Tag: #HarmonyDuprie

Comparing Me to Me in Writing #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

 

 

Jan 17, 2022

What part of writing are you best at? Not compared to everyone else, but compared to you?

I once had a reviewer tell me how good I was at writing female characters. Which seemed strange to me, because, after all, I am a woman. So, I asked her about it, and it turned out she thought I was a man, based on how well I wrote my male characters!

Granted, I chose my pseudonym partly to disguise the fact that I am female. I wrote poetry when I first started writing, and it was a well-known ‘fact’ that it was harder for women poets to get published than male ones. (Lots of suspicions, but how do you prove something like that?) When I tackled fiction, I ignored the advice that said I needed a different pen name, having grown attached to this one, so the possibility of me being a man carried over.

But that’s part of what I like to think I am good at – being able to give my characters unique voices, allowing their personalities to come through their words. In the Harmony Duprie Mysteries, Eli is thoughtful and logical, Jake is seemingly impulsive but has a hidden agenda, and Harmony – she may appear to act irrationally, but that’s because her mind works in differently that most people’s.

The same goes for my Free Wolves series. Each of my main characters face varying challenges in different ways. That means not only do they have distinct personalities, so do the books themselves.

How does this happen? Where did I learn to do it? I suspect it was all those hundreds of books I’ve read., and the many, many people I’ve interacted with in my life. All those overheard snatches of conversations in stores and restaurants. Although I wasn’t very good at learning several languages besides English, I could work my way through the accents of non-English speakers and hold conversations with them. I understood their meanings even if the words weren’t perfect. I ‘read’ them.

 And that’s what my characters do for me. They let me ‘read’ them, and translate their meanings to the readers. That’s why I feel like I can portray them accurately, in their voices.

Do I get it perfect? Heck, no. I don’t know how many times I get a character wrong at the beginning of a story and have to go back and change them. I’ve made bad guys into good guys and good guys into bad guys and everything in between. It’s a matter of understanding them.

I put a lot of effort into improving my writing. I’ve come a long way, and some parts are getting easier. I keep pushing the edges to become even better. But at long as my characters keep talking to me, there’s at least one thing I’m doing right!

We have a lot of talented writings in this group, and I’m looking forward to finding what each thinks their best talent is. You can find out too, by following the links below. 

As always, until next time. please stay safe

Jan 17, 2022

What part of writing are you best at? Not compared to everyone else, but compared to you?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

Books That Made Me Cry #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

Jan 10, 2022

Do you remember the first book that made you cry? Or maybe the last one?

I’m getting old, and there’s a lot I don’t remember. Like the first book that made me cry. You don’t want to know how many years ago that was.

But here’s the thing. I’m not a crier. Well, I don’t cry at the expected moments. I hold my emotions in until they decide it’s time to let them go.

So, a book may move me, but that doesn’t mean I will cry while reading it. Or maybe I will cry at a part of a story when I am really crying about something else. I’m really good at compartmentalizing my emotions until I’m alone.

I remember crying while reading All the Weyrs of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. (Won’t tell you what part of the book did it.) Moonless Nights by Cornelia Amiri was another one that drew tears. Long, long ago, I remember crying when I read Ivanhoe. I doubt it would make me cry anymore, as I would be too involved in analyzing the change in social norms of the time.

I’ve also cried while I’m writing my own books. I figure I’m doing something right if my characters can draw me in far enough to pull out my deepest emotions. I can only hope that my readers get at least a glimpse of those feelings.

In my latest release, The Ranger’s Dog Tags, I tried to play with the reader’s emotions. The rest of the books in the Harmony Duprie Mysteries are on the “light” side, but I broke the standard as I wrote this one. I knew it would be the last story in the series, and I wanted the reader to experience a side of Harmony that she hadn’t had to deal with in the other books, and give her the ending she deserved. Did it work? I’m not sure. Sadly, no one has mentioned it. (Although I have received reviews calling the book the best in the series, and that’s worth something.)

How about you, dear reader? What books have made you cry? Don’t forget to check out what made the rest of the authors on this hop cry. Just follow the links below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe!

