HE SAID, SHE SAID: HOW WE MADE TWO WRITERS SOUND LIKE ONE
August 3, 2022 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as co-writing, Janet Elizabeth Lynn, mysteries, partners, Will Zeilinger
My wife, Janet Elizabeth Lynn, and I have been crime writing fiction for several years. In the beginning, Janet was the first to take a of couple classes and workshops. That was after we discovered we didn’t know what we were doing. I was a bit reluctant because the whole writing thing was foreign to me. But she came home with tools and information that opened my eyes.
When Janet was writing solo, she would often ask me to read some of her work. I’d make comments like, “A guy wouldn’t care what brand of shoes a woman was wearing” or “A guy wouldn’t say/think that.” It got to the point where one day Janet was writing and said to me—“Will, if you were a guy…” to which I replied, “What?”
Thus began our co-writing partnership. I would tweak many of the male characters’ voice styles while Janet handled the female roles. We’d brainstorm the plots, discuss our characters’ quirks and make sure the characters’ voices sounded different enough while maintaining the voice of the story. Next, we read aloud to each other. Sometimes one of us would fall asleep during the reading, but that just meant we had to fix that part. If it bored us, it would surely bore our readers.
The result is that our writing had become a true partnership in authorship and our stories sparkled (in our eyes). We now take turns polishing and refining our work before handing the manuscript over to our editor.
And after all that… we’re still married.
Will
Janet’s and Will’s Skylar Drake Novels
Neetu Malik: August Featured Author
August 1, 2022 by Neetu Malik in category Featured Author of the Month tagged as Featured Author of the Month, Neetu Malik, Poet's Day, poetry
Neetu Malik’s poetry is an expression of life’s rhythms and the beat of the human spirit. She draws upon diverse multicultural experiences and observations across three continents in which she has lived. She has contributed to The Australia Times Poetry Magazine, October Hill Magazine, Prachya Review, among others. Her poems have appeared in The Poetic Bond Anthology V and VI published by Willowdown Books, UK, NY Literary Magazine’s Tears Anthology and Poetic Imagination Anthology (Canada).
Her poem, “Soaring Flames”, was awarded First-Place by the NY Literary Magazine (2017). She has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, 2019 for her poem “Sacred Figs” published by Kallisto Gaia Press in their Ocotillo Review in May, 2018.
Neetu lives in Pennsylvania, USA.
You can find Neetu’s poetry in these volumes.
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Striking Distance
July 30, 2022 by Dianna Sinovic in category Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic tagged as grief, hiking, snakes
It’s about noon, my eleventh day on the trail. My feet hurt, and the blisters have begot more blisters. So much for the overpriced, cushioned socks I thought I had to have. I’m tempted to walk barefoot, but that would last maybe a quarter mile and then I’d have to put these blasted boots on again.
I’m tired of the crowds. I stopped counting this morning after logging twenty other hikers. The one person I wish was here can’t be—ever again. Josh would have found a way to love this. Yet his absence is the reason I’m hiking, to prove that I can make it solo from here on out.
Actually, I’m not positive it’s noon. I’m not wearing a watch and my phone is turned off—I’m doing the back-to-nature thing. But it’s July, and the sun is overhead. And I’m hungry—although I seem to be perpetually hungry on this trek. It’s an emptiness I just can’t fill.
Ahead lies a boulder field. Whoever said the AT was a walk in the woods was lying. At least in Pennsylvania, it’s loaded with rocks. Behind me, before me, I’m alone with the boulders, not a soul around for once, and I see a snake. Timber rattler; I’ve done my research. It’s coiled in a pocket of rock. I look at it, and it looks at me. I am about 1,500 feet up the mountain—glorious view if I wasn’t so frozen with fear.
Don’t look down, the snake says.
I’m not imagining this, as ridiculous as it seems. The snake spoke to me. Not out loud; in my head. And sarcastically.
“I’m not afraid of heights,” I shoot back. “But I am terrified of you.”
Its unblinking eyes hold me. Don’t rattle me, and I’ll leave you alone.
Who knew snakes were comedians? But, I think, you don’t know why I’m panicked.
When I was growing up, a boy named Robert lived next door. One day, with a crazy giggle, he threw a milk snake around my neck. I was nine, and he was the bully of the block. That innocent, orange-and-white snake gave me nightmares for months afterward.
And each old Western I watched where a character dies from snakebite increased my ophidiophobia. I am deathly afraid of any snake. And this one is a pit viper.
If I could persuade my feet to move, I would backpedal my way back down the mountain. But minutes tick past. Sweat dampens my shirt and drips from my forehead.
If only I were Harry Potter, I think. He was most unafraid of snakes, even giant basilisks.
What would Josh do? The snake’s tongue flickers.
“Leave Josh out of this,” I shout. My eyes smart, but I will not cry in front of a smart-ass snake.
Still, part of me calls out to my partner. His ashes are scattered to the winds, but I want desperately to believe that I still have his ear—wherever cosmically it now is. So, I think, what would Josh have counseled?
Wait out the snake. The answer seems to rise on the breeze. He’s right: I’m not in any hurry, no deadline to meet, and the valley below is breathtaking.
And so I sit on a chunk of granite overlooking a leafy wilderness in the Poconos. I focus on the scent of pine and the kettle of vultures spiraling in an afternoon thermal, and I feel myself relax.
It may be five minutes or fifteen when I glance back to the rattler.
You’re tougher than you look. The snake uncoils and slips out of its rocky hollow. The trail’s all yours. It vanishes into another crevice.
Hoisting my pack, I set off once again over the rocks. But my feet hurt a bit less and there is a spring in my step.
2 0 Read moreLinda O. Johnston Featured Author of the Month
July 28, 2022 by Linda O. Johnston in category Featured Author of the Month tagged as cozy mysteries, Dogs!, Harlequin Romantic Suspense, Linda O Johnston, mysteries, romance'
Linda O. Johnston enjoys writing, romance, puzzles, and dogs.
A former lawyer, Linda is now a full-time writer and has published 57 books so far, including mysteries and romantic novels. She has written several cozy mystery series including the Barkery & Biscuits Mysteries and Superstition Mysteries for Midnight Ink, and the Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter Mysteries and Pet Rescue Mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime. She also writes romances for Harlequin, including Harlequin Romantic Suspense. Writing as Lark O. Jensen, her latest release is Bear Witness from Crooked Lane Books. No matter what name she uses, nearly all Linda’s current stories involve dogs!
In addition to blogging for A Slice of Orange on the 6th of every month, Linda blogs at Killer Hobbies, Killer Characters, and Writerspace. Linda was interviewed by Jann Ryan, you can read all about it in Linda O. Johnston—Mysteries, Romantic Suspense and So Much More!
Linda enjoys hearing from readers. Visit her website at www.LindaOJohnston.com or friend her on Facebook.
A Few of Linda’s Many Books
Choreographer
July 26, 2022 by Neetu Malik in category Poet's Day by Neetu Malik tagged as dancing, Neetu, shadows, shapes
Choreographer
She plays with shadows
twirling them with her fingers
making shapes she doesn’t
understand though
they are
but shadows, they dance–
she is too rapt in
their movements to realize
the choreography is in
her hands.
© Neetu Malik
Some of Neetu’s Books
Featured Books
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On the eve of the New Year, 1956, oil tycoon, Oliver Wright dies suspiciously at a swanky Hollywood New Years Eve party. Some think it was suicide.
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