, but it’s uncanny how similar our processes are. First, there’s inspiration. For me that can come from an old photograph, a story someone tells me, a historical event, or it can simply come at me out of the blue, like Trey McShannon’s character did. For my DH, it’s much the same. Musical phrases from pieces he already knows, random sounds he stumbles on when ‘noodling ‘ on his guitar (his version of free writing), events or people provide the starting point, the initial spark. He banks melody lines in his memory the way I bank phrases, lines of poetry or story ideas. He’ll write a snatch of music down on paper the way I scrawl ideas in a note book – if I have one (You’ve all heard my paper towel story by now.)

Next, the idea has to be fleshed out. For me, that means I start writing the first draft of my story. For my DH, it means finding a chord progression that expresses his original idea. Both of us have to think about length and mood and pacing. There are conventions in music – chord families and scales – just as there are conventions for the written word. Music has phrases, punctuation, its own grammar if you will. It also has its free-verse poets who ignore the conventions.

Finally there’s revision and polishing. For me that means going back and adding layers of action, emotion and introspection (Yeah, yeah, I know, too much introspection. I’m working on it.) For DH, it means a different kind of layering: adding harmony lines and embellishments, adjusting pace and rhythm. And yes, it can cause as much angst for him as it does for me. In the end, it’s about taking the reader or listener to a place you’ve created for them. The only difference is the medium.

With painting, it seems to me that the process is pared down but essentially the same. It starts with inspiration. The palette chosen is like a writer’s voice, and the intensity of the colors sets the mood. Any given subject can be interpreted in as many different ways as there are artists.

What do you think? Have you experimented with different forms of artistic expression? What’s your take on the idea that ‘art is art’?

Folk Friday #7

2010-08-20T08:07:00.000-03:00

Here’s another Mary Chapin Carpenter tune, one I used to play at Harbour folk society coffee house evenings. To my mind, it’s a beautiful little piece of craft, a story told with an old shirt as the focal point. She really had a gift for making the ordinary magical.

I missed FF again last week – company arrived and I’ve been on the go ever since. I can’t believe how fast the summer’s flown. I’m working away on Shattered, and it’s going quickly at this point. Right now, Liam and Carl O’Neill, Alice’s brother, are stuck together in the same hospital room. I’m chuckling evilly over the thought. They’d like nothing better than to pound each other, but Liam’s on crutches and Carl has just been severely walloped in a street fight, so it ain’t gonna happen.

I’ve spent the last few days touring around with DH’s brother and six-year-old niece. She’s experiencing the ocean for the first time, and it’s been priceless watching her. She’s made me see with fresh eyes. I’ve got another week of vacation before school starts again, and then it will be back to reality – sigh!

Enjoy the tune. I hope everyone’s summer has been as great as mine.

Some Thoughts on Dialogue

2010-08-10T09:34:00.003-03:00

A few months ago, I got some feedback from an RWA contest that puzzled me. I’d sent in the first twenty pages of McShannon’s Heart, and one judge commented “It’s almost as if two different people wrote this.” I was honestly befuddled, but now, I think I understand what she meant.

When I write dialogue, I try to write it the way I think that character would actually speak, but it seems that isn’t always the best option. Dialogue has to match the writer’s descriptive style. I read the passages the judge had marked and realized that in trying to make my characters authentic as nineteenth-century rural people, I’d pared down their speech so that it was too much of a contrast with my descriptions.

I think readers also have certain expectations when it comes to dialogue, especially with historicals, but the truth is that nineteenth-century speech wasn’t all that different from the way we talk now, if novels and journals written at the time are any indication. Court records show that vulgar expressions are timeless. Letters and diaries use surprisingly modern language, but as readers, we expect the dialogue in a historical story to be different. Otherwise, it doesn’t feel right, even though it might be accurate.

Dialogue also has to take into account the fact that readers don’t have the visual cues so important in real conversation. To avoid using a lot of cumbersome ‘stage directions’ – something I have to guard against – every word has to be carefully chosen to convey the desired meaning. Dialogue tags – ‘he growled’, ‘she simpered’ – are another issue. I don’t like them and I avoid them whenever possible. The only tag I use is ‘he/she said’, when it’s necessary to clarify who’s speaking. Anyone who’s read about writing craft has read about these issues, but the craft books don’t tell us that putting the perfect, strong words in our characters’ mouths can be the difference between a good story and a published story. It’s more than a matter of avoiding tags and stage directions. Something else to strive for. I also know I’m guilty of using too much small talk in my dialogue. Greetings and goodbyes and how-are-yous can be left out because the reader’s brain fills them in.

One of the things I enjoy most about writing dialogue is the fact that I can use bad grammar with impunity. I don’t know anyone who uses perfect grammar when they speak, and if we try to we sound self-conscious and affected. The same is true in fiction.
Dialogue is a wonderful way to make characters unique. In McShannon’s Chance I had fun with the contrast between Trey’s speech patterns and Beth’s. Trey’s a lot less wordy and some of his expressions mark him as a country boy, but he doesn’t talk like a rube. After all, he’s read Walt Whitman and Dickens and R.H. Dana. Beth is an educated young woman from a good family, and her language reflects her background. In McShannon’s Heart, I really enjoyed writing conversations between Martin and Chelle. I could almost hear her Georgia drawl and his broad Yorkshire. Of course, in real life they’d hardly have been able to understand each other.

Dialogue. What do you have to say about it?

Folk Friday #6

2010-08-06T11:22:00.000-03:00

This tune, the Dixie Chicks’ cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide, is another one that I think suits a soft summer evening on the porch with a beer in hand. I love the harmonies, and the country feel of this version. Another one of those reflective pieces that always seem to tug at my heartstrings. Enjoy!

Folk Friday #5

2010-07-30T08:24:00.002-03:00

This week’s tune, ‘The Presence’, is another old one by Archie Fisher, the legendary Scottish folk singer who crafted ‘Dark-eyed Molly’ and ‘Witch of the Westmoreland’, songs that most of us on this side of the pond became familiar with through Stan Rogers’ artful interpretations.

I’ve seen Archie perform once, when a friend and I drove from Halifax to Ottawa to take in a concert. Yes, we wanted to hear this man that badly. When Mr. Fisher heard of us, he took a few minutes at the end of the show to chat with us, mostly to tell us we were crazy.

In my opinion, the lyrics to this song are simply exquisite. They’re based on a story Mr. Fisher heard from an old woman in Scotland. This cover is the only recording I could find, and it isn’t badly done, but I wish you could hear the original. I’m including the lyrics, as they aren’t that easy to make out.

Enjoy!

It was out in the long spring grass, she said
And the night was soft on the hill
He touched my ear with his voice, she said
And my blood ran sweet and chill
I laugh in my sleep at their gibes, she said
Though they call me old maid still
I have seen them sprinkled, weaned and loved
The young girls fondled and wed
I've watched their dreams go as grey as the hair
That the limpin' sheepdogs shed
But mine are as green as the tall pines
That lean by Loch Erne head
And he never came back to my father's byre
Yet on an April night
When the moon sits pat on a scudding cloud
And the stars are quick and white
I have known his clutch like a cloak of fire
And his limbs like swords of light
And my eyes wet by the fire, she said
But not with lust or shame
I mourn no shepherd laid low on the hill
I weep in the starry flame
With the joy of what I can never lose
But what I dare not name
It was out in the long spring grass, she said
(as sung by Archie Fisher)

Tragedy in Romance

2010-07-24T14:59:00.004-03:00

This is a view of Halifax in 1917, looking North toward where the Macdonald Bridge is today. The tall building in the background by the Narrows is the Acadia Sugar Refinery, then the tallest building in the Maritimes.