Jan 10, 2022

Do you remember the first book that made you cry? Or maybe the last one?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

The Next Five Seconds #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

Jan 3, 2022

It’s your book. The next five seconds are the most important. What happens?

First, I hope your new year hast started out well! Next, let’s talk about which book.

I thought I was done with the Harmony Duprie Mysteries. Well, I am done. But Jake, my anti-hero bad boy, decided it was time for him to reveal his secrets.

I’ve tried to get him to talk to me before, with no luck. Either he didn’t want to influence my perception of him, or he didn’t want me to reveal his secrets to Harmony. See, he’s not a good guy, but he plays one around Harmony. I’m currently planning to classify the story as either suspense or crime.

I haven’t finalized a name for this book yet, although I’ve played with several titles. Here’s my current one. I’d love to hear what you think of it. It may be too long.

The Thief and The Angel: The Fall of Jake Hennessey

Here’s the action leading up to the next five seconds:

She undid the buckle, then reached up and started tracing the same path from his forehead. “Tell me, Jake.”

“No.”

She stopped, leaving her finger on the tip of his nose. “Last chance.”

He didn’t dare break the spell by wiping the sweat beads from his forehead. “Or what?”

She placed her lips on his, then pulled his shirt together and started the slow process of fastening each button.

Jake broke. He grabbed her hands and pulled them behind his back. “It’s a way to turn around quickly. You start by going fast in reverse, brake, clutch and turn the steering wheel at the same time. You end up heading in the opposite direction.” He lowered his head and smashed his lips into hers. She didn’t object.

He reached to slide the pins out of her bun, but she pulled away.

“I accept the challenge,” she said. “But the coffee is probably cold by now. Do you want me to make more?”

“Where the hell did you learn to do that?” he asked, trying to catch his breath.

She grinned. “I read it in a book. Although the heroine took it further. She got the guy’s pants off.”

“What happened next?”

“If I remember correctly, she put a sleeping potion in the spy’s coffee and slipped away.”

And now, what happens in the next five seconds? 

.

.

.

Jake gulped, picked up his cup, and swirled the liquid in it, searching for traces of something that didn’t belong.

Harmony winked, took the coffee from his hands, sipped it, frowned, and wrinkled her nose. “Yep, cold.”

What happens next? I’m not telling. Before you ask, I haven’t determined a release date because I want to fix a problem in Chapter 19 first.

With the variety of authors we have on this hop, it’ll be interesting to see what happens in their 5 seconds. Just follow the links below. (And if you are an author with a blog, and would like to contribute to this topic, it’s easy. We’d be glad to hear from you.)

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

Jan 3, 2022

It’s your book. The next five seconds are the most important. What happens?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

Collaboration in Writing #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

 

Dec 6, 2021

Have you ever written fanfiction or a story that was part of some else’s ‘world’? How does it differ from writing a story entirely on your own?

Does writing fanfiction about your own stories count? No? Then I haven’t written any. The first book I wrote was terribly derivative of a story by someone else, but didn’t use the same characters. Its flaw was that it borrowed heavily from the plot. And that’s why it’s tucked away in a file, never to see the light of day. I don’t count it as fanfic.

But I have been part of an anthology, where 11 authors got together and wrote short stories of sand, surf, and sea, using each others’ characters. That was a challenge, as we worked together to make sure that the characters stayed true to the creating author’s image. We also had a very loose timeline, so the stories were presented in chronological order. I think I put almost as much effort into the story for that anthology as I do for my books!

That effort was organized in part by PJ Fiala, who also instrumental in creating this group…thank you!) 

The same group did a second collaboration,  but it didn’t have the same level of success as the first one. It happens. Those stories featured Lando and Scotty, two recurring supporting characters from the Harmony Duprie books. I hold the copyright on those stories, so maybe I’ll do something with them in the future.

Remember Amazon Worlds? I was invited to join one, but that was right after the two anthologies. I turned down the invite because my own stories were screaming at me to write them, and I had limited time for writing. (I think Amazon closed down the ‘worlds’ effort shortly after that.)

