I just love this pretty layout for The Bride's Curse, Book One in The Wedding Bliss series.

Here's the blurb: Kelly Andrew's store, Wedding Bliss, is the one-stop for all a bride's needs. Abandoned by her own fiancé, she hopes to make it easier for brides by planning their ceremonies down to the last detail. But one little problem keeps her from being successful. Three brides have brought back the same vintage gown saying it was responsible for dashing their dreams. Brett, the nephew of the original owner of the dress, needs to get the gown back. Impossible since Kelly sold the garment and claims the gown is cursed. Brett's confusion at her words deepens when he discovers she communes with ghosts. Yet, when a contrite spirit comes forward, with a message, Brett goes along on a wild-bridegroom chase. Passions flare as they work to break the wedding hex before another bride's dreams goes up in flames.

Many Thanks to The Wild Rose Press and to Renee Johnson!

February - The Month We Have A Love/Hate                        Relationship with. 

"Every Day is a New Beginning - Smile, and Start Again!"

Ah, February - love it, hate it, look forward to it, dread it....so many feelings about this, the second month of the year. It trails along after January, which has usually pelted us with bad weather, with cold, snow, ice...depending, of course, on where you live.

February holds out the promise that Spring isn't far away. And then dumps a foot of snow on you, just to make the point. Pictures abound on calendars and magazines, tempting you to believe that any minute now, bright daffodils and sweet smelling lily of the valley are going to spring into being...and then reality dawns. Living here, in Ontario, these poor wee signs of spring would need a power hammer to beat their way out of the snow and ice that covers them.

But there are some special things about February. St Valentine's Day, the most romantic day of the year - well, maybe you have other choices, like New Years Eve or your birthday, whatever - just bear with me on this for a while.

One good thing about the month is that it's shorter than the others - because when the calendars were being put together, the creators used lunar months. They wanted to get an even number of days in the months, so it looks to me like poor old February was short changed amongst all the 30 and 32 day contenders. 

It's the only month on the calendar, though, that has the compensation of being able to add a day, once every four years. Interesting for most of us, but possibly a bit frustrating for folks born on - yes, you've guessed it - February the 29th. It could mean that you only get a birthday party once every four years. Alternatively, you don't age as fast as the rest of us. If you're a leap year baby, when your friends and relatives hit, let's say, 40, the leap year baby is only 10 years old....figuratively speaking.

February didn't exist in Ancient Roman times, when the calendar didn't have months and the time was just referred to as 'Winter'. Shiver, can you imagine having no time markers between months, just one long period of cold, dark winter making it hard to comprehend when will the summer come....

That all changed around 700 BCE, possibly because people needed the sense of hope that ticking off those much shorter calendar months gave them, rather than having just one long, long Winter month. It's a psychological thing :-) 

Here in Canada, February is claimed to have more sunshine than other winter months, and the sun shines on the snow and makes it look pretty. Oh, the deceptions of nature.

February is also Heart month, when we're bombarded with reasons why we need to get more exercise (really? In three feet of snow and windchill of -OMG?) and to eat healthy (sure, we can add chocolate and wine to our lettuce leaf salad, yes?)

It's also now Black History Month, from Feb 3 - Feb 20. An interesting addition but sounds like that's a bit short changed, calling it a month when there's only 16 days....but that's February for you.

And then there's Winterlude - a huge festival which takes place in our capital city, Ottawa, with skating on the Rideau Canal, ice sculpting, and lots of things happening all over that very beautiful city.

And don't forget the Hôtel de Glace in Quebec, where you can book rooms in a genuine ice palace, the only one known in North America. Dress warmly...

Meanwhile, my friends, I'll be cuddled up to a blazing woodstove with a good book and waiting Winter out.

             The Never Finished Book - My Dark Little Secret

 

They whispered to her: "You cannot withstand the storm."

She whispered back: "I am the storm."

I started a book - a romantic suspense-back in 2014.

Yes, you read that right. 2014. More than six years ago. And it’s languished on my computer, getting a quick titivation here and there, but never actually being finished. I have excuses—at least four of those years have been a nightmare for many reasons too depressing to note here. But I have finished other books that have been published, made headway on several others. But this book? I felt like calling it Dark Depression, rather than Dark Revenge.

One simple problem that I have never, in all my writing career and all my completed books, come across before.

I COULDN’T GET THE ENDING.