I’m only on Chapter 3 in Shattered, and I’m already dreading the inevitable: Someone has got to die. But how many, and who?

My characters live in St. Joseph’s Parish in Halifax’s North End, right in the middle of Richmond, the area hardest hit by the Explosion. St. Joseph’s lost 400 parishioners that day, roughly half its membership, not to mention the church itself. It wasn’t rebuilt for forty years. Not only would it be unrealistic to have every one of my characters miraculously survive, I’d feel somehow disrespectful to all the real folks who didn’t.

But who to kill? Not my hero or heroine. That isn’t the kind of book I want to write. Nolan, Liam’s older brother, with his black Irish good looks and deep love for his family? Nolan’s a harbour pilot, so he would have been out on the water that morning, right in the path of danger. His wife, Annie, with her easy smile? Their children, Drew and Emily? There were plenty of children lost, one only six days old. Then there’s Alice’s family, the O’Neills. What about Georgie, with her zest for life, or Carl, her troubled brother? He would be an easy choice, but why go with the easy choice?

You see my dilemma. One of the main reasons I read romance is the HEA, but the background of this story is all tragedy. That can make for some powerful, wrenching scenes, but it has to be balanced with a measure of hope at the end. No Cold Mountain for me! I know I’ll cry when I do the awful deed. I can only hope I do it well enough to make readers cry, too.

How do you feel about tragedy in romance?

Folk Friday #4

2010-07-23T08:47:00.003-03:00

I completely missed Folk Friday last week! My brain is in summer mode, and the days just 'flow by like a broken-down dam', as John Prine put it in Angel from Montgomery.

This week’s tune is one by James Keelaghan, in my humble opinion the best Canadian male folk singer/songwriter since Stan Rogers. I fell head-over-heels in love with Mr. Keelaghan and his music at the Lunenburg Folk Festival years ago. I already knew one of his songs, Jenny Bryce, from Garnet Rogers’ recording, so I was prepared to be impressed, but not blown away.

I watched this dark-haired young man with the receding hairline and thick glasses tuning up in the festival tent before the show. Well, says Jennie, he’s nothing to look at. Then, when he came back at showtime, my jaw almost hit the floor. He’d put on contact lenses, and the man has the most amazing electric blue eyes. But when he started to sing, I wouldn’t have cared if he looked like Stephen Harper (Sorry, Stephen.) Mr. Keelaghan has a voice you can feel to your toes and the soul of a poet. He’s also highly intelligent, articulate and a confirmed history buff.

I couldn’t find a clip of my favourite song, Rebecca’s Lament, but this one, Kiri’s Piano, is another beauty. I’ll let you listen to Mr. Keelaghan discuss it himself. Enjoy!

A Shattered City

2010-07-14T19:57:00.007-03:00

This was the North End of Halifax some time after 9:04 am on December 6, 1917. A day that will never be forgotten in this city. The day when two ships – the Imo, in ballast, and the Mont Blanc, fully loaded with wartime explosives - collided in the narrow channel between the Halifax Harbour and the Bedford Basin, resulting in what is still the most powerful man-made non-atomic explosion in history.

Ninety-three years later, the Explosion is part of the fabric of everyday life in Halifax, especially in the North End. The few remaining survivors were too young in 1917 to remember much of the event, but survivors’ stories have been handed down through the generations and poignant reminders still remain, like the anchor shaft of the Mont Blanc. It was blown over two miles, retrieved and mounted as a memorial. The tree that graces Boston’s Prudential Plaza every Christmas is a gift from the people of Halifax, in memory of the aid Massachusetts provided in our hour of need.

In 1917, motion picture technology was in its infancy. Only about ten minutes of film of the aftermath of the explosion exist. Here’s a chilling clip I found on YouTube.

I worked for ten years in one of the few buildings to survive the devastation, a school a block away from Ground Zero. Needless to say, with such wholesale death and destruction in its past, the neighbourhood has a unique energy. People still unearth remnants of homes and possessions in their gardens. Strange stories abound.

Several years ago, a friend who lives in the area told me one of those stories. Apparently she got home from work one day, glanced at her kitchen window and saw a man dressed in old fashioned clothes sitting at her table. Before she could react, he vanished. With this story as inspiration, last year I began work on Shattered, a ghost/time travel story of the Explosion. Only now, I think I’ll write it as a straight historical. Easier to get the hero and heroine together, and easier to delve into the treasure trove of history in my own back yard. Here’s a brief excerpt from the story:

Prologue
Morning, December 6, 1917
Halifax, Nova Scotia

There was no sound.

A towering cloud of smoke rose in the clear winter sky. Fireballs floated upward and silently burst, their strange, magnetic beauty a lure to children on their way to school, workmen on their way to the docks, the rail yard and the sugar refinery, soldiers and sailors on the Halifax waterfront. They gathered to watch the spectacle as the French cargo vessel Mont Blanc drifted toward shore, her deck aflame.

At 3121 tonnes, she was bound for war-torn Europe, loaded to the gunnels with picric acid, gun cotton, TNT and airplane fuel. On her way into the Bedford Basin to join her convoy, she’d had an accident in the Narrows, a minor collision with another ship, the Imo. Sparks ignited the fuel that spilled from drums on the Mont Blanc’s deck.

Her explosive cargo was a military secret. Her crew had launched the lifeboats and made for the Dartmouth side of the Harbour when the fire broke out. A floating bomb, she nosed into Pier 6 in the city’s North End. The crowd of onlookers grew.

Mothers sent children out to buy kindling for morning fires. A minister’s family gathered around their piano to practice for an upcoming concert. Three young brothers risked being late for class and hurried toward the waterfront, hoping to see Halifax’s shiny new fire truck arrive on the scene. Full of excitement and fear mingled, a twelve-year-old girl started off to ask a friend to watch the fire with her.

Something awful is going to happen.

At 9:04 a brilliant flash of light blotted out the world. A tidal wave rose from the Harbour, parting it like the Red Sea. The sky rained ash, metal and glass. A mushroom cloud bloomed against serene blue.

But there was no sound.

Chapter 1

K-K-K-Katy, b-beautiful Katy,
You’re the only g-g-g-girl that I adore,
And when the m-moon shines over the cowshed,
I’ll be waiting by the k-k-k-kitchen door!

Liam Cochrane caught his companion by the waist and pulled her into a darkened doorway as the three singing sailors lurched past, trailing liquor fumes in their wake. One of the men looked over his shoulder, leered good-naturedly and snapped off a salute as limp as his wilted uniform. Giggling, Georgie pressed into Liam’s arms, edging him further back into the shadows.

“If I have any more to drink I’ll be three sheets to the wind, too. Time to go home.”
Liam pulled her closer. When he bent his head to kiss her, she rose on her toes and tangled her fingers in his hair. A brief, fierce moment later, Georgie rested her head on his shoulder. With her breasts tight to his chest, lips grazing his neck, taking her home was last on the list of things Liam wanted to do. He tucked a finger under her chin and tilted her head back.

“You sure you’re ready to call it a night?”

Her smoky green eyes held his, full of invitation. Her fingers kindled a fire in him, running lightly along his spine. “No one will be home. I didn’t say anything about calling it a night.”

