UNEXPECTED NOVEL
February 5, 2024 by Tracy Reed in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed tagged as brainstorming, ideas, titles, Tracy Reed, writing
Tracy is out of town this month, so we are reposting one of her columns. Hope you enjoy it.
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.
Let’s talk about unexpected stories.
I apologize if I’ve already told the story about my upcoming release, “UNEXPECTED LOVE.” My relationship with this story goes back several years. When I first became an Indie Writer, I had quite a few stories dancing around in my mind. I had this idea for a series about a woman and the many men in her life. More like all the men she’d married.
When I set out to write the series, the task seemed a little daunting. I don’t know about anyone else, but I easily get attached to my characters. But if I don’t feel a connection, it’s difficult for me to tell their story.
When I got the idea for this story, I imagined it as a five book series. I had all the husbands mapped out. However, when I started writing, it felt very forced. I was so overwhelmed trying to tell this woman’s story. I abandoned the series and thought I would tell it as a standalone. Summarizing each of the husbands and focusing on the one she really loved.
I picked up the pages I’d started, made a few changes, and set out to write. I liked where this story was going, but as I got more involved with the characters, the story changed. It was no longer a story about a bitter divorcee, but a liberated divorcee who finds love in an unexpected source, her ex-husband’s ex-best friend, who just happens to be her divorce attorney. That’s either a mouthful or a blurb.
The more involved I got with Fiona’s story, the more I liked her. But I also felt sorry for her. She’s a sweetheart, searching for her voice. In a nutshell, she married her college crush, who later deceived her. Once she decided to divorce him, she found her voice. I love her transition, although it’s not without its ups and downs. One of which is the change in her relationship with her attorney and her self-esteem.
Last year, when I set out to write twelve titles in a year, I had this title on the schedule as a short story. However, I didn’t think there was enough story for a book. So I resolved myself to make it a short story. I cleaned up the first chapter and started writing. But when I started writing, the story took a turn. It was no longer about Fiona and her husband, but Fiona and her attorney.
I continued writing, thinking I could tell the story in novella length. As I got closer to what would be maximum novella length, the characters kept talking. No matter how hard I fought to end the story, they kept talking, so I kept writing. I really enjoyed the direction the story was going. Then I wrote myself into a hole. Crap! I didn’t see a way out, so I introduced another character, thinking she would help me. Instead, she led me to a wall, and the only way around the wall was another character. Hold on, it gets better. When I introduced this character, he brought his own storyline in addition to tearing down the wall.
So here I was with a full-length novel. But here’s the kicker. When I introduced Fiona’s brother (aka “the wall”) into the mix, the story took another turn and led me to a place I never would have imagined being, “Cliffhanger Boulevard.”
Yep, my five book series originally titled, “My Five Husbands” was changed to a standalone novel. Then it got a title switch to “UNEXPECTED LOVE.” Then it became a short story, that grew into a novella that reverted to a full-length standalone, which is now book one in a new series. Talk about unexpected.
So what’s the lesson learned? Never throw out an idea. Instead, put it aside and, when the time is right, revisit it. You might be surprised what story you can tell.
See you next month.
Here’s a cover peek.
Tracy’s Books
Tari Lynn Jewett: Featured Author
February 1, 2024 by Tari Jewett in category Charmed Writer by Tari Lynn Jewett, Featured Author of the Month tagged as #Charmed Writers, #FireworksintheFog, #HeromsaForTheHolidays, #PleaseSayYes, Love and Mud Puddles, romantic comedy, Tari Lynn Jewett
Tari Lynn Jewett lives in Southern California with her husband of nearly thirty years (also known as Hunky Hubby). They have three amazing sons, a board game designer, a sound engineer and a musician, all who live nearby. For over fifteen years she wrote freelance for magazines and newspapers, wrote television commercials, radio spots, numerous press releases, and many, MANY PTA newsletters. As much as she loved writing those things, she always wanted to write fiction . . . and now she is.
She also believes in happily ever after . . . because she’s living hers.
Tari’s newest title is Love and Mud Puddles, available now.
Hannah loves her accounting job, the condo that she purchased herself, and her best friend Melinda. What she doesn’t love is baking. To be fair, she’s never tried. But when her cousin shames her into bringing homemade cookies to the family Christmas Eve celebration, she begins a quest to make the perfect holiday cookie.
Paramedic Josh also occasionally teaches kids’ cookie baking classes at his family’s bakery. When a beautiful accountant mistakenly signs up for a children’s holiday baking class, he realizes immediately that she’s in the right place.
Can this local hero help to save Hannah’s Christmas? Or will it all go up in smoke?
Tari’s other Books
Answer Me This
January 30, 2024 by Dianna Sinovic in category Quill and Moss by Dianna Sinovic, Writing tagged as Dianna Sinovic, short fiction
The deck beckons you to turn over a card. The cryptic symbols on the backs intrigue you, but you aren’t sure you want to wade into the tarot just yet.
A friend gave you the deck yesterday, on your birthday, telling you with a smile, “This will help with your decision.”
Britt knows you too well—that you are often indecisive and in fact have put off this most important action until it is almost too late.
“But I know nothing about fortunetelling,” you sputtered after opening the small box that neatly held the tarot deck.