 Then, strange as it sounds, I woke up in the middle of the night a few nights ago, and I just KNEW what the ending should be, made some notes, and I’m about to sit down and get that in gear. It will require a fair bit of rearranging of events, but yes, it looks like Dark Revenge will be finished and available for sale sometime soon!

So, the moral of this story is never give up on an idea. You’ll never know how close I came to deleting all the files for this book because seeing them every time I started to work, seeing all those stunted, unfinished pages, was undermining my writing.

Now I feel like the elves in Snow White – hey-ho, hey-ho, it’s off to write I go!

You can visit some of my finished books at https://tinyurl.com/yyb5uz8r

New Romantic Suspense Release!

Saving Maggie. Read the first page here:

Saving Maggie

Chapter 1

The woman in the sexy little red convertible looked perky from behind. Her glossy long hair was pulled up in a careless pony tail and swayed from side to side like a cobra charmed by an Indian flute, as she bopped to the music from the car radio.

Even at a car's length away, the driver behind her thought this was the sort of hair a man could run his fingers through and grasp playfully… He wished now he was piloting his own expensive roadster, rather than the sedate brown sedan he'd rented especially for this trip. His own car was the sort that would impress the kind of girl who drove a bright red convertible with the top down on a windy spring day.

He imagined himself overtaking her, seeing her look over at him, her eyes widening in admiration as she took in his expensive ride and wealthy, groomed good looks.

Then she'd remember him and smile…

He gunned the accelerator, and with a disdainful purr the rental spurted forward, pulling alongside her. He glanced over, hoping to catch her eye. But she stared straight ahead, singing along to some mindless muzak and oblivious to his look of longing.

He didn't matter to her. She didn't remember. She didn't smile.

Irritated now, he jabbed the accelerator and zoomed past her. He knew that soon they'd meet again.

Then he'd refresh her memory.

Saving Maggie is on Amazon, Kobo, Walmart Online, B & N, and most good ebook outlets!

New Romantic Suspense Release!

Saving Maggie. Read the first page here:

Saving Maggie

Chapter 1

The woman in the sexy little red convertible looked perky from behind. Her glossy long hair was pulled up in a careless pony tail and swayed from side to side like a cobra charmed by an Indian flute, as she bopped to the music from the car radio.

Even at a car's length away, the driver behind her thought this was the sort of hair a man could run his fingers through and grasp playfully… He wished now he was piloting his own expensive roadster, rather than the sedate brown sedan he'd rented especially for this trip. His own car was the sort that would impress the kind of girl who drove a bright red convertible with the top down on a windy spring day.

He imagined himself overtaking her, seeing her look over at him, her eyes widening in admiration as she took in his expensive ride and wealthy, groomed good looks.

Then she'd remember him and smile…

He gunned the accelerator, and with a disdainful purr the rental spurted forward, pulling alongside her. He glanced over, hoping to catch her eye. But she stared straight ahead, singing along to some mindless muzak and oblivious to his look of longing.

He didn't matter to her. She didn't remember. She didn't smile.

Irritated now, he jabbed the accelerator and zoomed past her. He knew that soon they'd meet again.

Then he'd refresh her memory.

Saving Maggie is on Amazon, Kobo, Walmart Online, B & N, and most good ebook outlets!

Sometimes, Disappearing and Making a New Life Sounds Like a Great Idea...

Imagine you're being stalked by a psychotic killer. No-one believes your story of being hunted and  threatened. Disappearing seems like the only way you can escape, by becoming someone else and praying that the madman won’t find you.

For most of us, leaving our lives and starting over is an impossible daydream. There are lots of reasons why people do this – being really unhappy and seeing no way to correct things, being really bored and wanting to live a life with more excitement, having creditors constantly harassing you, family issues, and many more.

Having committed a crime – say you embezzled millions from your company and they're about to bring in the auditors – getting out of your life is one way to try and avoid prison. Don't bank on being successful, though!

Witness Protection is probably the best, because all the work of creating a new persona and a new life is done for you – although you still have to be careful not to give yourself away. And you've probably witnessed something traumatic before you're accepted into the program as a witness, so maybe it's not so much fun.