She reached for his mouth. She tasted like youth, like life. He plunged deep and savoured her.

“I like the way you think, lady. Let’s go.”

They had a walk ahead of them, all the way from Brunswick Street to the North End, but the rye they’d shared with their picnic in Point Pleasant Park had loosened up Liam’s bad hip. As for Georgie’s inhibitions, after three evenings together he knew they didn’t need much loosening. Girls like her had been scarce in Halifax before the war, but not any longer.

They started north past Citadel Hill, walking hand in hand. The round-domed town clock read nine. A breeze had come up, snapping the flags that flew from the old fort on the hilltop, the grey stone reflecting the pink of the twilight sky. Later, fog might roll in off the harbour, but for now the stored heat of buildings and pavement kept it at bay.

The streets filled. Halifax wore a grim face in the grip of winter, a drab and ghostly one in rain, but a fine summer day transformed the city and its people. Even the brick and stone of the industrial waterfront looked brighter and more welcoming, the bustle of wartime business a little less serious. The long evenings drew people out to stroll, socialize and look for trouble, easily found around the Hill. It always had been since the days when Brunswick was notorious Barrack Street, catering to the two greatest needs of men just in off the sea, one of which was a drink.

Folk Friday #3

2010-07-09T08:41:00.001-03:00

What can I say about this one? Loreena McKennit has the most amazing voice, and an unequalled gift for interpretation. Give her material like Tennyson’s ‘Lady of Shallot’ and the result is going to be stellar.

I read this poem a long time ago, but the first time I heard it spoken was by Megan Followes as Anne of Green Gables. That was when I realized its charm. On paper, I find it a bit too, well, Victorian, but when spoken it comes alive. Here’s Loreena’s version. Enjoy!

McShannon's Heart Update

2010-07-06T16:50:00.005-03:00

I received a nice little giftie to top off the general celebrations last week – my finalized cover for McShannon’s Heart! This allowed me to finalize the trailer as well. It’s a little longer than I intended, but I just couldn’t resist using the lovely images I found.

In honour of the occasion I’m putting up an excerpt, but first a little background. As I’ve mentioned before, the story’s hero, Martin Rainnie, is a talented fiddler. For years, Martin played at all the local dances in his part of Yorkshire, but after losing his wife in childbirth he no longer has the heart for music. Then, Rochelle McShannon walks into his life. This is an account of Martin’s return to the stage and his first dance with Chelle.

Writing this brought back memories of a dance my DH once played on Pictou Island, a tiny, breathtakingly beautiful smidgen of land off the coast of Nova Scotia. Only 5km long, the island has about 20 full-time residents and another 50 or so who spend their summers there. Unfortunately I have no pictures, but imagine miles of pristine beach, gulls calling, and weathered old seaside homes. If I could have Internet, I’d live there in a minute. We spent an idyllic weekend there.

The dance took place on Saturday night in a two hundred year old, tiny, un-renovated community hall. Bare board walls, original worn plank floor, benches along the sides, a few bare light bulbs that shed no more light than a coal-oil lamp. There was good food and plenty of spirits passed around. It all could have taken place two hundred years ago – the older folks minding the babies, the dancing getting faster as the drinks flowed, couples necking in dark corners and a few boisterous types outside fighting. Since the threat of theft is non-existent, nobody locked their cars. They just left the keys in the ignition. At some point, a prankster gathered all the keys and scattered them in the bushes. They would have been switching people’s horses way back when. I could almost feel the ghosts of the past kicking up their heels in time with the fiddle.

The dance in McShannon’s Heart takes place in a hall built of Yorkshire stone, but the atmosphere is the same. The perfect place for Martin to feel the pull of his music again, and to discover that he’s healing in other ways as well.
Enjoy!

They reached the hall to find the yard full of farm carts, wagons and buggies. Inside, the benches lining the stone walls were already filling up. Lanterns hung from the rafters, adding to the heat already building in the room.

The platform at the opposite end of the hall was still empty. The McShannons found space on a bench. Leaning back against the wall, Chelle scanned the room. She didn’t know any of the Carston people.

Three older couples stood chatting near the platform. When they separated, laughing, to return to their seats, Chelle’s heart did a queer little flutter. His broad back turned to her, fiddle in his hand, Martin stood there, deep in conversation with a man about the age of her father. He nodded to his companion, then the two of them stepped onto the platform.

The first sharp, clear notes of the flute caught the crowd’s attention. They fell silent, then burst into cheers when Martin joined Jason in a fast, driving rant. Someone shouted out “Welcome back, lad!” They settled into a reel and in a blink, two sets of dancers formed. Chelle didn’t know the steps to this particular figure, but they looked simple enough to learn. When a third set formed, Brian led Jean out onto the floor.

As she had at the farm, Chelle lost herself in Martin’s music. Tapping her foot in time, she forgot the dancers until the reel ended. As the sets re-formed, someone tapped her shoulder.

“May I have the pleasure?”

Chelle started and looked up at a stocky young man with a shock of blond hair and a pleasant smile.

“Yes, I’d be glad to.”

The music began again. Her partner was a good dancer, and Chelle soon caught on to the steps. The music carried her along until she felt lighter than she had in many months.

She wondered if Martin would dance tonight. If he did, would he ask her? Her pulse quickened at the thought. This must be the first time he’d played in public since losing his wife. How was he feeling? A little ashamed of the glow of warmth that came over her, Chelle turned her thoughts back to her partner and the music.
****

Martin played the first reel through a storm of conflicting emotions. The welcoming cheers from the crowd touched him. Memories overwhelmed him. It wasn’t until the beginning of the third tune that he dared to look out over the dance floor.

His gaze settled on Chelle as she moved neatly through the figures, flushed and smiling, her bright hair gathered in a soft knot on top of her head, exposing the slim line of her neck. He hadn’t thought about her being here. It would surely make tongues wag, this soon after losing her mother, just as people would talk about him playing. He didn’t give a damn what the village biddies said about him, but Chelle’s reputation was another matter.

Martin had a speaking acquaintance with her partner, who came from one of the farms on the other side of Carston. Lester Barrow was a decent lad, and Chelle seemed to be enjoying herself with him. When the tune ended, another Carston man took Lester’s place. By intermission time, Chelle had danced with eight or nine different partners and Martin’s nerves were as taut as the strings on his fiddle.

You’re daft, Martin. What’s the odds who she dances with? You’re not in the market. But his jealousy wouldn’t down. It tangled with all the other feelings raised by being here, and it wouldn’t be rooted out.

He stepped off the platform and joined the line at the refreshment table. He’d just gotten his punch when he caught sight of Drew Markham lounging against the wall across the room, watching someone intently, a predatory light in his eyes. Martin followed Drew’s gaze to where Chelle stood with her cousin and his wife. His fists clenched, eager to make the man’s teeth rattle.

Jealousy. Protectiveness. Martin had no call to be feeling either, but they overwhelmed him. He returned to the platform, picked up his fiddle and held it out to Jason.

“Break time’s over. Play a couple of tunes to start off, will you?”

Jason quirked an eyebrow as he took the fiddle. “Fancy joining a set? Go on, then.”

Martin didn’t answer. He eased his way through the crowd, his pulse drumming in his ears like it had at eighteen when he asked a girl to dance. The color on Chelle’s face deepened and spread to her throat when she saw him. Standing beside her, her cousin held out his hand.

“Good to see you here, Martin. You haven’t lost your touch.”

