Featured Author: Denise M. Colby
March 14, 2025 by Denise M. Colby in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Featured Author of the Month tagged as Author of the Month, Christian Historical Fiction, Denise M Colby, Marketing, Social Media, writing
Denise M. Colby loves to write words that encourage, enrich, and engage whether it’s in her blog, social media, magazine articles, or devotions. With over 20+ years’ experience in marketing, she enjoys using her skills to help other authors.
She treasures the written word and the messages that can be conveyed when certain words are strung together. She, being an avid journal writer, is often seen with a pen and notepad whenever she reads God’s word. Denise is writing her first Christian Historical Romance Series, and you can find her at www.denisemcolby.com
Denise is a member of OCRW, Faith, Hope & Love Christian Writers, ACFW (where she was a semi-finalist in the Genesis contest Historical Romance Category), OC Chapter of ACFW, and Novel Academy.
You can read Denise’s column The Writing Journey on A Slice of Orange, or follow her on Facebook or Instagram. You can also sign-up for her newsletter.
Big news for Denise!
Denise’s debut novel, When Plans Go Awry, won the Grand Prize in the Scrivenings Press #GetPubbed Contest for 2023, placing 1st place in the Historical category. It is the first of four books in this series being published by Scrivenings Press.
When Plans Go Awry
Denise M. Colby
ISBN: 978-1-64917-391-1
June 4, 2024
Olivia Carmichael escapes her past to become the next schoolmarm in the small ranching community of Washton, California. Her plan? Live a quiet spinster life alone, never to depend on anyone again.
Luke Taylor selected a mail-order bride to help raise his two younger sisters and protect his broken heart. His plans don’t include being responsible for the beautiful new schoolmarm, who threatens his resolve between his need to stay away and his need to ensure her safety.
Along the way, Olivia’s carefully laid-out plans are challenged at every turn, and Luke’s mail-order bride is not what he expected.
With the help of the entire town and its wily rooster, can Luke and Olivia learn to trust again?
Denise M. Colby’s Books
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My Wild Elevator Ride: Why I shouldn’t talk about what I write to strangers by Jina Bacarr
March 11, 2025 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as author, elevator, romance, Writer, writingI’m in mad, crazy writer mode.
Which means I’m stuck in a riptide… writing, editing, writing… talking to my characters when I race out to the market and I’m grabbing fresh veggies, oatmeal cookies, and Amy’s frozen enchiladas. Talk to me! I beg my heroines, why did you do that? How am I going to get you out of this mess?
It’s like wrestling an alligator.
Yes, I have a book deadline, so in the interest of providing a fun blog for A Slice of Orange this month, I’m posting a short story I wrote a while ago about what happens when writers can’t help themselves and talk about what we do. So here goes… grab the coffee and oatmeal cookies and enjoy!
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Writers get lonely. We need to socialize, talk. Discover there is a world out there beyond our computers. So I came up with this fun author-character and what happens when she goes out into the world and goes on a wild elevator ride with a stranger…
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My Wild Elevator Ride
I work in a cubicle surrounded by books, computers, and ideas.
I get lonely.
Very lonely. Hey, a girl can only fantasize so much about meeting a sexy guy who’ll knock her bunny slippers off. (I don’t wear shoes when I’m writing.)
So when I go out, which isn’t often when you’re trying to promote your work online and get through the quagmire of finishing your latest novel, I get talkative.
Very talkative.
When my inner goddess gets her gab on, I can’t stop her. My therapist says it’s repressed speech syndrome ad finitum. Or something like that.
Anyway, I got in over my head at a recent gig when I walked into the elevator in my hotel. I was in town to speak at a writer’s group which always makes me a nervous wreck. I was going through my usual ritual to calm my nerves. A six-pack of diet soda and dark chocolate.
The only problem was, the soda was warm.
I like ice. Cold, numbing ice. Makes me forget I have to face a room of creative ladies who are way more talented than I am, but for some reason they think I’m cool. I just got lucky, I tell them, but the truth is, I earned my stripes. Writing, getting rejections for years, and working my butt off. I’m grateful to be where I am.