For Maggie Kendal, there was really no alternative but to disappear. She knew she was being stalked, but there's a twist – the psycho was killing people he thought had hurt Maggie in some way. He dreamed that one day he and she would be together, but in the meantime, he was 'protecting' her from people who he considered had done her harm. Being a little psychic didn't help Maggie at all – no-one believed that the murdered dead called to her, especially after they'd dug up dump sites she claimed the psychos victims were laid, and found nothing. Maggie had to flee to save the lives of other people she cared about.

But Maggie is a wealthy heiress with the means to move and keep moving, to pay for new identities and finally, to find peace in a small Ontario town. She purchased a community newspaper and resumed the work she loved as a journalist. But she knew that he would find her eventually and she'd have to stand and fight - or run again.

Disappearing is harder to do if you’re poor. You need money to travel, money to buy a new identity, money to live on and keep moving around until you feel your trail has gone cold. So you have to have a lead in time when you can quietly liquidate any assets you have before disappearing. Or, as some people have done, you simply get on a Greyhound bus and go, picking up odd jobs and hoping to one day feel safe enough to settle down in a new identity. You'll probably need several new identities as you go along in order to completely wipe out your trail.

You can check graveyards, find the name and birthdate of a child who was born around the time you were…and go and try your luck at getting documents in that child's name. Sure, you can say your paperwork was destroyed in a flood or hurricane, but most government offices have tightened up on this once tried and true method of getting a new identity.

You'll need to keep moving and changing your identity, losing yourself in cities in the beginning. You'll also need to keep a cash flow going, unless you've got a suitcase full of money from your previous life. Even the disappeared need to eat. That means working at low level jobs where pay is 'under the table' and there's no paper trail. Sure, you may be super well educated and have qualifications out the whazoo, but high powered jobs require documentation, and right now you're just concerned with not leaving a paper trail.

Later, like years later, you might feel safe enough – and savvy enough – to find a way to document your qualifications, perhaps by getting an expert forger to rework your certificates and degree information into your new name, not your old one. But remember, many institutions have become wary of hiring people who aren't who they say they are, and they will check with your previous employers or your alma mater, and then the doo-doo will hit the fan.

So, the grass may seem greener on the other side of the fence that's got you boxed in – but maybe it's all an illusion and home, sweet home, is the best place for you.

You can read about Maggie Kendall's journey to escape her psycho stalker and the courage it took for her to save the life of the man she loved and to make a new life for herself with him in Saving Maggie, to be released on November 7^th!

Saving Maggie 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday's Writing: Do You Talk Yourself Out of Success?

By Glenys O’Connell @GlenysOConnell

 

*This was first published two years ago, but I thought it was worth repeating!

“Argue your limitations and sure enough, they’re yours.” #Richard Bach #quote

Do you talk to yourself? Most writers do – and we’re not alone. Most ‘Normal’ people talk to themselves, too. Not always out loud, but there’s that inner voice in your head that comments on just about everything you do, advises you, comes up with great (or not so great) ideas, comforts and inspires.

Or not.

Because lots of us have voices in our heads that talk us down. Sometimes they may even sound like someone in our past who has told us our ‘limits’. Your mother, another relative, a teacher, a friend, an employer, people who may have said things ‘for your own good’ or to ‘stop you getting big headed’. Perhaps people who were afraid to step out on Life’s High Wire themselves, and passed that fear on to you. Or people afraid they’d lose you if you became successful, or who were genuinely afraid you’d be hurt if you strove for high dreams and fell flat on your face.

But now that self-talk is firmly embedded in your mind. You want to write a book? It’s too much work…I’m not talented enough..who would want to read what I have to say…it’s silly, everyone would laugh….no-one from my social class has ever…I’m too old….

You want that beautiful home, that fulfilling job? You want love? Success? Happiness? A healthy inner voice cheers you on, tells you that you do deserve good things; but that negative inner voice will come up with all the reasons why it’s a bad idea, you don’t deserve it, who would love you anyway,. and why can’t you just settle for, well, second best?

Or fill in the blank here for what your little voice says:__________________________________

It may be a little voice, but it puts huge limits on you. It may help you stay within your comfort zone, but it doesn’t help you achieve the dreams that are in your heart.

Negative Self Talk Limits You.

Basically, your mind accepts what you tell it. If you say you can’t, well, you can’t.

Say you can, then that wonderful organ, your brain, will have all its neurons scurrying around for ideas and plans to help you do what you want to achieve.