“I’m not so sure of that, but thanks.” He shook Brian’s hand, then turned to Chelle. “Miss Rochelle, Jason’s going to start off the next set. Might I have the pleasure?”

Chelle smiled and mimicked his broad Yorkshire. “Aye, sir, I’d be flattered.”

Folk Friday #2

2010-07-02T06:54:00.002-03:00

Just got back from an early walk in the woods with Chance and Echo...lovely, absolutely lovely. Summer mornings are priceless.

This week’s Folk Friday tune has a lot of memories for me. The Moon and Saint Christopher by Mary Chapin Carpenter is one of the first songs Everett and I learned to play together. I think of it as every woman’s anthem.

My favourite Mary Chapin Carpenter songs have never been the popular ones, though I like them too. The lyrics of her more reflective tunes are poignant and beautiful, and so true.

When I was young I spoke like a child, I saw with a child’s eyes
An open door was to a girl like the stars are to the skies
It’s funny how the world lives up to all your expectations
With adventures for the stout of heart, the lure of open spaces

And later:

But now I’m grown and I speak like a woman and see with a woman’s eyes
An open door is to me now like the saddest of goodbyes
When it’s too late for turning back I pray for the heart and the nerve
And I rely upon the moon and Saint Christopher

There are some performers best seen live. Their energy, stage presence and charisma are a big part of their appeal, but to me, this is the kind of song - and artist - best enjoyed while relaxing at home with bare feet and a beer in hand. It isn’t sad, it’s about the strength we gain through experience.

Enjoy!

A Different Flavour

2010-06-30T17:13:00.003-03:00

One thing I can say about my job – it’s never boring.

For last two months of school I taught math and science in the morning, and did curriculum work in the afternoons, but this week I found myself unexpectedly shifted back to the ESL department until a vacancy can be filled. Putting the lack of notice aside, I was pleased. I’ve missed working with these women.

One thing I find fascinating is the contrast between the way our students – all young Muslim women in their twenties – dress in public, and what they wear in private. Long coats, hijabs and, for some, veils cover skinny jeans, low-cut tank tops, make-up and jewellery. The ones who are the most modest outside school are anything but in a women-only environment.

For some, the same can be said about their personalities. One student in particular – I’ll call her Miriam – is, to put it plainly, a firecracker in the classroom. She loves clothes, makeup, movies and popular music, is always laughing and teasing, and doesn’t hesitate to let go of her temper. She lives life with incredible zest.

This afternoon the sun came out after three days of rain and fog, so we took the ESL class down to the Halifax waterfront. We strolled along the boardwalk, enjoyed the festive atmosphere of the waterfront in tourist season and checked out a few stores, one of which was a confectionery.

Browsing the shelves and trying to ignore the smell of homemade fudge and ice cream, I came across something different. Remember those multicoloured candy necklaces you used to buy as a kid? Well, someone has taken the idea a bit further. I found this on Wikimedia Commons. Apparently, one size fits most. All I know is, I’d have to wear two of them. There they were, in neat little boxes next to the gummi bears.

I couldn’t resist showing one to the students. I handed the box to one; she puzzled out the label, then her eyes got big. “It’s CANDY!” The others gathered around, giggling.

Miriam burst out laughing. “What size? What size?” They examined the box, trying to find out. A hurried discussion in Arabic took place. Then Miriam, wearing a big smile, marched up to the cash with the box.

I get the feeling her husband probably enjoys a little something different, too.

Folk Friday #1

2010-06-25T10:05:00.002-03:00

I’ve decided to start a tradition this week. Since I know some of you are music fans, and since I certainly am, I’m going to decree that every Friday henceforth shall be Folk Friday. I’ll choose a piece of music I like, provide a clip, and give a little background.

Musically, I’m a little schizophrenic. One part of me gravitates towards Celtic music, while another part responds to earthy tunes by the likes of John Prine and Mary Chapin-Carpenter. I’ll kick this off with a Celtic tune, The Briar and the Rose, written by Tom Waite, performed by Nova Scotian band The Cottars.

A good friend of mine works as an usher at the Rebecca Cohn auditorium, a major concert venue here in Halifax. She keeps me informed of upcoming shows, and a few years ago she told me The Cottars were on the bill. “Don’t miss it.” I’d been hearing of this band, so I took Kathy’s advice and didn’t miss it.

At that time, The Cottars were two pairs of siblings, young teens from two of Nova Scotia’s well-known musical families. The lead singer, Fiona MacGillivray, was only twelve at the time. When this dark-haired wisp of a girl stepped up to the microphone I didn’t know what to expect. I like children’s voices, but…

With her brother backing her up, Fiona launched into The Briar and the Rose. By the end of the first verse there were chills running along my spine and tears in my eyes. No artifice, no vocal gymnastics, just a pure, clear, powerful voice. Fiona must be seventeen or eighteen now, and though her voice has matured it hasn’t changed in quality. It still comes from the heart. This clip was recorded a year or so ago. Enjoy! And if there are any tunes you’d like to hear here, let me know!

Echo's Excellent Adventure

2010-06-21T09:23:00.010-03:00

I think I aged at least two years yesterday.

Last Wednesday, we brought home a new addition to the family. We’ve had a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, Chance, for eight years, and we love him dearly, so dearly that DH and I don’t ever want to be without a dog. So, we called Chance’s breeder a while ago and ended up with a beautiful little female, Echo, to keep our boy company.

For those of you who haven’t heard of them, Tollers – also known here as Little River Duck Dogs - are a native Nova Scotian breed, developed by Acadian settlers over 200 years ago. “Tolling” is a behaviour shown naturally by red foxes. At the edge of a marsh or lake, a fox will hide in tall grass while its mate plays on the shore, running back and forth and waving its white-tipped tail. For some bird-brained reason, this fascinates waterfowl. They swim in to shore to get a closer look, and if they get close enough, the hidden fox springs out and an unlucky duck becomes dinner for two. The Acadians bred dogs to imitate this behaviour, and to look foxlike – red coats, white markings and sharp faces. The smallest of the retriever breeds, Tollers are compact dynamos with endless energy and a lot of smarts. For hunting, they’re trained to lure the birds in for a shot and then retrieve the kill. We’ve never hunted, but we love the breed’s energy and personality.

This is Chance
and here’s Echo.
She’s two years old and full grown, but rather small for her breed standard, which is why the breeder decided to let her go.

I like this silhouette of the two of them. Just try to get two Tollers to stand still at the same time for anyting, let alone a picture!

Wouldn’t those names be good for a couple in a romance novel? Hmmm, the wheels are turning.

Echo fit into our household right away, and Saturday morning we headed for our family cottage. These dogs are bred for the water and Echo has had field training, so though we were concerned about letting her off-lead so soon, we couldn’t bear to keep her out of the lake. She had a wonderful time and made no attempt to run off, so Sunday morning I took her and Chance down to the water for another swim. Echo had been so good that I didn’t put her on lead for the short walk back to the cottage. We were almost there when she caught the scent of a deer and disappeared down a side path.

For three hours.

DH and I were devastated. We searched and called, but in spite of her field training, we couldn’t be sure she’d come to us even if she heard us. We’d only had her for 4 days. Our cottage is 10 km back in the woods, with no one around for miles. My imagination went into overdrive, picturing Echo alone and frightened, lost in the woods with coyotes on the prowl. While hubby searched on foot I jumped in the car and drove the roads, with no sign of her. Would she find her way out and try to make the dangerous 30-km trip along a busy highway back to the breeder’s? I knew I’d never forgive myself if we didn’t find her.