“All the better,” she said with a knowing nod. “They will guide you.”
And now you stare at the deck, your hands trembling slightly. You feel like a skier at the top of a steep hill: Once you push off, you will be on a downward slope without any ability to stop until you reach the bottom—or hit a tree.
Britt has already nudged you gently. “Start your session with the cards by asking a question.” She winked. “You already know one, right?”
Yes, you do. And, so here you are, whispering the question to yourself. The deck is ready even if you are stalling.
The first card’s smoothness belies the fellow on the other side: a joker. You wonder if you’ve misunderstood the intent. Are these meant for playing a game like poker? Then you notice that the card’s name is the Fool. Ah, that makes sense. Who’s the Fool now?
From some memory your mind dredges up—was it a carney attraction when you were a kid?—you recall that a handful of cards are turned over and from them your fate is revealed.
The memory comes crashing back: The woman with the short-cropped hair and dramatic eye liner, her long, blood-red fingernails tapping the cards as she discussed your future. The musky perfume that infused the small room off the main carnival path.
“Today is here, make the most of it.” Then her frown as she turned over the last card.
You fled before she could pronounce your fate. What had seemed a lark had become menacing. Now, you mull over her cliched answer and realize how spot-on she was: You were indecisive even then.
The Fool’s card is followed by the Six of Wands, then you flip up Judgement, then the King of Cups. Is that enough? Once again, you mine that long-forgotten memory, but the number of cards on the threadbare carney tablecloth is just beyond your grasp.
You decide to turn just one more face up. This time it’s the Wheel of Fortune, reversed.
And now you should have the answer you reluctantly seek . . . somewhere in these images.
The words form in your mind, as though someone or something is dictating them: You are at the cusp of a new beginning. This is your wake-up call; once you take this step, there is no going back, but this is good news. You have long seen your life as one in which you are waiting for the best to come. That changes with today.
And now you are texting Britt. She has posed a question to you, one that will indeed change your life.
“Yes,” you text. “My answer is yes.”
Some of Dianna’s Stories are in the following anthologies:
One Icy Night by W. A. Pepper
January 26, 2024 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Rabt Book Tours, Spotlight tagged as #BookBlitz, Best Selling author, new release, One Icy Night, Rabt Book Tour, W.A .Pepper
30th Anniversary of the 1994 Delta Ice Storm Edition
Thriller
Date Published: January 26, 2024
ISBN: 978-1958011096
Publisher: Hustle Valley Press, LLC
“Gritting, unexpected, and hard to put down.” – Midwest Book
Review
Rook’s on the run in the most dangerous storm in decades. When a brush with the law goes from bad to worse, can she escape druggies, crazies, and killers?
Abandoned by her now-ex-boyfriend at a dive bar in the middle of nowhere, the last thing resilient Rook Kellum needs is the local sheriff confiscating her I.D. when one phone call could expose her true identity and the reason she is on the run from the law. So when she’s trapped by a deadly ice storm that destroys the Mississippi Delta, the twenty-year-old fugitive has a plan: get everyone drunk, steal back her license (and a madman’s car), and get the hell out of town.
It is only when Rook escapes to a secluded cabin does she discover she isn’t the only one in need of rescue. As she fights her way out of one disaster just to get pounded with another, will Rook live to see the light of day?
One Icy Night is Taylor Adam’s No Exit meets Rachel Hawkins’s The Wife Upstairs.
About the Author
W. A. Pepper writes suspenseful thrillers. You Will Know Vengeance was his award-winning debut novel. He is a USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon Bestselling Author for his contribution to the business anthology Habits of Success. Under different names, (and his real one of Will Pepper) he has published in multiple academic journals, interactive e-books, anthologies, and online.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he and his wife Taddy (plus their dog Danger), started the publishing house Hustle Valley Press, LLC. Through it, they published four e-books that have amassed over one hundred five-star reviews. Further, the husband-and-wife team donated the first six months of revenue from the sale of each of those books to charity; this resulted in thousands of dollars raised for the reader-selected charities that support racial equality, COVID-19 relief, veteran affairs, and St. Jude Children’s Hospital.
He has a PhD in Management Information Systems or, as he calls it, Business Computing, from The University of Mississippi. He enjoys coffee, bourbon, snow skiing, Star Wars, comic books, and reading and watching thrillers. Finally, he, his wife Taddy, and their dog Danger split their time between Mississippi and Colorado.
Contact Links
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Where the River Ends by Neetu
January 26, 2024 by Neetu Malik in category Poet's Day by Neetu Malik tagged as dispersed and dispelled, human sorrow, Neetu
Where the River Ends
in its gurgling sprint
toward the sea
this river into which
I empty love’s ashes—
indeed like many others
before me—
makes no fuss
no cries of complaint
the sediments and muck
of human sorrow
are all the same
to be deposited into
wider arms
deeper depths
dispersed and dispelled
© Neetu Malik
Some of Neetu’s Books
Featured Books
THE ALLIANCE
When Leora Ebersole sees the small plane crash in her Old Order Mennonite community, she has no idea it's a foreshadowing of things to come.
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LILIANA’S LETTER
Hired to help an heiress snare a titled husband, a down-on-her-luck lady dodges her own shadowy past and the titled Lord determined to uncover it.
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