So what I didn’t need was a guy chatting me up about his hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year sales job and his black BMW. Nice enough, but I wasn’t looking for anything more than an ice machine that worked.
The one on my floor was broken.
Now I was stuck in an elevator with a sales guy who had obviously removed the wedding band from his left hand. His tan line blinked at me like a neon sign. Come on in, it seemed to say, the water’s fine.
I don’t swim with the sharks. [author note: just alligators…]
‘You don’t want to drink alone,’ he said, observing my ice bucket filled with chilled cubes.
‘I have my laptop for company.’ I smiled. “Besides, I have work to do.’
‘Are you here with the software convention?’ he asked warily.
‘Well…’ I wasn’t, but I decided to play along.
‘No way…a pretty girl like you can’t be a techie.’
‘Why not?’ I shot back, perturbed. I hated guys who put down a girl’s ambition. ‘Can’t women use their brains to get ahead?’
‘Not when they have natural attributes…’ He eyed my chest. Mind you, I was wearing navy blue sweats and my pink bunny slippers with floppy ears. This guy was either desperate or he’d been on the road too long.
‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ I said, ‘but I’m a writer.’
‘You’re kidding?’ He seemed genuinely surprised, which didn’t help my ego. ‘What do you write?’
Ooh...I couldn’t resist shooting him the punchline.
‘I write sexy novels.’
‘Well, you are full of surprises,’ he said, edging closer to me. ‘We should get to know each other better.’
The air in the elevator suddenly got stuffier and I prayed my deodorant didn’t work so he’d get the message. So far, no one else had gotten on the elevator and I had two more stops before we got to my floor.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.” I wiggled the ears on my rabbit slippers, hoping to shoot down this guy’s sex-o-meter. That should have stopped him right there.
It didn’t.
‘How about a nightcap in my room? My bottle of bourbon and your—’ He paused, wetting his lips. ‘Ice cubes.’
‘You mean do research for my books?’
‘Oh, yeah…’
‘I bet,’ I said.
I shouldn’t have opened my mouth, but sometimes we writers just ache to act like our heroines and throw back those snappy remarks. I tried to discourage him, but when he started breathing in my face, I knew I was in over my head. I did what any romance heroine would do.
I dumped the bucket of melting ice on his pinstripe suit.
‘Hey, what the—’ he called out and thank God, the elevator door opened. It wasn’t my floor, but I didn’t care. One more minute with Mr. BMW and I would have ended up served on a chilled platter.
Before he could brush the ice off his shoulders, out I ran. Down the long corridor and then I jammed down the stairway to the next floor to my room.
I never looked back.
I spent the rest of the night drinking warm soda and giggling as I wrote this guy into my story. I bet he won’t forget me either.
I imagine that was the last time he tried to pick up a girl in an elevator wearing pink bunny slippers.
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My latest 2 book series about PARIS WW2:
2 sisters at war with the Nazis… and each other
KOBO: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/sisters-at-war-2
from BoldwoodBooks
In my story Justine is the victim of sexual assault by the SS. ‘Sisters at War’ explores wartime sexual assault and how it affects the lives of Justine and Eve Beaufort in Wartime Paris.
——————–
I drew on my own experiences when I started a series of historical novels set in Wartime Paris about the brave women who fought in the French Resistance.
Sisters At War: Amazon
Who are the Beaufort Sisters?
They’re beautiful
They’re smart.
They’re dangerous.
They’re at war with the Nazis… and each other.
0 0 Read moreWhere do stories come from?
March 10, 2025 by Tari Jewett in category Writing tagged as Anne Rice, inspiration, story origin, writingDo you ever read a book or watch a movie and wonder, what made the writer write that story? Is it all imagination? Did the story just come to them? Did they ‘what if’ a plot? Or did they live the story?
So where do stories come from?
The only fiction Hunky Hubby reads is what I write, and he reads every word I write, which amazes me and makes me thankful. Anyway, years and YEARS ago, he’d been listening to the radio and the dj’s were talking about Anne Rice’s The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy, written under the name A.N. Roquelaure. The steamy on air conversation, led him to believe that buying the book for me, might be romantic. He said romantic, but I’m pretty sure he really thought it would ‘get me in the mood’.
