Blog Archives

Weekend Writing Warriors--Second Hand Love #amwriting

3/28/2015

I haven't done WeWriWa in a good long time and it feels great to be back !
If your not familiar with the blog hop, it's a place where writers share eight sentence snippets of their writing.
This week, I'm sharing a little bit from my romantic comedy work in progress, a book that's (for now anyway) called Second Hand Love. In this scene, t he main character, Zoe, has pitched an idea for a blog to her boss and he's said yes.

My thoughts began racing around my head. "New blog? Mine?" Apparently, my words could not keep up with them.

"Your work is good, Ms. Markham, heartfelt and funny. I think our readers will like it."

"You think our readers will like it?" I wished I could stop sounding like an idiot, but I had to repeat the sentence to keep from shouting "Yipee", raising my fists, and dancing around his office.

Thanks for stopping by!
Visit Weekend Writing Warriors via the button for more great snippets!

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Balancing Act #amwriting

3/16/2015

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It's an exciting time for me and, with two books coming out this year--The Tender Bonds in May and Sweet Auralie in October, you'll probably be hearing a lot from me online. Between you, me and the keyboard, I hate doing promotion. I'm not a salesperson or a marketer and I don't enjoy pushing my books. That's not to say I don't like talking about books--or my characters. Ask me about one of my stories, or the writing process, or the motivations of a character, and I'm a happy camper. Heck, I could expound all day on which point of view is best.
But creating a book requires time and space. Not physical space, exactly, but an open space in your mind. It can be hard to switch from the chatter of online social media to the still place inside my brain, inside my heart, where I can best conjure. Often, it's the still times I enjoy the best. I love the creation process, I love creating story. It's why I started down the writing road in the first place.
It's easy to get caught up in the chatter--and moving between online presence into the heart of story sometimes feels like I'm balancing a ping pong ball on the end of my nose. For me, it's one of the big challenges of this writing life, learning to balance it all.

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From the #Poetry Files-- The House We Built

3/15/2015

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I love pictures of old houses, they often spur something in my imagination. This one, an old Victorian in Port Jervis New York, inspired a poem.

The house we built

Was a lofty place full of drafts.
The rooms filled to capacity-
armchairs with tatted amacasters,
ribbon candy in milk glass

The bed cloaked in eiderdown
embellished with lace
and a hint of rosewater

Yellow suns grew
n kitchen wallpaper,
cheery as the bread
we baked on winter afternoons

Dust motes dance over the windows
and cobwebs lace corners.
The polish is gone from the floor

The pipes are rusted
and the faucet drip drips
a complaint

The rooms echo
with the footfall of years
left behind-
like the trace of cologne
on the collar of the only shirt
still hanging in the closet

Like the wedding photograph
on the nightstand-
a soft sepia imprint time worn and faded .

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Sweet Auralie page #mybooks

3/14/2015

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I've created a page for Sweet Auralie.! It's a little sparce at the moment-- a book blurb and a short excerpt, but like all my book pages, I'll be adding to it as time goes by. You can find it under "my books" and "historical" and also under "Sweet Lenora Series"
Or, check it out by pressing the button. :)

Sweet Auralie

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Announcing Sweet Auralie #BookNews

3/11/2015

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Time to break out the good chocolate! Sweet Auralie, the final full length novel of the Sweet Lenora Series, will be coming out with Champagne Books in October of this year.
The story picks up where the third novella of the series, All Things Returned leaves off. It follows Anton and Lenora through the next ten years of their lives.

Here's the book blurb--
The unforgettable love story that began with three novellas is completed in the final, full length novel of the Sweet Lenora series. Sweet Auralie follows Anton and Lenora through the trials and tribulations that mark the next part of their journey. Over the course of ten years, they travel to Shanghai as they search for a long lost child, to New England where they confront Lenora's scheming relatives to gain a fair share of Brewer Brothers, and finally aboard the Sweet Auralie on an adventure filled voyage where they hope to break the speed record and make the ship they've build the fastest ever to sail from New England around the horn of South America to San Francisco.

As Anton and Lenora strengthen and thrive as individuals, the love they share becomes the cornerstone of a great family and a legacy that will be long remembered.

