A Twist of Fate

This post is going to be short and sweet. I am here to BRAG today!

I have fantastic news. Well it's great news for my family and all the mystery readers out there. As some of you know, my mother and sister have teamed up to write a novel. This has been a life long dream of theirs. So one day, they just decided to do it!

My mother is turning 85 next month and has macular degeneration so this is no easy feat as she can barely see the computer screen she is typing on. My sister is editing my mother's words and filling in the blanks. And trust me, this is no easy job either. I'm sure you can all relate on just how easy it would to be working side by side with your own mother's! Stubborn brains do tend to butt each other once in awhile. But they have made it work and are loving every second of it. They've had a few bumps along the road, but each bump teaches them something new.

Anyway, the first book of their series is titled Twist of Fate and is being published by Spectacle Publishing. It fits in the romance/mystery genre and should be out by the end of this month. As soon as the book is released, I will be posting an interview with my mom and sister so you can get a big taste of what it's all about.

For now, I'm only giving you a tiny morsel. However, I would like to share their blog link with you. My sister and mom are fantastic writers (yes I'm double bragging) so I think you will really enjoy their blog. I'd appreciate anyone who'd like to sign up and follow them. Remember, we all have been where they are today and just starting up. Where would we be if no one had followed us? So here is their link: http://swopeparente.wordpress.com/

Stay tuned!!

The Meaning of Fall

Fall is finally here! Yay!! No one is happier to see it come than this hot, sweaty, Lousiana girl.
I’ve decided Fall is my very favorite season. Finally, I can wake up in the morning without being drenched in sweat from the horrible humidity of the south.

 

 

And if I’m lucky, I might be able to find an orange leaf somewhere here in Louisiana. It’s not easy though. So instead, I just dream about all the beautiful colors blooming up north. When I lived in Ohio, I remember driving around for hours just oohing and aweing over all the gorgeous colors. It makes me happy to know that at least somewhere, the colors of orange, red, and yellow are popping out everywhere!

 

Here is a short, beautiful, and accurate description of autumn leaves.

 

 

Autumn Leaves
Autumn by Grace Paley
What is sometimes called a tongue of flame

 

 

 

 

Some other reasons I love fall are:

Going outside and feeling the crisp, fresh, cool breeze in the air.

Getting that feeling in the air that tonight would make a great chilli night!

Finally going on long walks again with the dogs. I refuse to do it during the summers down here.

The anticipation I feel knowing that soon, very soon, I’ll be able to throw on my sweats and cuddle under a nice soft blanket without having the fan blowing on me full blast.

The realization that soon, I can put on the boots that I love wearing so much! I love wearing sandals too but nothing makes me feel like I’m looking good more than a “hot looking” pair of boots!

 And although it irks me at first to walk in the stores and the Christmas and Halloween decorations are already out, I love shopping for those decorations. I always decorate for Christmas but have just started decorating for fall the last few years and am loving it!

I love this time of year because of everything coming up. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Yes it can be a rat race and a lot of hard work preparing for all those holidays, but it’s a time for families to be together. Just thinking about it all makes me feel happy and giddy inside. I just love it!

And yes, I’m one of those that has already gotten a good start on my Christmas shopping so that is a big part of why I get excited this time of year. However, I’m also one of those very impatient people who can’t stand shopping after Thanksgiving and dealing with all the crowds. That just makes me grumpy, tired, and wishing it was all over! So I try to do as much as possible beforehand.

So I’ll leave you all with something to think about. The following is something I found when I asked “Google” what does Autumn symbolize? I thought it was beautiful and interesting.

The trees sap returning to the base....our spirits turning from outward needs to inward reflection.

The colors change as our bodies change from young and vibrant to character lines and scars.

The winds swirling the leaves as life swirls around us ever changing.

The chill in the air is the chill of loss of love, dreams, direction.

The animals storing food radiates self preservation and a promise of tomorrow.

 

 

So do you have a favorite season other than fall?

 

A future illustrator - Jody Labauve from Walker, LA

The other night I attended a very special Book Festival at our local Walker Elementary School in Walker, LA. I read my children's picture book The Pea in Peanut Butter to four different groups of kids. They were amazing! While the kids waited for my reading, they colored some coloring pages from my book.

Below are some that a little girl named Jody Labauve and (I think) her sister Mady Labauve colored for me!! It meant so much to me that I promised Jody I'd post them on my blog. She is an excellent colorer and so is her sister! I think we may have our next illustrator in the works. Look how she highlighted the hair and the hands in all the right spots and even textured the walls! I am truly impressed. Thank you Jody & Mady, I will treasure these forever!

What do you think?

WRITING HOLIDAY STORIES

Can you believe it? The Holidays are almost here! Don’t run and hide, it won’t do you any good.