After several futile circles, I started back to the cottage, praying aloud. Before I reached our road I met hubby walking, with a broad grin on his face. Just after I left for my last circle, Echo had come trotting up to the cottage, very pleased with herself and ready for a rest and dinner. I simply went to pieces.

I suppose I overreacted a tad. She might look like a strong wind could blow her away, but this little girl is wiry and tough and bred for the woods. When she’d had her fill of exploring, she knew enough to follow her own scent back to where comfort and a meal would be waiting. But last night, when it started to thunder and rain and I lay in bed, knowing Echo was safe in her crate and not out in the woods in the dark, I said the most grateful prayer I’ve ever said in my life. It will be a while before that little minx gets off lead again.

She’s definitely grounded.

Summertime, and the Livin' is Easy

2010-06-11T14:02:00.009-03:00

Only five more school days left! I think I’m going to be doing some curriculum work over the summer, but that will be relaxing compared to dealing with teenagers. I can’t wait.

June is busting out all over, including our garden. Yesterday evening was beautiful, so we sat outside and had a beer after supper. I took a stroll around the yard and snapped some pictures.

Our irises are just reaching their peak right now. Mixed with deep purple bachelor’s buttons and pearly yellow ground cover (a donation from a neighbour – I haven’t bothered to look it up. Does anyone recognize it?), they create a nice palette of blues and yellows. Our wegiela is in full bloom, and we have a froth of forget-me-nots and columbines around the edge of the property. Jacob’s ladder is another reliable perennial that comes up for us every year.

The crabapple is done, but it was beautiful and the blossoms perfumed the whole yard. We won’t have to wait much longer for the peonies. Then the roses will take over. Right now, only the rugosa is in bloom. They line the beaches in so many places here, and to me they’re the essence of summer. Later will come the dahlias and brown-eyed Susans. In a good year, they bloom right through to the end of October.

I’m a lazy gardener. Our beds run riot, with no coddling for wimps, but we deal with the worst of the bullies and it always manages to look bright and cheerful, if not always perfectly neat and tidy. This summer I want to do plenty of relaxing, so the weeds will likely get ahead of me again. Sigh. No matter. Summer is too short not to savor.

The season is so laden with memories. The smell of a hot smoked-meat sandwich on a sweltering afternoon on Rue Ste. Catherine in Montreal. The dappled shade of spruce trees in the woods where I used to go riding during my high-school years in Miramichi. Moonlight on the Guysborough River where my family camped when I was a tween. The first summer Everett and I spent together, mostly at our family cottage, with the loons calling in the night.

Here’s a set of lyrics I wrote on a summer evening a few years ago. Everett has composed a swingy little jazz melody to go with them. I need another verse, then perhaps we’ll record it.

SERENITY

Swirl me around in an eddy of sunlight
Rest me in darkness at the edge of the stream
Bear me along in the flow of passing time
Like a reed in a river on its way to the sea

When I was a child, someone told me a story
‘Bout a man who made some wings and flew too close to the sun
He fell from grace, but he lost himself trying
And I’ve found myself crying for the freedom he won

Warm and bright as sunlight on the water
Hours go by on an afternoon like this
I’m nobody here, just the river’s daughter
Lying still, dreaming of…

Swirl me around in an eddy of sunlight
Pebbles turn till they’re polished and clean
Close my eyes and listen to the water
Be a reed in a river on its way to the sea

What are your best summer memories? I’ll leave you with a couple of my favourite tunes for the season. Enjoy!

A visit with Deanna Jewel and Trey McShannon

2010-06-10T08:40:00.006-03:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm visiting Deanna Jewel's Colorado lodge this morning, and Trey just happened to ride in for a chat! Come and join us for a spell, the chairs are comfy and coffee's on!Link is being cranky, it's http://www.deannajewel.blogspot.com

A Musical Push

2010-06-07T17:54:00.006-03:00

I posted recently about the interconnections between music and writing. Now, it seems that the fates are conspiring to nudge me into playing again. We’ll see where that leads.

For a few years, in my late twenties, I worked quite hard at becoming a better singer and guitar player. That’s how I met my hubby. He had moved from Ottawa back to his family’s roots in Nova Scotia to pursue music, and he was looking for guitar students. I had decided I was in a rut with my playing and wanted to take lessons. I saw his ad and phoned him. It wasn’t long before he stopped charging me for the lessons. The rest is history.

With music, as with writing, life gets in the way. I found out by experience that bands are like marriages, without the perks. They’re transitory, and breakups can be painful. I got a real job, got a house and a garden and a dog. I discovered watercolors, and there was always writing. I wasn’t playing much guitar, and because singing and playing are very physical, if you don’t use it, you lose it. When I got inspired to write a novel, I immersed myself in that and stopped playing more or less completely.

I’ve always known that I’m not a performer by nature. I’m an introvert, which is one of the traits that makes me a writer. Still, I’ve missed making music, especially making music with my guy. I’ve been telling myself for a long time that I’m going to pick up my guitar again, and last week I did. I’m rusty – very rusty – but I know that once I’m past sore fingers and botched chords, I’ll be glad I made the effort.

Everett’s cousin John Chiasson has a recording studio in Dartmouth, and a couple of weeks ago John helped me record ‘She Moved Through The Fair’ as the soundtrack for my McShannon’s Heart book trailer. Shameless plug: John is a consummate musician. He’s played bass for the Rankins and Natalie MacMaster, is well known in the local jazz scene, and his ear is flawless. He’s also one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, a joy to work with. If you’re in the Halifax area and have any reason to use a recording studio, call him. He’s in the phone book.

We did three takes, mixed and matched to get the best version of each verse, and voila! When I played the trailer as part of my session at RWAC’s all day workshop this past Saturday, people suggested I record more. Hmmm. A little more time and work, and we’ll see. Just what I need, another side-path to follow. But the best journeys are always along the roads less travelled. Meanwhile, I’m just happy to be playing and singing again.

And the Watercolor Winner is...

2010-06-02T11:44:00.003-03:00

Kelly Boyce! Congratulations, Kelly! I'll be presenting you with your prize at our RWAC workshop on Saturday. See you then!

Review: Naked Edge by Pamela Clare

2010-05-28T08:48:00.003-03:00

Naked Edge is Pamela Clare’s latest release in her I-Team series, romantic suspense novels featuring the members of a team of investigative reporters at a Denver newspaper. I’ve read one other book in the series, Extreme Exposure, which I enjoyed, but didn’t find extraordinary.

I’m not a big romantic suspense reader. I find that very few achieve a good balance between romance and suspense, and characterization suffers for the sake of action. Even so, the intriguing excerpts on Ms. Clare’s blog tempted me to order Naked Edge. I wasn’t disappointed.

This book is a prime example of an author writing what she knows. Ms. Clare uses her experience as an investigative journalist and her knowledge of Denver’s rock-climbing and skiing community to make her characters three-dimensional and her plot authentic. The heroine, Katherine James, is a member of the I-Team, a Navajo who holds to the spiritual traditions of her people even though she has chosen a future away from the reservation. Those traditions require that she save sex for marriage. Not many authors would take the risk of writing a twenty-six -year -old virgin as a heroine in a contemporary romantic suspense, but I found Kat James to be a completely believable, strong and sympathetic young woman.