Hahaha, well, I’m not sure that book is what I’d call romantic, nor is it a book that would ‘get me in the mood’ but it made me wonder about the author. At the time, I had no idea that it was actually written by Anne Rice, not that it would have made any difference, because I didn’t read vampire books anyway. I had a hard time with the book. Brilliantly written, but also shocking and even bizarre, I’d read a little, put it aside, wondering where these thoughts might come from, then, come back days later to read a little more.
Eventually, I went to the bookstore…because I didn’t have the internet back then, and tried to find other books by A.N. Roquelaure. I discovered who she was, and that she also wrote under the name Anne Rampling. I read Belinda, followed by A Cry to Heaven, and finally, Interview with a Vampire. None of this helped resolve my issue of where these thoughts came from. They were, however, compelling reading.
At that time, I wrote nonfiction. I wrote a cooking column for our local newspaper and Quick ‘N Easy Country Cooking magazine, as well as articles on parenting (I wouldn’t do that now!), consumer law, public speaking, and various other topics. I wrote fiction for fun, for myself.
But that changed.
I started writing fiction seriously. My published books are all romcoms. And if you’re looking for a romantic read for St. Patrick’s Day, I hope you’ll check out #SilverBracelets. But I’m also working on women’s fiction. Writing fiction, brought me back to that question. Where do stories come from?
The answer seems to be it depends on the writer. Some people plot out their stories, selecting characters, places, and carefully planning plotlines, you may already know that these writers are called plotters. Other people let the story unfold as they write it, aka pantsers. And I’d be willing to bet that for most writers, real life at least inspires scenes and characters in their stories.
I personally call myself a plotsy pantser, because I write my first draft as a pantser, letting the characters tell me their stories while I document them. Then, I use that first draft as my outline, and go back and flesh out the story, filling in gaps and hopefully, adding scenes, and hopefully, developing the story into something others might want to read. And yes, while my characters are fictional sometimes people that I’ve known influence their personalities, and real life events often end up in my stories.
Real life in my writing.
In #SilverBracelets, the hero, Benny’s grandmother is inspired by my Tia Tonia, in fact, I didn’t try to hide it, giving her the name Antonia. I didn’t plan this. The Antonia in the story is fictional, but her personality, is inspired by my beloved great Aunt.
In Love and Mud Puddles, one of my favorite scenes is at the beginning of the book. The main character is on a quest to learn to bake cookies for Christmas. She finds a recipe that calls for packed brown sugar. At the grocery store with her best friend they look for packed brown sugar. They find golden brown sugar, dark brown sugar…everything but packed brown sugar. This is of course where they meet the hero, who explains to them what packed brown sugar is. This scene was inspired by a real-life event. Years ago, a good friend, who didn’t bake, asked for a cookie recipe. I gave it to her. A couple of days later I got a frantic phone call from the grocery store, asking if she could substitute another kind of brown sugar for packed brown sugar because she couldn’t find any. I’ll leave her unnamed to protect her identity!
And while the real-life inspiration in my romcoms is from the lighter side of my life, there have been some darker situations that inspired situations in my women’s fiction.
So, the truth is that stories come from different places. They come from imagination, they come from experience, they come from plotting what ifs. And it doesn’t really matter where the story comes from if it engages the reader. If it makes us think or act. If it makes us wonder.
There have been many books over the years that have made me want to know more about the author. Books that have made me want another story to read. Books that have made me want to write. Books that have changed who I am. I’ll always be curious about the origins of a good book, but what really matters to me, is that there’s another book on the shelf to read.
4 0 Read moreFeatured Author: Denise M. Colby
March 1, 2025 by Denise M. Colby in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Featured Author of the Month tagged as Author of the Month, Christian Historical Fiction, Denise M Colby, Marketing, Social Media, writing
Denise M. Colby loves to write words that encourage, enrich, and engage whether it’s in her blog, social media, magazine articles, or devotions. With over 20+ years’ experience in marketing, she enjoys using her skills to help other authors.