As you can probably tell, I'm excited about this last piece of the Anton and Lenora story and I hope that readers who've enjoyed the novellas will love this one as well.

Book Trailers #amwriting

3/10/2015

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There's been some discussion lately in my small corner of author world if book trailers are worthwhile. Opinions are split and both sides make some valid points.
The 'don't bother side argues that they don't increase sales and are just one more thing on the author's to-do list. And why do them if they are futile? Besides which, since none of the authors I know have access to Universal Studios, the production values are often poor.
The 'I like them' camp says they can be relatively easy and fun to put together a video montage and any tool to help get the word out is a good thing. No, they aren't Oscar quality, but maybe they don't need to be.
While the points made by the no video side are well taken, I do believe they can be another tool to help promote a new book. I've made a video for each of my books and I'll be the first to tell you that Steven Spielberg has nothing to worry about on my account. But they are easy to make and they add a dimension that a simple book blurb and cover can't.
What do you think? Do you like book trailers or do you find them annoying and distracting? Or something in between?

Here's the video I made for my May release, The Tender Bonds. I hope it strikes a cord and conveys the mood of the book, which is a serious look at the meaning of home and family.

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The Case of the Disapearing Guardrail #amwriting

3/8/2015

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I've been blessed with two fabulous editors, Karen Block at TMP and Diane Breton at Champagne Books. I owe them both a debt of gratitude--if you're a writer who thinks you don't need an editor, think again. Editors are invaluable, they make books better by going over them word by word. Not once, but three, four and five times. More than once, my editors have saved me from egg on my face.
Case in point ; I've recently finished a round of edits with Karen for my upcoming release, The Tender Bonds. In the last go-over, I got an e-mail from her with regards to some guardrails. A drunk driving accident is central to the book. On page 24, one of the characters recounts the accident, saying that one car catches the other sideways with enough force to send them both through the guardrail. Then later, on page 140, another character says there wasn't a guardrail on the highway at the time of the accident. So the guardrail that was there early in the book vanished into thin air later on. Neat trick, huh? It was an easy enough problem to resolve, but I'm grateful to Karen for catching the mistake.

Here's a bit of the earlier scene, altered slightly to correct the inconsistency.

I began to see where this is going, and I don’t want it to go there. It was as though I were in that car with my father, crossing and recrossing a double yellow line.

“Pearsons are coming into town like they do every Sunday. They pull out of Shore Drive onto 30. The car hits something in the road. A sharp stone, something, nobody knows for sure. Sharp enough, anyway, to blow out the front driver’s-side tire. Will Pearson pulls up on the shoulder. He goes and gets out the jack. He’s just getting ready to put it under the car when Jack comes barreling down the highway. He’s doing eighty-five at least, and he’s not too concerned about which lane he’s driving in.”

The room has gone cold. I'm going to throw up. Charlie stops a minute to ask if I’m okay. I nod at him.

“Jack loses it,” he says quietly. “He hooks the shoulder and catches the Pearsons’ car sideways with enough force to send them both off the road to tumble end-over-end down into the gully.”

“My God,” I whisper, a sort of prayer. I was in that car; I could feel it roll over.

Charlie’s eyes don’t meet mine. He stares instead at the handle on his mug. “Drunks, you know what they say about them. Jack pulls himself from his wreck with a few scratches. He heads up the embankment. Will Pearson is somehow still standing. He heads down towards the cars. And just as Will’s going down and Jack’s stumbling up towards him, something catches. There’s this huge boom and both cars are turned into firebombs. The rest of Will’s family is still in that car.” Charlie stopped again. He breathed deep and took another sip of coffee. “By the time the fire company and ambulance got there, there wasn’t much left to save.” He still wasn’t looking at me and I was glad for this, because it wasn’t just my hands that were shaking now. My whole body was.

The Tender Bonds, a story of love, loss and the meaning of home and family is coming out in May of this year.