Of course, it’s not that simple;sometimes you want something that just won’t work out for a number of different reasons that may be beyond your control. Funnily enough, if one dream doesn’t work out, your clever brain often comes up with a substitute dream much more suited to you, and do-able.

So, spend some time every day having a chat with yourself; tell yourself that you are a smart, caring, competent, deserving person.

It won’t be easy, it won’t be painless, but you can erase the limitations that experiences and other people have encouraged you to put on yourself. Talk nicely to yourself, be positive, and believe  that you can.

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes. Write it out and hang it where you’ll see if often:

‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it – boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Johann von Goeth #quote

Glenys O’Connell is a trained counselor and the author of Depression: The Essential Guide and PTSD: The Essential Guide

Monday Inspiration: I'm Not Pleased With You, Larry the Lump (Cancer Diaries)

Oh, my, Larry the Lump! You've done some mean things in your time, but this beats all! I am not at all pleased with you.
Since you were diagnosed at Stage Three last August, I have tried to look on you, not as a malignant creature, but as some of my own cells that are confused and disaffected. Good cells gone bad, you might say.
But there's definitely a mean side to you. Like the fact that you are a species that doesn't always or readily show up on a mammogram, so I went through all those uncomfortable boob-flattening mammograms, year after year, just so that I could feel safe from the likes of you. I actually felt I was taking care of myself, going through the necessary tests that would sound the alarm bells the moment just one tiny cell started to misbehave.
How innocent I was! How mean you are! No doubt you had a good laugh about that, Mr. Meanie.
Even my own doctor dismissed my anxieties about pain in the breast with the comment: "Oh, your mammogram was clear, so there's nothing to worry about."
It took a breast scan and a biopsy to decide just what you were. And MRI tests to keep track of you.
It's cold comfort to hear that if a professional didn't know this, it doesn't seem so dumb that I didn't know. Invasive lobular carcinomas can be difficult to diagnose as they are generally symptom free or have few symptoms, are difficult to feel and don't show any changes in breast shape until they've grown big and strong. Even when they can be felt, they don't necessarily show on a mammogram. They account for about 15 per cent of all breast cancers. Read more here.
Apparently Larry had been around for up to six years before being detected. That was the first nasty trick.
The second was the side effects in response to the drug I began to take to shrink him. Larry did not enjoy being on a diet (he has estrogen receptors and the drug blocked his daily intake so he was starving and even more mean.) This left me feeling more fatigued than before the diagnosis, with symptoms of menopause like hot flashes, memory lapses, occasional depression, etc.
But it seemed it was all going to be worth it. Larry had shrunk by about 70 per cent and it looked like I could do a lumpectomy, a much less radical surgery than a mastectomy or the removal of the whole breast.
That's where another mean trick came in - as he shrank, Larry broke into several smaller pieces, little Larrys, I guess you'd call them.
But they inhabit the same space that the large tumor did, and the odds of them all being removed, along with all possible cancerous tissue, plummeted.
So it's a mastectomy now.
That means an eviction for you, Larry.
No more warm and cozy nest.
I suppose, in a grim way, I have the last laugh.

A Writer's Christmas Prayer

DEAR GOD, Jehovah, Allah, Goddess - sorry, I know You have many names and it’s my journalistic soul that wants to cover all of them. Forgive me if I get it wrong – I’m rushing the research a bit here.  I do appreciate Your taking the time to listen, as You have done so many times in the past. You must be extra busy with deadlines at this time of the year, because fires, floods, famines, storms, droughts, wars and general stupidity do not stop even in this holy season. With all that going on, I hope You can also find the time to celebrate with us the joy and peace that belong to this season.

There have been so many times when You have pulled this tattered manuscript of my life out of the heavenly slush pile, and even when Your reply has been a gentle rejection note, there is always been encouragement to go on using the talents You have loaned to me. You have forgiven the times I have been grouchy on life’s deadlines, when I failed to appreciate the wonder of the opportunities in new contracts  You have offered, and the many times I have ignored Your submission requirements in hopes that You would see past my mistakes into the willing prose of my heart.

Having said all of that, I feel selfish even asking for more, but here goes:

1)     It’s a bit of a cliché, but I would join with so many, many others to ask You to give Mankind – and I say MANkind because the male of the species seems to be more inclined to conflict than we females, but maybe I’m biased – if You would just give them all a bit of a shake and tell them it’s time to make peace not war.