She treasures the written word and the messages that can be conveyed when certain words are strung together. She, being an avid journal writer, is often seen with a pen and notepad whenever she reads God’s word. Denise is writing her first Christian Historical Romance Series, and you can find her at www.denisemcolby.com
Denise is a member of OCRW, Faith, Hope & Love Christian Writers, ACFW (where she was a semi-finalist in the Genesis contest Historical Romance Category), OC Chapter of ACFW, and Novel Academy.
You can read Denise’s column The Writing Journey on A Slice of Orange, or follow her on Facebook or Instagram. You can also sign-up for her newsletter.
Big news for Denise!
Denise’s debut novel, When Plans Go Awry, won the Grand Prize in the Scrivenings Press #GetPubbed Contest for 2023, placing 1st place in the Historical category. It is the first of four books in this series being published by Scrivenings Press.
When Plans Go Awry
Denise M. Colby
ISBN: 978-1-64917-391-1
June 4, 2024
Olivia Carmichael escapes her past to become the next schoolmarm in the small ranching community of Washton, California. Her plan? Live a quiet spinster life alone, never to depend on anyone again.
Luke Taylor selected a mail-order bride to help raise his two younger sisters and protect his broken heart. His plans don’t include being responsible for the beautiful new schoolmarm, who threatens his resolve between his need to stay away and his need to ensure her safety.
Along the way, Olivia’s carefully laid-out plans are challenged at every turn, and Luke’s mail-order bride is not what he expected.
With the help of the entire town and its wily rooster, can Luke and Olivia learn to trust again?
Denise M. Colby’s Books
0 0 Read more
Digging Deep by Dianna Sinovic
February 13, 2025 by Bethlehem Writers Group in category From a Cabin in the Woods by Members of Bethlehem Writers Group tagged as Digging deep, emotions, reader reactions, writing
I can still remember watching Titanic shortly after it came out (late ‘90s). It was the climax, after the iceberg has done its damage and the unsinkable ship is sinking. Rose is lying on the floating debris, and Jack is about to succumb to hypothermia. In the sea of people surrounding me and a friend in the movie theater, we were the only two not sobbing. We looked at each other as the credits rolled, baffled at the teary response we were witnessing.
It was a powerful lesson in storytelling to realize that not everyone reacts to an emotional scene in a way the author (or director) hopes they will.
That varied reaction is one that plays out again and again in discussions with other readers—in my book group, in my movie group, and in my various writers’ groups. We each bring to the books we read and movies we watch a unique set of experiences that influence how we respond to the material.
When the emotional pull is deep, the power of the story can remain long after I finish the book or the movie ends. For me, a book that stayed with me long afterward was Atonement by Ian McEwan. The ending (spoiler alert!), when the reader discovers that Cecilia and Robbie, the young couple they’ve become invested in, actually died because of what another character did that put them in harm’s way, devasted me. I put off starting a new book for days because that story kept haunting me.
Another example is Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones, about a teen boy who may or may not have inherited his family’s ability to become a werewolf. By the time the climax arrives, the reader is beginning to think the potential transformation will not happen. (Spoiler alert!) So when it does happen, the reader feels the relief viscerally, just as the main character does. I returned to that scene to reread it again and again, marveling at how it affected me.
Neither of these books may have affected you, but it was alchemy magic for me. Or, not really magic, but the skill of the author to build a story so that the emotional stakes for the protagonist feel so real and true that the reader can’t help but experience it along with that main character.
As a book coach, I can be impressed with and enjoy a story for a number of craft reasons—but the reader in me will fall in love with a book because of how it moves me.
According to Donald Maass inhis superb nonfiction book The Emotional Craft of Fiction, the key to moving the reader is making the emotional stakes clear—letting the reader see/understand why what happens is meaningful to the main character. When the important thing does happen (or doesn’t), we feel the impact deeply and it remains with us. “Focus on the emotional world of your characters,” Maass writes, “and you will not only make a better tale, but you will build a better world for us all.”
Let’s return to the movie Titanic. Rewatching that film recently, more than twenty years after my first viewing, my reaction to the climactic scene in the water was much different. I ran for the tissues. The movie hadn’t changed (Jack still died), but so it had to be me. Those intervening years provided enough love and loss to connect emotionally with the scene that played out.
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