Blog Redux--On writing a blog post #amwriting

3/6/2015

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I first wrote the post below a few years back for the Writer's Vineyard. The weather today isn't rain and ice, as it was on the day the post was written, more sun and cold. Still, the sentiment still holds and--some days at least-- it sums it well how I often feel about needing to write a blog

The view from my garret window

. This Quotidian Life

It’s the Wednesday before this blog goes live. I’m sitting in my office trying to dream up an idea for the post. So far, I’ve managed to drink an entire pot of coffee. I’ve examined the tiny spot on my nail and wondered if it’s a symptom of some strange disease that will eventually result in finger amputation or a deficiency in my diet that will cause rickets. I’ve watched the mail truck stop by the mailbox before driving on.

I’ve begun the post with two different topics, deciding each time that I was on the wrong track. In both cases, I wrote out a paragraph, crossed it out, wrote another and then crumpled the paper and aimed for the waste basket by the window. I missed both shots. If I decide this current musing is waste-basket worthy, I’ll get a third shot. It’s a high percentage shot over the printer. I’ll probably miss it as well.

            What I’m telling you is that I have nothing. No ideas. Nada. The absolute and unequivocal irony here is that if I were writing fiction this wouldn't be a problem. I have more ideas for books and novellas than I have hours and days and weeks to shape them into stories. Honestly, I have a notebook full of ideas. At least twenty story starters incubate in a file as short paragraphs, single pages or a single line, just waiting for my pen to catch up with them.

            Readers will sometimes ask me where I get my ideas. The simple answer is that ideas are everywhere. I can’t go through a day without tripping over at least one story premise.

            And yet. When it comes to blogging I’m a basket case. I’m staring into a terrible big black hole. A psychologist would probably have a field day examining my blog dysfunction.

            I think I know the cause. The fact of the matter is that writing or reading about my real life is about as interesting as watching paint dry. Take today, for instance. The weather is what’s commonly known in my part of the world as a ‘wintry mix’. Wintry mix sounds nice, like something yummy you’d serve in a bowl at a cocktail party. But wintry mix is not yummy. Wintry mix is snow and sleet and cold rain. The snow banks have turned to mush. There are deep puddles which soak feet in ice water if you’re not careful where you step. It means staying indoors, in my little office and watching the mail truck splash as it goes from box to box in my neighborhood.

            If I write about my life today, here’s what it would contain. A gallon of coffee. Slush and puddles. And a blog post that isn't going to write itself.

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#SneakPeek: My First Western Romance #amwriting

3/3/2015

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As you know if you follow my blog, I always have several projects on my computer in various stages of completion. One of the things I've been working on is a new historical. This story has been brewing in my brain for quite some time. It's set in Colorado, in 1890, and begins when the main character, Annabelle Plain, leaves Boston to move to a ranch and marry Shane Farrow, a man she's never met. Shane, it turns out, has a brother named Tucker and...well, I'm not going to give it all away. The working title of the novel is The Stars all have Names.

Here's a peek, still raw and unedited--Annabelle has walked ten miles from the town to the ranch:

She hadn't taken her eyes from him. “I came back,” she said softly. “I got caught in the rain.” They continued staring at each other for another silent minute and then she, maybe realizing she hadn't told the why of it, said, “I want to get married today. I've made up my mind, so I think we should do it right away.”

The words that skated over Shane’s brain were “get it over with.” She stood there resolved, like someone who had been sentenced to hanging and wanted to get the gallows done with.

He shook the thought away. “You got caught in the rain? Where’s your carriage?”

“I walked.”

This made Tucker sputter. It must have been news to him, too. “From town?”

“I made a decision. To get on with my life. And I don’t much care for Mrs. Dinsmore.”

Tuck let go a laugh and Shane, too astounded to share his brother’s mirth, looked her over again and shook his head. She blushed. “I didn't expect it would start to rain,” she said.

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Inside the Writer's Garret

Weekend Writing Warriors--Second Hand Love #amwriting

Balancing Act #amwriting

From the #Poetry Files-- The House We Built

Sweet Auralie page #mybooks

Announcing Sweet Auralie #BookNews

Book Trailers #amwriting

The Case of the Disapearing Guardrail #amwriting

Blog Redux--On writing a blog post #amwriting

#SneakPeek: My First Western Romance #amwriting

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