2)     Please ignore the mean things I said about the intellectual abilities of publishers or agents who rejected my work – I didn’t really want You to strike them. Honest.

3)      There are so many of Your people in need, hungry, homeless, afraid, in pain. Maybe You could inspire those of us who have so much to heed Your teachings and work towards a more equitable society. Perhaps You could even slip a little extra blessings into the Christmas stockings of those who have been courageous enough to stand up for what is right.

4)     Please forgive the times I’ve cursed at my computer; the technology You have given us is truly a blessing and it was just the heat of the moment;  I didn’t mean a word of it. Really.

5)     Of course, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t invest this prayer with a little personal self-interest. First, I want to thank You for all the people who have bought my books – the nice reviews always feel like a warm GodBreeze to my soul.

6)     Then maybe You could run to a dollop of forgiveness for all the times I left undone the things I ought to have done, and done those things I ought not to have done? Let’s not get into specifics now, eh? That would be a bit embarrassing and take up too much of Your time. We both know what they were. However, if you could see your way to making me a better person, and a better writer, and maybe, just maybe, a bit of help in getting through the edits for the next book, I would be very grateful.

 I can’t promise that I won’t screw up some more, but Dear Lord, I’m trying to be better.

Thank You. Amen.

Larry the Lump - More Famous Than Me? (Cancer Diaries)

It appears that Larry the Lump, that little knot of confused and disaffected cells that has nested in my left breast, is more famous than me. That is something I do hate him for.
Oh, I can accept that his appearance in my left breast is purely random. Sure, he doesn't actually mean any of the harm he has caused me. Nothing I or anyone else has done likely caused his existence.
I can live with the prospect of surgery soon; I can cope with the sometimes very debilitating side effects of the drug I am taking.
I can definitely enjoy the idea that Larry's estrogen receptoring little presence is being quietly starved of estrogen because of the treatment. Shrink and die, you little beast!
But what I hate him for is that he seems to have caught the imaginations of so many people.
Really? You ask.
Yes, indeedy.
My regular blogs, where I meander on about writing and life, usually enjoy the attentions of a few hundred readers.
But blogs where Larry is the star, we're looking into the four figure numbers of readers who log in to read his adventures. Yes, Larry is more famous than I!
Although there has been a kind of secondary benefit to me for blabber mouthing about this cancer, a lobular tumor that doesn't show up on mammograms.
I know that this concept, that there are breast cancers that the mammogram may not pick up, has been food for thought for quite a number of readers and friends. Indeed, some have sought further medical checkups. Sadly, at least one woman has been diagnosed with cancer after she insisted on a breast ultrasound after hearing about the symptoms that finally led to my diagnosis.
Strangely, many people have commented about my willingness to give Larry the Lump centre stage as I talk about this experience. The words courageous and brave have been used, and yet that's not how I feel.
For one thing, as a writer and journalist, I think that knowledge is power. If you know the possibilities, you can perhaps prepare or protect yourself from them. I know I was shocked to learn that all the mammograms I had had faithfully over the years had failed to pick up on what the oncologist says is a tumor that has been around for five or six years without detection.
I belong to a generation in which the word 'cancer' was never spoken. In my family home, if totally pushed, you might refer to the 'Big C', but never THAT word. It was as though mentioning it would bring the curse down on someone's head. Even the close relatives of people who had actually been diagnosed were advised by doctors not to tell that person he or she had cancer. It was such a scourge that people feared a victim - and that was the word used then - would commit suicide rather than face the odds of dying from the disease.
So I talk about cancer. Everyone I know knows, and hundreds more people who have never met me know. And there is a benefit for me, too - all the love and support, prayers and good thoughts I have received must surely be causing some kind of ripple in the ether, because so far my test results are looking good.
I can only repeat: if you have pain or discomfort in your breast don't assume that if the mammogram is clear there is no problem. Ask for further investigation.
And educate your doctor - mine told me there was nothing wrong because the mammogram was
clear. When I finally got a biopsy and MRI, the little beast was more than eight centimetres long and growing lustily on a diet of estrogen.
Even so, I still resent Larry's popularity. That he should be more famous than me!
Sometimes, even on his starvation diet, I think he's laughing....