Would I ever join another ‘group’ effort? Absolutely. I loved doing it. Shoot, I might even try fanfiction, given the right story.

As for the fanfiction of my own stories…I’m thinking the story I’m working on now might qualify. It’s a prequel to The Harmony Duprie books, written from Jake’s point of view. I haven’t set a release date yet. Shoot, I still am fighting with myself about the title!

I have no idea how many of the other authors on this blog have worked on collaborative efforts or fanfiction. I’m looking forward to reading more posts. The links are below.

As always, until next time, please stay safe!

Dec 6, 2021

Have you ever written fanfiction or a story that was part of some else’s ‘world’? How does it differ from writing a story entirely on your own?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

 

 

Treasures Remembered and Saved #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

Nov 8, 2021

Do you still have a treasure from childhood, can you tell us about it? How about any of your characters?

I grew up in a large family. Both of my parents also came from large families, so there were cousins galore. Everything got passed down and passed around—clothes, toys, books, bikes—you name it. So, I don’t have any ‘treasures’ from childhood.

There are a few things I wish I still had. The mustard seed necklace that was a Christmas gift. A 1964 JFK silver half dollar. I don’t know what happened to either of them. I wasn’t into dolls or stuffed animals, typical things youngsters save.

My teenage years are different. That’s when I started thinking in terms of ‘me,’ and keeping things for myself. Granted, some of those things were ‘borrowed’ from my older siblings when they didn’t want them anymore.

I still have most of the vintage (1960s) Boy Scout mess kit used by my two older brothers. I’ve taken it camping time and time again and it’s still in decent shape—a testament to how well-made it was. It’s packed away in a box right now, or I would have shared a picture.

The little but functional oil lamp I bought with money from my first job still sits on my desk. And I do mean little—it’s all of four inches high. It’s travelled with me from Pennsylvania to Wyoming to Oregon to Florida and back to Wyoming. I own a couple of ‘real’ oil lamps now, but my this one is still my favorite. (And here’s a picture!)

How about my characters? Do they have any childhood treasures?

I’m sure Harmony has some childhood books on those four bookshelves in her apartment. There are at least a few Nancy Drew books, and some old James Bond paperbacks. There are probably copies of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Knowing Harmony, she kept every college textbook relating to her major in library science, too.

Of course, we know she has her mother’s African Violet and John Denver CDs. They are reminders of her childhood.

How about you? Do you still have any of your childhood treasures? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

Follow the links below to check out what the other authors on this hop have to say.

And, as always, stay safe until next time.

Nov 8, 2021

Do you still have a treasure from childhood, can you tell us about it? How about any of your characters?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

A Little Bit Of Summer #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

 

Oct 25, 2021

Do any of your characters garden? Or keep houseplants? How about you?

 

The cushions in my favorite easy chair were slit and the stuffing thrown all over the front room. My books lay scattered on the floor and the bookshelves pulled down on them. My African violets, inherited from my mother, had been dumped from their pots, the dirt spread everywhere. A quick glimpse of the little kitchen showed pots and pans strewn all over.               The Marquesa’s Necklace

Don’t worry, with tender, loving care from Harmony, the African Violets survived and showed up in other books in the series. The light that streams through the kitchen window of her small apartment is perfect for them. However, I’ll guarantee that she doesn’t sing to them, but that’s a topic for another day. 

Harmony also helps her landlords with their yard work. That includes a large flower garden, so she gets her fill of gardening during the spring and summer. Plus, she’s remodeling an old Victorian house, and dream of restoring the formal rose garden to it’s original glory.

The forecast promised an unseasonably warm day, so I canceled the plans for Auntie Hilda to mingle with the after-church crowd. Instead, plain old me worked on the rose garden at Eli’s. It had a long way to go to match its glory years, but I had a vision. Working with the gardening club, we’d mingled heritage roses in with modern stock to achieve a display both colorful and fragrant.      The Samurai’s Inro

As for me? Well, it’s fall in Wyoming, and time for me to move my flowers indoors. I got a plant light this year, and I’m hoping the geraniums will stay healthy longer, getting artificial sunlight along with real sunlight when the weather cooperates. I have one that’s about 12 years old.