They will be here before we know it. I actually love this time of year not only because the weather finally starts to cool down, but I love all the excitement of what the holidays bring. I love the smells, the colors, and the fluttery feeling in my stomach I get knowing that it’s fall and soon I can put on my sweats!

So, now that the holidays are coming up, have you thought of writing a holiday story? I’ve often wondered if there was an advantage to writing a holiday story or a disadvantage? Holiday stories are somewhat rare so if a publisher is particularly looking for one, you might have a great chance of getting it published. However, if they aren’t, then how good are your chances? Plus most publishers ask that when you send in a holiday story, you do so at least 12 months in advance. So that means waiting forever to actually get it published. But that really should be no hindrance since most of us writers have to wait forever to get a story published anyway!

I ran across an interesting article with tips on how to write an effective holiday story so I thought I’d share. I couldn’t find an author's name but it did say it was edited by Lucas Halbert and 7 others.

Here is the article:

When we write stories  with the purpose of sharing them with others, we enter into an agreement where we allow our reader to see a glimpse of our heart, our souls and our memories. If we truly want them to be immersed in the tale, we actively immerse ourselves in those memories so that a glimmer of what we saw, heard and felt comes through.

This is especially true with holiday tales. The best way to convey a holiday scene is to take a trip back in time through the wonderful world of our unconscious. Here are some great ways to delve back into your childhood memories and incorporate them into your holiday tales.

Sit in a darkened room and close your eyes.

Allow yourself to go back in time to the very first Christmas that you can remember. Take a deep breath and relax. What are the scents, sounds and feelings that come up? What is the first picture that pops into your mind? Is it the sound of children racing down the stairs that comes to you first? The feel of your heart pounding when you awoke and found that Christmas was really here? The sweet sugary smell of Christmas cookies baking in the oven? The warmth of your parents’ blankets as you bounced on them, anxious to wake them up?

Recreate the scene

1. If a scent triggers your memories, you can either bake the cake or cookie or brew the eggnog. Or you can get one of those scented candles and simply light it.

 2. If the feel of sweaters immediately transports you back to your snow throwing days, slip one on. If you are like me and live in Florida, turn the air way up first. Close your eyes and hear the sound of children shouting as they try to nail each other with snowballs. Picture their fresh flushed faces.

3. If there is a particular holiday character that sparks your memories, rent holiday movies. Some of my favorites are Frosty the Snowman and Miracle on Thirty fourth street. Watch one for a while, until you get the holiday feeling, then turn the sound off. Watch the pictures and let your mind go. 

Put yourself back in that period time

If you are writing about a little girl in a big family, think back to what holiday dinners were like for you. Did everyone talk at once? Does your character like this or does she feel overwhelmed? What is it like to be the smallest one in a room full of adults? Is there a cousin or neighbor that is constantly picking on her? Do the children get bored and decide to explore the forbidden attic? Once you have a scene in mind, write down all of these questions. Don’t worry about answering them until you have run out of questions. Then think back to the picture, sound or feeling that you associate with and answer the questions.

Myself, I've actually only written one holiday story and it was Halloween. I didn’t want to scare the little ones so I picked a pumpkin as my protagonist. I have yet to get it published, but have to admit it was one of the funnest stories for me to write so far! I guess I need to revise it again and start resubmitting.

How about you? What holiday stories have you written?

 
 

Back to life!!

Well darn! I'm back from vacation and life is back to normal. Why is it that vacations are so short and go by so quickly but real life seems to drag on forever before another vacation comes along.

Although my vacation wasn't very relaxing, it was fun. Our trip home to Ohio went really well, we saw lots of old friends and all of my husbands family. I even got to have dinner with my best friend and she brought some surprise friends with her. What fun that was!

Our stop in Tennessee to check out possible retirement homes was also a lot of fun. Although we didn't really find our perfect house, we did narrow down the area we will probably retire at. It's a lake and golfing community called Tellico Village and is about 20-30 miles south of Knoxville depending on what section of the village you live in.

But houses can be so deceiving from the online photo's!! Either we saw houses with gorgeous views but the inside was a gut job and really outdated, or we saw gorgeous houses inside but no view. And a view of the water, golf course or woods is a must have on my list. I tried to download some pictures for you to see but my computer has decided to take forever and I don't have that much patience today. So no pictures this time.

As far as my writing, I did absolutely nothing towards it for those 2 weeks. It felt good but strange. Not sure I liked it at all! But now it's time to get back into the swing of things. I'm working on 4 or 5 new picture books to submit so guess I better get cracking! Goodbye vacation... hello life!!

Finally... A Vacation!!!

Finally a vacation is near!! Since being laid off from my job in January, my husband and I haven’t gone anywhere, just been stuck here in our little cocoon. So we are really looking forward to getting away. Unfortunately, ours will not be a restful, blissful, romantic vacation.