NOTE: I was shocked to discover that there is actually another Larry the Lump mentioned in a blog by someone with throat cancer! And I thought I was so original! Here's a link to that other Larry: https://selfy0105.wordpress.com/

Saturday Snippets: The Bride's Curse, Paranormal Romance

Here's a snippet from The Bride's Curse, my paranormal romance from Crimson Romance. This is the first time wedding planner and owner of Wedding Bliss Kelly Andrews meets her match in the sexy Brett Atwell:

EXCERPT: 

Kelly blinked to adjust her eyes to the store’s interior after being

out in the bright sunlight. She pushed the old man on the bench out of her mind as she stepped forward to introduce herself to the young man who stood in the middle of the store as if he were
befuddled by all the lovely frilly, lacy, silky things.

     “Good morning. I’m Kelly Andrews. Can I help you find what you’re looking for?”

He turned and gave her a friendly smile. Kelly was momentarily dazzled. This guy was hot. Older than she first thought, probably thirty or so, with blond hair and the kind of tan you only get from working outdoors. Briefly she wondered if he’d been in the military like herself, but nothing else about him suggested military work.

      His eyes widened as looked her up and down and he gave a low appreciative whistle through his teeth. “Well, hello, there, Red!”

      The dazzle swiftly turned to irritation. No one had mocked her red Scottish coloring since she was old enough to make them wish they had never tangled with her. Tucking an unruly curl behind her ear, she sidled forward until they were almost nose to nose. Then she rose up on tiptoe, her mouth close enough to his ear that her breath tickled his skin and murmured: “The last guy who called me that is still in the hospital.”

     His deep brown eyes widened. Then he laughed a low, deep sexy sound. “Sweetheart, I love a woman with red hair and the temperament that goes with it.”

      She stepped back a pace and gave him a feral smile. Obviously he wasn’t intimidated by her threat. The fool.

    “So, all flirting aside, can I help you with something?”

     The slow, lips to feet and back again appraisal he gave her made her palms itch to thump him. She reminded herself of Rule #1 of business: Do not slap customers.

     “I’m looking for a wedding dress.”

      “Oh!” Laughter licked through her like a sudden rain. She returned the long, slow, head to toe and back again stare. “I’m not sure we have anything in your size. Maybe your partner … ?”

       He actually blushed. “No, it’s not for me—” He stopped when he saw her laughing. In fact, Kelly was laughing so hard she had to drop onto one of the chairs.

     “Oh, lord—you should have seen your face! Gotcha!” Revenge is so sweet.

       He grinned. “I suppose I deserved that, Red.”

      “Keep on with the Red, and you’ll see the nasty side of me.”

*

         Brett Atwell was tempted to say he’d like to see any side of her at all, this drop dead gorgeous woman who’d followed him into the store. His busy imagination conjured up images of all that lush red hair spread across his pillow like wildfire …

        “You’re staring.”

        Oops. He needed to shake himself out of the lust that had swamped him and to focus on the job at hand. It wasn’t like him to let his mind wander, but then it wasn’t every day he met a woman who appealed to him like this one did.

The Bride's Curse is available in ebook and print on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other good booksellers!

Wednesday's Writing: A Weird Thing Happened When I was Painting the New House.....

Read this and comment - You could win a print copy of my latest book...

I've noticed before that Real Life happenings can seep into my writing - I'm sure other writers find the same thing. But my latest book is considered a paranormal, with a Restless Spirit as one of the main characters.

Surely that wouldn't ...would it?

Something very weird happened when I started to paint a room in our new place. Maybe it's because I have ghosts on my mind after completing The Bride's Curse - the first in a proposed trilogy - and I'm more attuned to cosmic weirdness, but - well, here's the tale:

We recently went through the House Move From Hell, but that's all behind us now as we are settled into a sweet little house with 22 acres of private paradise and the huge added bonus of wonderful neighbours!

The house is old - parts apparently around the century mark - and is in need of some gentle restoration. Did I say gentle? New kitchen, new bathrooms, suspect plumbing...yikes!

Still, I've always believed that there are few things that perk a house up like a new coat of paint, so that's been keeping me occupied for a while.One room in particular was very small, dark and dingy with a depressing atmosphere. As it is the first room visitors coming through the sun porch use to enter the house, it was my first paint project.

The first oddity was that I chose a deep bright yellow paint. I don't think I have ever in my life painted a room yellow - it's just not one of my favourite colours. Anyhow, there I was, painting away and I had to admit, the yellow was brightening the room up. Giving it a zing, as one of my neighbours said.