Due to the hazards of Wyoming weather, I have learned to plant in pots, so moving them inside is only a problem of running out of space. (We can get snow in May and September, hailstorms anytime in between.) It’s not like living on the Oregon coast, where flowers bloomed all year, and I had a large garden and grew a variety of vegetables.  Where the gladiolas would cross-pollinate and I’d end up with variegated buds, and I could make jam from the wild blackberries that grew along the edge of the garden. Yes, sometimes I miss living there. But I need my mountains.

Oh, and why an African Violet? It’s a tribute to my mother, who kept one alive for years and years. I was never in a position to get a cutting from it, but I’ve kept it alive in another way.

I’m betting on a couple of our authors including gardening in their books. Follow the links below, and let’s find out!

As always, until next time, please stay safe.

 

Do any of your characters garden? Or keep houseplants? How about you?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

Sports In My Little Town #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book, Uncategorized

 

Oct 18, 2021

Are any of your characters fans of a particular sports team?

There’s not a whole lot to do in most small towns unless you plan your own event or go somewhere else. That’s why high school sports take on an almost cult-like following. And Oak Grove, my fictional town in the Harmony Duprie series, is a true small town. Harmony may not belong to the cult, but she still keeps an eye on local teams. I pay homage to that in the books.

‘Football Coach Predicts a Winning Year.’ That one made me smile because Coach Henderson had predicted the same thing for the last fifteen years, and it hadn’t happened yet. The school was too small to field a team that matched its rivals. But there was always hope.  From The Baron’s Cufflinks

Not much was going on in Oak Grove that night, with most of the high-schoolers out of town for a football game.          From The Marquesa’s Necklace

I’ve explored that concept more in my work-in-progress. (I’m still playing with potential titles, but let’s call it The Thief and The Angel for now.) This is from a conversation between Jake and Harmony.

“I see they’ve hired Coach for another year,” she said.

“Is that a good thing?”

“Oak Grove is too small to have a decent team.” She closed the sports section and laid it on the stair behind them. “We haven’t had a winning season in years. But the alumni and school board don’t want to give up on it. And every year, at least one boy gets a college scholarship, so they keep the team going. In a good year, two or three boys will get scholarships, even if they are to colleges no one ever heard of.”

While none of my characters are huge fans of a particular team, many of them follow sports in general. I can use sports as a way to establish time and personality. If I write about American football, it’s fall. Basketball belongs to winter and spring, while baseball is summer. 

Then there’s personality. In The Ranger’s Dog Tags, I imagined Detective Timothy Horace as a football linebacker. When I figured out that he was a golfer, it changed how I wrote him. (his physical size remained the same.) Although he was could use his size as a physical weapon, he preferred a more subtle approach to his job.

I have a coworker who can recite stats on numerous baseball players (not just one team.) so, it would be easy for me to write that into a character. I just haven’t done it yet.  But I’m playing around with a new plot in my head, so who knows?

Let’s find out if any of the other authors have superfans in their books. Just follow the links below.
And, as always, stay safe until the next time.

 

Oct 18, 2021

Are any of your characters fans of a particular sports team?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

 

 

 

You Never Know Where It Will Go #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

Sept 20, 2021
What is a side skill that has been useful in your life? Where did you learn it? Have you written it into any of your stories?

My career with computers started as a side skill. It began back in the dark ages, when personal computers were new to business and the bulky machines had less capacity that the smart phone you got rid of three years ago. Back when the only way to reach out to another computer was by dial-up. The company I worked for decided that I should have one of those bricks since I was stationed remotely. (Yes, even back then remote work was a thing.)

Unfortunately, the device they provided me was buggy from the get-go. Things didn’t always work the way they were supposed to. The organization was tired of me spending time on the phone with our supporting techs, so they sent me to classes so I understood more about the magic behind the system. That’s when I was introduced to the mystical and arcane language of DOS, and discovered I had an affinity for computers. I went on to take a variety of computer-related classes and eventually changed careers.