First off we’ll be visiting my husband’s family back in Ohio and attending his oldest nephew’s wedding. We are so excited for him but it’s a bit “unbelieveable” in our eyes. We still remember the little goofy boy who was always laughing, telling stupid jokes, and was always wanting to play cards. We don’t remember him ever having a girlfriend. But finally he has found a wonderful girl and boy has he grown up. It’s wonderful to see.

I’ll also be hooking up with a few high school buddies while I’m there and seeing lots of old friends at the wedding so it should be lots of fun.

After we leave Ohio we’ll be heading towards the Knoxville, TN area to look for retirement opportunities. We live in Baton Rouge, LA now but it’s not home to us. My husband’s job has transferred him many times around the south but no place has really felt like home. I suppose for me it’s the heat!! The summers here are unbearable to me. If you know me at all, you know how I hate to sweat! And especially when I hop out of bed first thing in the morning drenched in sweat which happens for about 6 months out of the year down here. It does nothing but make me grumble and I’m twice the grumpy morning person as usual. Plus down south, we don’t see the four seasons which I miss terribly. We see about 1 orange leaf in the fall and maybe two snowflakes every 5 years.

Tennessee is about halfway between our families so we’ve pretty much picked it as a great place to retire. The weather is great there, they have awesome lakes and mountain views, plus there is no state tax!! My husband loves that part.

Gorgeous!!



I want this view while I'm drinking my coffee on my deck!

Anyway, we are going to tour a few areas, house hunt and hopefully narrow down the exact area we want to focus on. My husband and I have house hunted what seems like a gazillion times in our life so it’s a good thing I love it. And I really do. It’s one of my favorite things to do! However, my husband and I have differences in opinions so pray for us that we don’t end the trip in some kind of fight!!

We are the kind of house hunters who want to start as early as possible and don’t want to quit until there is not one more house available to see that day. So it won’t be relaxing but I’ll still have fun!

So this post is to let everyone know that I won’t be updating my blog for a few weeks. I probably won’t get one bit of writing done because the days are going to be filled with other things. Hopefully I won’t go into “non-writing” convulsions !! Anyway, have a great few weeks everyone and I’ll be back up to full speed again after labor day.

Author Interview with Harri Romney

Today I’d like to introduce to you a fellow children’s picture book author, Harri Romney whom I had the pleasure of interviewing. She has just released two new picture books titled CLUNKEY MONKEY and A DOG CALLED DOG. Harri not only writes the stories she is also the illustrator.

                                                                                         ABOUT HARRI

I’m an English author / illustrator of children’s picture books only. Although having had a varied career, I’ve worked with children for quite a few years, spending most this time employed within Early Years and Primary education. Her stories are children’s fantasies, mostly written in narrative verse. She considers rhyming verse to be one of those cherished characteristics, that modern children should be given the opportunity to enjoy.

First off, could you give us a little teaser about what Clunky Monkey is about?

Clunky Monkey is on her way back home when she discovers a picture of a beautiful dancing couple.  She goes to visit the wise gazelle, in order to find out exactly who these strange dancers are.  Fascinated by what she learns, she wants to learn this ‘ballet way’ too, but Clunky Monkey’s family are a funky disco dancing troop, therefore it will not be easy for her to break from tradition to becoming a ballerina instead.  The accident prone monkey tries to follow her dreams, even though most of the jungle creatures ridicule her.

What made you write a story about a monkey?

I honestly can’t remember...   I remember the inspiration came to me one morning. I can even recollect where I was standing too, but cannot recall exactly what trigger inspired that picture book.

How did you come up with your cute title?

I do remember that a book about a funky monkey seemed too cliché; this is how I deviated from writing about this.  I recollect changing the original storyline from a monkey that should have been funky, into an accident prone monkey instead (while she was trying to learn ballet).

What process do you use to do your illustrations?

Examples of my illustration work can be found on the link http://www.harriromney.com/gallery-4/ .  I’m what you’d call a technophobe, so I just prefer to use pencils and paint pens rather than Wacom technology.  My husband enhances colours and removes smudging using a computer, before publishing the pictures. 

Which is more of your passion, illustration or writing? How long have you been doing each?

In reality, I haven’t been doing either of them for very long.  Sadly, it was the death of my brother in law a few years ago, which inspired me to fulfil my ambitions (one was to write a children’s book).  I really don’t mind whether I write or illustrate… they’re both necessary in order to get my work done.  Sometimes I need a break from one; but at other times I prefer to do the other.  After sending off quite a few manuscripts to agents (and receiving just as many rejections back), I decided to publish my work on Kindle instead – but I needed to get the illustrations done first (I’d not drawn anything for 20 years).  After joining some networking sites, I had an unpleasant experience with one illustrator who tried to hard sell me his work (after I’d complimented him on it).  Anyway following this incident I decided that if I was ever going to get my work published, I’d need to have a go at illustrating myself… so I did.  I never intended to illustrate; in fact I was scared stiff at the mere thought of doing so. 