I came to a wall that had a lot of old stuff still piled against it, so I moved everything and gasped in surprise. There had been an old electric heater on this wall, which had been removed long before we bought the house. And in the square on the wall that heater had covered was - yellow paint.

Not just any yellow paint, but an exact match for the paint I had been slathering on the other walls.

Cue: Twilight Zone music....

Strangely, despite being anything up to fifty years old or more, that paint still looked fresh, and when I ran my paint roller up against it, you couldn't see where the new paint started and the old ended.

Further Twilight Zone, please....

Then I was at a yard sale in the nearby village. For some reason, even though this room was to be a library housing our many books, I'd decided it had to have a chest of drawers as well as bookcases.

And there at the yard sale was the perfect chest, a beautiful elderly set in cherry and oak, very graceful if a bit battered. And my eyes popped when I saw the miniscule price - well within budget.
Home it came, and it looked absolutely perfect in the spot I'd wanted it for. So perfect, in fact, it might have belonged there.

As maybe it did. According to another neighbour, the folks having the yard sale once had relatives who'd owned our new home....

Definitely Twilight Zone stuff, yes? I'm wondering if I should peek under the wallpaper of other rooms before I paint them, just to see what colours lie there. Maybe it would give me a clue to what the house - or some long ago resident - would like that room's colour to be....

Now in The Bride's Curse there is a cantankerous, mischievous restless spirit. He's a joker with issues

to settle before he can move on - including patching up an old love affair. He enlists the help of Kelly Andrews, who runs a bridal planning service and store named Wedding Bliss, to help him.

Maybe my mind was too much on the hidden world of spirits when I was painting that room.

Or maybe...just maybe...the house was telling me what colors it wanted to be clothed in.

I'm pretty sure this is going to show up in one of the Wedding Bliss trilogy stories. I'd love to hear what you readers think - does my new house have a specific taste in decorating and is it brainwashing me? Or am I just overly imaginative?

Leave me a comment for a chance to win a draw of The Bride's Curse when it comes out in print next month from Crimson Romance! In the meantime, scroll down to an earlier blog to read the book's first chapter, or visit Amazon for more details and to read the books brand new first five star review!

Wednesday’s Writing: Hook Your Reader-Cliffhanger Endings

@GlenysOConnell
Hello, Dear Readers – I’ve been lax with my blog for the last week or so, and I am so sorry. Sometimes things happen…but more about that in the next Monday’s Inspiration Blog!

Meanwhile, I talked about hook beginnings to grab your readers, and how they should happen at the start of chapters and scenes as well as the beginning. In that blog I promised to talk about the all important endings that make your reader want to read on from scene to scene, chapter to chapter. So here goes:

Each chapter starts with a hook, flows through the middle, and ends with a 'cliff-hanger'.

The term 'cliff-hanger' dates back to the old black and white movies - does anyone remember The Perils of Pauline? We've probably all seen references to these early adventures, although my guess is most of us are a bit too young to have seen them first run-through!

Pauline was the heroine in a series of movies where she went
through many trials and tribulations. At the end of each movie
Pauline was left in dreadful straits - tied to the tracks in front of a speeding train, hanging over a steep cliff by her fingertips, trapped in a runaway car speeding towards a flooded river……..

Each week faithful fans returned to the movie house to find out how Pauline was rescued from the latest terrible situation. And, of course, she was always rescued - she had to be back in her starring role the following week!

That's what we call a cliff-hanger ending. You can probably already see why one of these at the end of each chapter would seduce your reader to glance at the first page of the next chapter to see how it all worked out - and the hook at the beginning of that chapter will keep her reading towards the next cliff-hanger….the next hook….and on into the wee small hours of the night!

It's a crafty way of keeping the tension up and drawing the reader more deeply into your story. The hook that follows a cliff-hanger does not necessarily have to be the segment of story immediately following the cliff-hanger - or the bit where Pauline is rescued. You can go to another thread of the story, but you must use a hook so the reader continues reading seamlessly as she knows she is being led to the moment when all the threads are pulled together at the end.

One caveat, however. The cliff-hanger ending does not apply to the very end of the book. This is where all the reader's questions are answered, and while your characters may not be guaranteed a happily ever after, they are at least generally out of danger, emotionally on solid ground again, and ready to get on with the next phase of their lives, having changed for the better due to the events and lessons they learned in
the story.