The hero, Gabriel Rossiter, is a Boulder Mountain Parks ranger with an adrenaline addiction. Gabe lives for the rush – quick, casual sex, extreme skiing, crazy rock-climbing. Where Kat has deep-rooted spiritual beliefs, Gabe believes in nothing. His faith in life and in people has been shattered, and he is determined not to look beyond the moment.

Gabe and Kat meet when, climbing off-hours, he sees her fall off a mountain trail. He saves her life, and that’s the end of it – until the two become involved in trying to protect Mesa Butte, a piece of sacred Navajo land, from looters who are stealing Native American artifacts. Looters who will kill to protect themselves.
As the danger to Kat heightens, Gabe starts to question his belief that love boils down to pheromones, and she begins to wonder if he isn’t the man she’s been waiting for – her ‘half-side’. In the end, in a life-or-death situation, Gabe shows just how much he’s willing to sacrifice for the woman who has made him re-evaluate himself and his life from the inside out.

It’s that journey that made this book special for me. Gabe evolves from a man who’s easy to dislike – and who loathes himself – to one with immense courage and heart. Kat accepts Gabe for who he is, without betraying her beliefs. The suspense builds relentlessly to the blackest of black moments, and the resolution left me with tears in my eyes. Naked Edge has the same kind of passionate intensity and rich characterization I enjoy in Ms. Clare’s historicals. She’s working on the next I-Team novel now, and I’ll be pre-ordering it when it’s available. This author is quickly becoming an auto-buy for me.

Words and Music

2010-05-19T20:25:00.004-03:00

Music has always been a big part of my life. My mother tells me that when I was very small I used to sing to myself in bed at night. When I was a little older, I sang in the car. I had a fixation on Johnny Cash when I was about six, and cheerfully belted out Fulsom Prison Blues and Ring of Fire as we drove along. Later I learned to play guitar and fell in love with Celtic music. I enjoy other musical genres as well, but the simple, heartfelt tunes I can play and sing myself are closest to my heart. Luckily for me, Nova Scotia has a wonderfully vibrant music scene.

I suppose it’s inevitable that music has found its way into my writing. Martin Rainnie, the hero of McShannon’s Heart, is a talented fiddler who also sings. He gives up his music when his wife dies in childbirth, but finds the will to play again thanks to his baby daughter and Chelle McShannon. Whenever I think of Martin, I think of this tune, She Moved Through The Fair. It’s a haunting story of lost love.

Some authors I know choose music that suits their characters or settings and play it while they write. I don’t – I think I’d find it too distracting – but I do find that my characters evoke songs. Or is it the other way around? If I could score a movie of McShannon’s Chance, this tune, Shady Grove, would be there somewhere. I think Trey would like it.

One of the secondary characters in Chance is a teenaged girl, Holly Greer, who has aspirations to be a professional singer. I gave Holly this tune to sing at the Wallace Flats concert. It’s an old tune I first heard at the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival about fifteen years ago, called Siuil a Ruin. I’ve heard it done as a slow lament, but I think Holly would sing it with less pathos and more youthful defiance. She needed it. I like this version.
It’s an iffy thing, putting music in fiction, but I couldn’t resist. Do you associate music with fictional characters? Do you listen to tunes while you write? Do they influence your writing?

Revisions, revisions

2010-05-12T08:15:00.002-03:00

At the May meeting of Romance writers of Atlantic Canada, Julianne MacLean, author of many beautiful historicals, gave a presentation on revision. Her session gave me several lightbulb moments and took a sizable weight off my shoulders.

I know that many experienced authors have critique partners, and I find feedback from other writers and readers invaluable. That said, I’ve always had this idea in the back of my mind that really talented authors can see most of the weaknesses in their writing for themselves. I’m not talking about technical glitches like grammar, but deeper issues like characterization, POV and plot. When a reader makes suggestions on my writing, I ask myself “Why didn’t I see that?” I found it very reassuring to hear a multi-published author whose books I admire say that she doesn’t always see those things either. As writers, most of us are just too close to our work to see the forest for the trees.

I’ve written before about being a pantser. My natural tendency is to start each writing session by going back over what I wrote the last time and polishing it before moving on. I depend on that process to help me figure out where the story is going next. If there’s something in the MS that bothers me, I can’t go forward until I’ve fixed it. It turns out that Julianne’s process is similar. For me it can lead to painful episodes of being bogged down, but the upside is there’s less work to be done after the first draft, because it isn’t really a first draft.

I’ve tried various revision methods, hoping to become more efficient. I’ve found Holly Lisle’s “one-pass revision” technique useful. It’s explained on her website. In a nutshell, you go through a printed copy of the MS from beginning to end and make notes on the pages, and when you’re done – you’re done. Only I still find myself going back and making more changes. I seem to be hardwired that way.
So, I’ll go with the flow. Write, polish, write a little more. See where the story takes me. Go back and detour. Been there, done that. Should design a T-shirt. But in the end, I get there.

I'll be getting first edits back on Heart before too long, so Julianne's workshop came at the perfect time for me. I'll go through the MS again, and keep in mind that just because I didn't see all the flaws for myself doesn't mean I can't write. It'll be a better story, and that's what it's all about.

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T13:55:00.003-03:00

Just popping in to wish a happy Mother’s Day to all who act as mothers in any capacity.

The older I get, the more appreciation I gain for my own mother. I’m truly blessed in that my relationship with her and my father has always been a positive one.

I’ve heard it said that the best thing parents can do for their children is to love each other. My parents have done that for 52 years. I can honestly say that I have never heard them fight. My father is sensitive, quick-tempered and rather intense, while Mom is naturally upbeat and easy-going, good at defusing disagreements before harsh words are spoken and at asserting herself when necessary. They complement each other well. As parents, they knew how to set limits and instil values with love when my brother and I were growing up.

Thanks, Mom and Dad. Today, and always.

Book Review: Highland Rebel by Judith James

2010-05-03T17:38:00.002-03:00

Highland Rebel is the first book I’ve read by Judith James, who is a fellow member of Romance Writers of Atlantic Canada. For the past few months I’ve been reading very little as I focused on finishing Heart, but I dove into Judith’s story on the weekend and returned feeling as if I’d been time-traveling.

Set in turbulent 17th-century England and Scotland, Highland Rebel tells the story of Jamie Sinclair, the unwanted bastard son of an English nobleman, and Catherine (Cat) Drummond, daughter of a Scottish clan chieftain, a woman who is used to taking her place among men, even in war. Jamie rescues Cat when she is captured in battle and marries her to save her life, but the marriage is highly inconvenient, not to say disastrous, for both.

Jamie needs to marry a woman with wealth and the right connections to escape from the mountain of debts left him by his father. Cat feels a strong responsibility to her people, and her relatives are furious over her marriage to an enemy. They want Jamie dead. Eventually the unlikely newlyweds strike a bargain: To serve both their ends they will appear as a happily married couple for a time, then get a divorce. Only, as time goes on, parting becomes less and less attractive as an option.

Cat Drummond is one of the most original heroines I’ve ever come across in romantic literature. She is strong, even fierce, without being shrill or strident. She smuggles Jamie away and nurses him back to health after he’s beaten within an inch of his life by her family, but she doesn’t hesitate to have him knocked on the head, bound and shipped back to London once he’s well enough. Cat is nobody’s fool. Her reaction to London and the English court, with its vicious gossip, adultery and political intrigue, really shows her character. Disguised as a boy, she follows Jamie into the intellectually vibrant coffee shops of the city and finds them exhilarating. Jamie is a complex character as well, and his relationship with Cat progresses from hostility to a complicated friendship to love in a completely realistic manner.

This book drew me in with its wealth of historical detail, fast-paced plot and the emotional and sexual tension between Jamie and Cat. I’d recommend it to any reader who likes meaty, detailed historical romance.

What's In A Name?

2010-04-29T16:34:00.009-03:00

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

Every author of fiction knows that Shakespeare was dead wrong about this, at least when it comes to naming characters. We may agonize over our hero or heroine’s name, or it may come to us in a flash of inspiration, but it just has to be right. Changing a name once chosen is no trifling matter. Sometimes a character clings to a name a stubbornly as we do to our own.

Every author has their own way of choosing names. Baby name books, mythology, online lists of names from different languages and ethnic backgrounds, there’s no shortage of places to look. I know one author of historicals set in American Colonial times, who went through military and census records to find names that fit the time period. For historicals, names can’t sound too modern. Fantasy and paranormal writers face a different set of challenges in creating names that suit the world they’ve created. Sam and Frodo, Boromir and Faramir, Aragorn and Arwen…sound familiar?

Personally, I borrow or steal any name that appeals to me and mix and match it with a new surname. That’s how I came up with Trey, Beth, Sidonie, Rochelle and Colin. Sidonie – my personal favorite – was the name of the French author Collette’s mother. I borrowed Trey from a former student of mine who had Southern roots. I found the name McShannon in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s journals and lifted it as well. Surette is a common Acadian surname, so I used it for the French branch of Trey and Chelle’s family tree. As for Martin Rainnie, his name just came to me without any thought at all.

In romantic fiction, the hero’s name is a very big deal. So what makes a name appealing to the opposite sex? An article written by Michael Hopkins, published in 2004 on http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040809/full/news040809-4.html , describes the results of a study done by MIT researcher Amy Perfors. According to this study, men’s names are sexiest when they contain strong consonants like K and B along with vowel sounds made at the front of the mouth, like ‘e’ or ‘I’. Mike and Zeke trump Paul or Tom. For women, the opposite is true: names with ‘round’ vowel sounds, like Laura, are most appealing. Of course, cultural factors play a large part. Some names are considered masculine and others feminine. That has changed over time. The name Shirley was considered masculine in Victorian times, while now it’s thought of as feminine.

I love old-fashioned names. Ethan, Galen, Nathan, Daniel, and Matthew are among my favorites for men. Emily, Sarah, Elizabeth, Faith, Rachael are names I like for women. I also like short, snappy names like Kate and Ruth, Ben and Zeke. I’ve never really cared for long names.

I ran into a bit of a sticky name situation with McShannon’s Chance. Without realizing it, I wrote three male secondary characters whose names all began with ‘N’ – Nathan Munroe (Nate), Neil Garrett, and Nolan Kinsley. Nate, Trey’s childhood nemesis, flatly refused to budge on the issue. Nathan he was and Nathan he would remain, world without end, amen. I really didn’t dare approach Neil about it. He keeps a loaded shotgun under his bar and rents the back rooms of his saloon to loose women. Not going there. Nolan, though, was an easy-going sort, comfortable enough in his skin to trust that I would only change his name, not him. So, Nolan became Logan – a name I borrowed from another student. Logan Kinsley has a nice sound, I think. Maybe some day I’ll reward him by writing about his adventures as a young man.

One of the things I love most about writing is having a character take shape and become real in my mind. Names are a big part of that. If you write, I’m curious to hear how you name your characters. What are your favorite masculine and feminine names? Why?

Crazy English

2010-04-25T21:01:00.003-03:00

As some of you know, I work at a small private school that just opened in January. I teach science and math to four girls in grades 7 and 9, and English as a second language to a group of Muslim women. I’ve been teaching math and science for years, but I’m new at teaching English. It’s really made me think about the vagaries of this weird and wonderful language of ours.

The head of our ESL department has a standard answer when the students are befuddled: “Crazy English.” What else can you say when trying to explain why ‘though’, ‘bough’, ‘enough’ and ‘trough’ have the same spelling, but completely different sounds? Why the present and past tense of the verb ‘ to read’ are spelled exactly the same, but pronounced differently? Or try explaining the difference between ‘slender’ and ‘skinny’, or ‘maybe’ and ‘perhaps’ – which one of the students thought was a man’s name.

My students are Arabic speakers and Arabic doesn’t use articles or prepositions, so they wonder why we bother with ‘a’, ‘an’, ‘to’ and ‘the’. “I am going store” conveys the same meaning as “I am going to the store”, so why bother with those annoying little words that are so easily misplaced?

Every language has its quirks, but ours seems to have more than its share. “I before e, except after c, or when sounded like a, as in ‘neighbor’ and ‘weigh’.” Crazy English! To help the students learn vocabulary, we sometimes play Go Fish with picture and word cards. First, the students had to learn the game, so we taught them with playing cards. Most of them are still a little shaky on recognizing long vowels, so “Do you have an ace?” comes out as “Do you have an ass?” When I pointed out the difference there were a lot of blushes and giggles. And when we ask questions, why do we have to turn the word order around? “You are going shopping?” with a raise in pitch at the end makes the meaning clear, so why say “Are you going shopping?”

I have a lot of admiration for my students, most of whom are in their early to mid-twenties, in a foreign country, trying to learn the language while coping with young families. I often wish, for their sakes, that English didn’t have so many exceptions to the rules. But we muddle along, and slowly but surely Haifa and Lama and Eman and Fatima and the others are starting to make sense of our crazy English.

My Take on Description 2: Setting

2010-04-22T20:28:00.005-03:00

“Greetings.” The whisper came straight back at me in an echo so quick that I knew I was very near the wall of the cave, then it lost itself, hissing, in the roof.

There was movement there – at first, I thought, only an intensifying of the echo’s whisper, then the rustling grew and grew like the rustling of a woman’s dress, or a curtain stirring in the draught.

Something went past my cheek, with a shrill, bloodless cry just on the edge of sound. Another followed, and after them flake after flake of shrill shadow, pouring down from the roof like leaves down a stream of wind, or fish down a fall. It was the bats, disturbed from their lodging in the top of the cave, streaming out now into the daylight valley. They would be pouring out of the low archway like a plume of smoke.

Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave

The Crystal Cave is the first book in Mary Stewart’s Merlin series, which I read when it came out in the seventies and still re-read every few years. One of the main reasons these books are keepers for me is Stewart’s gift for setting.

When writing setting, I’m always tempted to focus too much on what’s visible. The true art of describing setting is in using as many of the five senses as possible, and I’m trying to get better at that. One of the reasons I chose the above example is that there’s very little use of sight here.

For me, the magic in this description comes from Stewart’s choice of words. ‘a shrill, bloodless cry.’ ‘flake after flake of shrill shadow.’ ‘like leaves down a stream, or fish down a fall.’ Knowing we are in a cave, we don’t need the author to tell us what’s happening. With the line ‘something went past my cheek’, we immediately think ‘bats’. The visual references given are imagined, not actually seen.

How much setting is too much? For me, it’s too much when it slows down the story. When it starts to read like a grocery list. When I sense that the author is trying too hard. If a character is going from point A to point B, with nothing important happening plotwise in between, I don’t need to see everything they pass along the way.