Do you have a goal with your writing that you want to achieve? If so, how long do you think it will te you to achieve it?

I don’t really have a goal … I achieved the initial goal to get one children’s book published.  I’d always had an ambition to write a book since I was around seven years old, which never seemed to fade.  However, after completing my first story, I was emotional; I felt a real sense of achievement because of the little manuscript I’d created.  Afterwards my head was buzzing with so many more ideas or quirky titles, and I had to start keeping a notepad nearby at all times. 

That very first story became part of the series ‘Winston and Fairy’s Adventures’, which has been dedicated especially to my brother in law.  For this reason, when the first paperback from this series ‘Winston and Fairy: A New Sleigh for Santa’ is published in 2012, some of the proceeds will go towards supporting the ‘National Ankylosing Spondylitis Society’, which researches the condition that my brother-in-law tragically died from. 

Presently, I’m in the process of illustrating any remaining books that I’ve written right now (as there are about twenty books), but I’ll see what happens afterwards… Whatever life does next is what’s meant to happen.   Away from the writing and illustrating life, I really want to concentrate on my academic studies.

Clunky Monkey is written in Rhyme. Are all your stories written this way?

Most of them are written in verse.  Out of twenty stories, there are only three that aren’t, but they’re lovely stories too.

What inspired you to become a children’s book writer?

I’m told that I’m like Peter Pan, refusing to grow up.   It’s the experiences that children and I share a love of such as celebrations, fairy tales, mythical characters, snowy scenery and nature and so on, which inspire me.   Additionally studying childcare, working with children or being a mother, has partly helped me to understand children’s likes, dislikes, or their thought processes and capabilities.  Plus  I’ve read countless picture books to my own children every day, since they were both only weeks old, so perhaps picture books are the genre that I’ve been the most exposed to (apart from academic literature).

What are you working on next?

I am finishing off the illustrations to my remaining stories right now, which will take me at least another year or two.  Although I have actually written (and edited) the first two books from my next series, but that really is a long term plan.

What is the single most important thing you have learned from your writing to publication journey?

Writing and illustrating is not my main job; it’s more like an interest.  I’ve learned that within this journey, you need to have a great deal of stamina to accept plenty of rejection, and always have an alternative plan to help you move forward, if you really want to be published.  Don’t take things too much to heart or you could walk about feeling quite despondent; writing/illustrating is so competitive.  The flip-side is that, it can be extremely rewarding too – just through finding out what you can achieve on a personal level. 

My personal experience (as a published author), began on Kindle.  I found that picture books which are only available on Kindle or iPad, don’t seem that popular among parents yet (I’ll be the first to admit that I’d not let my children free with these gadgets either).  I believe that for this reason and other reasons, paperback or hardback books remain the preferred presentation for picture books, hence why I made the decision to get my work published in paperback earlier this year.

I am not with a main publisher.  I’m actually using a micro-publisher who prints on demand, and being rather shy, I’m far more comfortable with this strategy anyway right now.  However, marketing the work yourself is extremely difficult; that’s the downside ( I firmly believe that confidence is essential for marketing).

What is your definition of success as an author?

Being a successful author is achieving what you set out to achieve on your own personal level.  That answer would vary according to who you asked.  I wrote one children’s book and then got it published (the fact that I illustrated it myself, and then went on to write many more stories has been a real bonus – and a confidence boost).  Hence even though I’m not famous, I’d consider myself to be successful … Others would disagree with that.   How would you define success Allyn – I’ll bet your answer will be vastly different to mine?

Where is Clunky Monkey available for purchase?

My books are available to purchase from the main online retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones and more…

What else have you written and where can readers find your work?

‘Clunky Monkey’, ‘A Dog called Dog’ and more recently ‘Lord Tarquinius Snout and the Vacuum of Doom’ are now available to purchase online in paperback, through most main retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Waterstones.  Details regarding my publications can also be found on www.harriromney.com.

                                                    Review of Clunky Monkey by Allyn M. Stotz

Who doesn’t love a Clunky Monkey! Well this Clunky Monkey wanted to change from her families’ way of funky disco dancing. She wanted to dance like a ballerina. So she finds her graceful giraffe friends and asks them to teach her. But, it wasn’t so easy for this Clunky Monkey. She had to practice day and night!

This story is told in rhyme with a good message about going after what you really want. The repetitive line “your ballet dancing nonsense is spoiling the day!” really added a charming touch to this little story. The ending has a very satisfying conclusion and will leave readers with a chuckle.

The illustrations are cute and will have the little ones laughing!

Thanks to Harri for giving me the opportunity to interview her, it's been a pleasure! I wish her much success with everything she does.