In other words, while the end of a chapter is meant to be exciting and raise questions about what happens next, the final end of the book is calming and answers all those questions.

Once you get into the habit of thinking of your chapters like this, it will come easily to you. Like magic!

Again, this blog is an excerpt from Naked Writing, the No Frills Way to Write Your Book! in the UK, or here for Canada, and here for the US, or in your region’s Amazon store.

Wednesday’s Writing: Hook Your Reader!

 

@GlenysOConnell

Most people understand that a book has a beginning, middle and end. Good writing has a flow that leads your reader on from chapter to chapter, scene-to-scene, in a seamless way.
"I just couldn't put your book down!" is a reader statement that's always music to our ears, and we get that by keeping the reader's interest as we lead her from page to page..

We use what I call hook beginnings and cliff-hanger endings, which keep the flow going in your story and keep the reader, well, 'hooked' into the story. This creates the 'waves' of action-and-rest that help your reader get excited and then take time to digest the story, all the while knowing that the next wave of activity/tension/action will be crashing ashore any moment now! When you begin your book with an intriguing paragraph, the reader wants to find out what it's all about.

The most intriguing first line hook I ever saw was: "I wasn't there when I died." I can't remember the name of the author or the title of the book, but that one line impressed me enough to remember it several years later - and to take the book home to read! If anyone out there knows the title of this book, please leave me a comment and let me know what it is!

So, we all know that your story needs a beginning, a middle, and an end, but did you know that this applies to each scene and chapter, too? This means your book would have twenty or more of these, depending on the number of scenes and chapters you have!

That's not as daunting as it sounds. You see, beginnings and ends are magical as far as your reader is concerned: they are the promise that keeps her reading from one chapter to the next, maybe even all night until she finishes the book.And isn't that a wonderful thought, that someone would say to you: 'Your book was so good, I just couldn’t put it down…' ?

How do we do this?

We start with hooks.


A hook is usually short, snappy and intriguing - usually no more than the first two paragraphs. It is written in such a way that it arouses the reader's curiosity, prompting her to read on to find out more. 

On a more pragmatic note, think of the 'loss leaders' in your local supermarket's weekly advertising flier. The bargain or 'special' lures you into the store, and before you know it your cart is overflowing with other purchases as well!

In our terms, the hook is like a 'special' - it lures the reader in and persuades her that she wants to read the entire book or chapter. Of course, unlike the supermarket's advertising, the rest of the 'goods' you're offering your reader are all high quality and great value!

The hook beginning grabs attention and leaves your reader asking questions such as who is this? Why is this happening? What comes next?

The opening hook for my romantic suspense, Another Man’s Son, from The Wild Rose Press, goes like this:

The growl of the powerful engine turned heads among the early tourist crowd as Ben Asher rode the Harley hog along the waterfront. It was early evening and the sun was just slipping down below the ocean, tickling the quiet wavelets with pink and purple and painting the sky rich shades of rose and crimson.

Who is Ben  Asher? Where is he? What is he doing? Why are people looking?

Another Chapter has one of the main characters, Ket Morgan Junior, declaring as the hook:

“No, Kathryn, dear – the boy has been kidnapped, but not by me.”

A kidnapped child, a frantic mother, an uncaring father? Don’t you just want to know what’s happening next?

And a later scene starts with this hook:

“Well, son, you’ve sure made a mess of everything as usual.I’m getting tired of having to clean up after you.”

Isn’t there something sinister about this? What was the mess that had to be cleaned up? And isn’t there a threat in the words?

The middle of your chapter or scene, like the middle of the book, will flow from the hook along the outline action that you have drawn up. The keyword is motion - keep the story moving along. As you will have seen from the writer's journey, or Hero's Journey, there is a flow to storytelling similar to sound waves through the air - the story starts off on an upward slope to a high tension event, slows down to let everyone catch their breath, then up we go again….with the lows getting slightly higher with each high until the final dénouement at the end of the book, where we tie up all the loose ends and let everyone relax again.

Each chapter and each scene start with a hook, flow through the middle, towards the end. And next Wednesday’s Writing is going to be about ‘cliffhanger’ endings that will have readers eager to get to the next hook beginning!


Partly excerpted from Naked Writing: The No Frills Way to Write Your Book!