It’s interesting how strong characters tend to make for strong description. If a character is well-developed, I tend to see through their eyes and feel like I’m right there, even if the author hasn’t spent a lot of words on setting. What’s important in the setting is what’s important to the character, and that’s all we really need to see.

Here’s a fun writing exercise I once had to do at a workshop. Choose a familiar setting – your backyard, your bedroom, any place you know really well, and describe it from the point of view of a blind character. Does the afternoon sun come in the window, heating a patch on the bed? Is there a transition from pavement to grass? What can you hear? Smell? Try it, and if you feel like posting the result here that would be great. Or, post an example of a description of setting that you admire, yours or someone else’s.

My Take on Character Description

2010-04-20T11:45:00.002-03:00

Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin – that skin so prized by southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns.

Whenever I think about the craft of description, this timeless paragraph comes to mind. Without a single wasted word, Margaret Mitchell not only paints a vivid picture of Scarlett but gives us her background, the time period and location of the story, and even a taste of her parents’ characters. A wonderful piece of craft.

For me, a great character description is all in the details. Scarlett’s eyes are not simply green, they are pale green without a touch of hazel. Her brows slant upward. Her skin is magnolia-white. Using simple words, Mitchell lets us see Scarlett as if she stood in front of us in the flesh. As for her personality, she has twin brothers caught by her charm. We know she’s a vixen from the very first sentence.

The best character descriptions do double duty. They convey a lot more than physical appearance. Even one telling detail can be enough to make a character come alive – the way they walk, sit, approach another person. This becomes easier if you practice observation. Watch people when you’re out and about. Ninety percent of human communication is non-verbal. Practice putting it into words.

A word of warning: When writing body language, it’s easy to fall into the “stage direction” trap. You don’t want your description to read like instructions to an actor. Analyze how some of your favorite authors handle body language and borrow from the best.

Describing a character through another character’s eyes is one way to develop both at the same time. This is especially true of romance. The hero and heroine’s first impressions of each other set the stage for the relationship. Why not use that moment to give a physical description?

So, what makes a great character description? Detail. The true art is in using the right details, and the right amount of detail. Observe, observe, observe, read, read, read, and borrow from the best.

Contest Time!

2010-04-18T15:25:00.005-03:00

Nothing looked solid or permanent compared to the stone construction Beth was used to seeing in Denver. Nothing held the eye in town, but a far-off view of rolling foothills in the late afternoon light caught her attention. If all went as she expected, she'd be headed out there.

Cadmium yellow and orange, some French ultramarine. A touch of Hooker's Green. The light's beautiful. I'll have to tell Graham to put some paper in my trunk. She'd brought her watercolor kit along, but she didn't expect to have a lot of time for painting as a homesteader's wife. Not that Beth had a very clear idea of just what that would involve. She pulled the rumpled letter from her purse and read it one more time.

****

This is Beth Underhill's first impression of Wallace Flats, Colorado Territory, when she arrives to marry Trey McShannon in McShannon's Chance. Beth is a very visual person, as would be expected of a budding watercolor artist.

I made Beth a painter because it's something I enjoy, too. I have several of my watercolors on the walls of my home. The above image is one of my paintings, done at Point Pleasant Park here in Halifax. The actual work is on 11x15 watercolor paper, ready for framing - by the lucky person who wins my contest!

All you have to do to be entered is to comment on this blog at least twice between today, April 18, and the end of May, 2010. On the first of June I'll draw a name from the hat, and someone will have a piece of original art to call their own.

I'll leave you with Beth's impression of Trey later in the story.

****

He was beautiful, too. All warm shades of brown, hair and eyes and skin. All long lines and lean muscle. She'd love to paint his portrait, just like this, but of course she'd have to knock him unconscious to do it.

His wife.

Possession. The word had never occurred to her in connection with Daniel. She would have found it repugnant if it had, but she didn't now. There was such a thing as belonging with, not belonging to.

Elizabeth Marie Underhill. In the middle of the woods, in broad daylight.

No, not Elizabeth Marie Underhill. Elizabeth Marie McShannon.

A Family Divided

2010-04-14T20:03:00.005-03:00

“In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you…”

Rochelle McShannon closed her eyes, but she couldn’t shut out the minister’s words or the scent of the freshly turned earth waiting to fill her mother’s grave. She couldn’t connect the thought of death with a beautiful March morning like this, cloudless and bright, with new green everywhere and the wind carrying the fragrance of Morgan County’s rich soil, ploughed and waiting for seed.

But not our fields. Not this year, maybe never again.

The spring sun warmed the black wool of her dress, sending trickles of perspiration down her back. She slipped her black-gloved hand into her twin brother’s, felt his fingers close tightly around hers and knew he was struggling for control, too. Through the rest of the service, Chelle clung to Trey’s hand, gathering her strength for the task of receiving condolences.

Most of the county was there. Sidonie McShannon had been popular with her neighbors, from the Sinclairs and the other large planters down to the hardscrabble farmers. It wasn’t in her nature to look down on anyone, and she’d been good at smoothing the feathers that the less than tactful little Yorkshireman she’d married tended to ruffle. She’d possessed an easy grace that Chelle had long ago given up trying to emulate. She was too much like her father.

This is the opening scene from McShannon’s Heart. It’s the springboard for my series, with the family on the verge of splitting up, Rochelle and her father to return to his old home in Yorkshire and Trey to come of age on the battlefields of the Civil War. McShannon’s Chance is Trey’s story, as he makes a new life for himself in the Colorado Territory after the fighting is over. Heart follows Chelle during the war years, as she finds her place in the Dales village of Mallonby and comes to terms with her new life.

I chose Colorado for Trey because it captured my heart with scenes like this. As for the Yorkshire Dales, I fell in love with them years ago through James Herriot’s stories. The old farm above makes me hear the haunting strains of Chelle's hero Martin's fiddle in my mind. The third book in the series brings the twins together again in Colorado after ten years of separation. It features an old neighbor from Morgan County, Nathan Munroe, a secondary character from Chance who demanded a happy ending of his own.

I love a book with strong secondary characters that make me yearn to read their story, too. Nathan’s book promises to be a lot of fun to write. I seem to find myself laughing a lot when I work on it, the kind of laughter that writers understand and others find just plain weird.

After all, if I didn’t write, how would I explain my quirks?

Second Book Syndrome

2010-04-12T18:09:00.001-03:00

Less than a week ago, I completed my second historical romance, McShannon's Heart. It's the prequel to my debut novel, McShannon's Chance, which came out from Bluewood Publishing in October.

Which brings me to the topic of this, my first post on this blog: Second Book Syndrome. That oh-so-paralyzing feeling that your first book was a fluke, that you don't have another one in you or at least, not one worth reading.

In her autobiography, Agatha Christie talks about what she calls 'the burden of the professional - to write when one doesn't feel like writing and isn't writing particularly well.' She took up that burden after her painful divorce. Rule 1 about writing: life gets in the way.

There have been a lot of changes in my life over the last couple of years, but for me it's been more a matter of my head getting in the way, and a few more craft lessons learned. My writing process mystifies me at times. I've tried to morph from a pantser to a plotter, without success. My characters don't allow me to stick to a plan. For both my books I've written approximately twice the number of words that ended up in the final manuscript. My first book changed from a time-travel to a straight historical. The plot in my second got rerouted three times. Will I ever learn to be efficient?

Probably not, but I think the next phase of my writing journey will be learning to accept my process as it is and go with it. Once I do that, I'll spend less time getting in my own way and more time writing.

I hope.