Does my career show up in my writing? Heck, yeah. I have no problem with casting my major characters as being in the computer industry; everything from your everyday techs to computer programmers to owners of software companies. Despite the prevailing stereotypes, there are plenty of folks in the field who are romantic hero or heroine quality.

Take Gavin, my hero from Wolves’ Pawn. I tried to figure out what how a wolf shifter pack could exist and survive in today’s world and stay hidden. Computer programming was the perfect fit. All the real work can be done in the background and only a few select people need to interact with the public. Although Gavin isn’t a programmer, he’s second-in-command of the company and helps keeps it running.

Then there’s Eli from The Harmony Duprie series. Not only does he own a computer software company, he’s the genius that writes the basic code for the company’s programs. And possibly hacks into other systems to help Harmony solve the mysteries she’s faced with. (Legally, of course. <cough>)

When I think about it, getting into the computer field may have influenced my desire to publish as an indie author. Since I understood, at a basic level, what goes into the process, I was comfortable with tackling it. 

So, there you go, That’s how a side skill ended up changing my life. How about you? 

Other authors are blogging on the same topic. You can find them by following the links below, And, until next time, please stay safe!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sept 20, 2021
What is a side skill that has been useful in your life? Where did you learn it? Have you written it into any of your stories?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

 

I Fr*gg$n Swear #OpenBook Blog Hop

  By Open Book

 

Sept 13, 2021
How do you feel about the use of profanity, either in your stories or in what you read?

Profanity is such an old-fashioned, polite term. Let’s call it like it is. Swearing. Cussing. Using bad language.

I was probably ten the first time I heard my father swear. Rightfully so. A car ran a stop sign and almost hit our station wagon, with the entire family in it. Even then, only one word slipped out and my mother didn’t even correct him.

That may have been the only time I was shocked by a curse word, and I don’t remember what word he used. I read well above my age level, so soon I was running into improper language in print and it wasn’t a big deal. (Okay, the words might have made me giggle when no one else was around.) By the time I graduated from high school, even the nightly news occasionally let a bad word slip through their filters.

The point is: ages and ages later, when I began writing fiction, I understood that the use of swear words was part of life. Realistic dialogue can create a character better than anything else. If I was creating a twenty-something male in who was a mechanic, or a plumber, or in IT, the use of swear words was important in fashioning the setting and the personality. I wasn’t writing sweet romances so, I made the decision to include curse words. But, in limited numbers, only. I didn’t have a point to prove. No paragraphs filled with long strings of harsh language. And, for the most part, only the milder swear words. 

I’ll confess, I broke that mold in The Baron’s Cufflinks, when a character’s continual use of profanities become a plot point. Some of the harsher words, too. I cringed as I typed them, but they were true to the character, Annabelle LeRoix. 

This is where I normally give you a clip of a story as an example. Not this time. Use your imagination. Or go pull the book up your kindle or off your bookshelf. (Is this a good time to mention that The Baron’s Cufflinks ebook is on sale for 99¢ at all retailers?) 

For Detective Horace in The Ranger’s Dog Tags, I went a different direction. A detective on the Orlando Police force might be expected to drop a few cuss words here and there, but he’s a church-going man. True to his faith, he doesn’t swear at all in the book.

I’ve lost a few potential sales to people staying true to their beliefs, and I’m okay with that. They’ll ask if my books have adult scenes or bad language, and I’ll answer honestly. If they want to stick with Christian fiction, that’s their choice and I’ll support it. (But I can’t imagine writing it.)

So, all of you who read this blog but never comment, here’s your chance. Talk to me. Tell me how you feel about the use of swear words in the books you read, including mine. While you are thinking about it, I’m going to check out what the other authors in this blog hop think.

As always, until next time, please  stay safe.

Sept 13, 2021
How do you feel about the use of profanity, either in your stories or in what you read?

Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter