WOOHOO! Kindle Countdown starts TODAY!

Heads up! I'm having a Kindle Countdown on the The Shell Keeper (first book in the Keeper Series) STARTING TODAY! So if you got a new Kindle for Christmas-or just haven't gotten around to reading it, now's the time to pop over to Amazon and get The Shell Keeper on your Kindle. Starting tomorrow it will be 99 cents for a few days, then it will go up to $1.99 and finally back to $2.99 on January 3. Don't wait, grab it now while it's only 99 cents! CLICK HERE!

Happy Birthday Jane!

If, through some miracle of longevity, Jane Austen were still alive, she'd be 242 years old today. Think about it, just how is it that this female author, writing in a genre (the novel) that was frowned upon in her time, is still lauded today. It's not just that the books are exceedingly well written...there are other books that some might argue are greater 'works of fiction'. But Jane's stories speak so completely to the heart of humanity that they have become timeless.

While it's true, a woman's fortunes no longer hinge on 'making a good match', anyone who is between a rock and a hard place in their lives can appreciate the pictures her words drew of characters who hoped and dreamed, despite the odds, who sometimes felt resigned or beaten, but ultimately through fate or their own efforts, found what they longed for.

In Jane's day, a woman had very little control over these things, and it wasn't all about having the comfort of a nice home, a hopefully loving husband and financial security. It might truly be about having a home at all and some sort of security, making her dependent upon the charity of others for any comfort in life.

Things have certainly changed! But Jane is a stunning example of a woman who made her own choices, as best we can tell from what history has handed down to her readers. In her later years her writing did offer financial support for herself and her family. But she found this success with a kindly yet biting wit that still comes through in her pages. Take as proof the opening sentence of 'Pride and Prejudice'...

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." 

In those first few words she sums of the mores of the time, makes fun of them, and establishes one of the themes of the book. When you understand where she is writing from, you understand that that is not some weighty well of words that leaves you pondering--it should make you laugh. I'm sure it did her, and those who read it at the time.

Writing in and for her time is part of what made her timeless. She was born in England at the start of the American Revolution and during her life her country was at war, either with America or France, more often than not. Open criticism of traditional values, culture or politics could have serious consequences for yourself and your family. She toed the line nicely between gently prodding society and committing treason.

True, she probably would have fit in well with the 'Me Too' movement, as proposed in a recent Washington Post article, but there was so much more to her decisions. While she may have chaffed at the royal request to dedicate her book 'Emma' to the notoriously randy prince regent, she was targeting so much more than men behaving badly. She had society in her sites and she hit her target so incredibly well, and with both humor and insight, that both Jane, and her work remain relevant 242 years later.

Happy Birthday Jane!

A Few Writer's Habits, Tools and Favorite Foods!

Lately I’ve been reading about the writing habits of different authors on Tony Rich’s extremely entertaining blog, The Writing Desk. It’s definitely a fun ‘time killer’ for readers and writers alike, if you’re looking for something like that.

And it’s really a fascinating topic. I have a feeling there’s probably a book to be written on snacking habits alone! I personally know authors who set up their writing table with Twizzlers and Oreos—that’s a little too much sugar for my brain. I tend toward tea or coffee. Daphne Du Maurier stoked her creativity with cigarettes and Fox’s Glacier Mints. Agatha Christie, who grew up in Devon, was so partial to the heavy cream of the region that she kept a cup by her typewriter to sip as she wrote.  (I can feel my arteries hardening even as I write that sentence!)

Of course, there’s a lot of strong coffee going down too, but many, Stephen King included, start the day with tea. Michael Crichton, however, was thinking ahead by having a ham and cheese sandwich pre-made and sitting alongside a diet coke in his fridge, ready for lunch. I wonder if he had a certain word count he had to hit before he allowed himself to break for lunch.

Ultimately, no matter the snack, they all had to actually sit still and WRITE, how they get there, and how they actually transferred their thoughts to the written page, has as many variations as snowflakes in a storm.

Hemingway liked to wake early and write before he did anything else-including dressing. He wrote longhand in small notebooks, on paper, in coffee shops or in his bedroom/office, keeping a daily tally of his word count (500 was the goal...I’m assuming they were 500 VERY good words!). Typing was often done standing up, which might become a new norm with some of the pop-up style desk tops that are out there now. I can’t blame any author who sits for hours at a time if they enjoyed standing and stretching their legs now and then while writing too.

Agatha Christie kept voluminous notebooks to catalog multiple ideas...not always in any recognizable order. She’d often go on long walks, particularly when she stayed at her country home, Greenway, which was near the sea. She’d compose aloud, work out dialogue, and then return home to her trusty Remington Victor T portable typewriter.

Naturally, Jane Austen took quill in hand to write. History(and Jane’s relatives) has passed down scant details of her process, but we do know she often wrote at a very small table and in her later years at Chawton Cottage, a home provided by her brother that she shared with her mother and sister, Cassandra, she used a writing box. It had a lid that tilted up to write on and the bottom opened to store her pages. I think Jane was something of a ‘pantser’, to a point. By which I mean she dove right into her stories and wrote ‘by the seat of her pants’, rather than voluminous pre-plotting. As a result, many of the pages that remain are sometimes thickly edited with multiple lines crossed out and new sections inserted.

Despite the advent of the computer age, many authors still love to write longhand. Some, like Stephen King, prefer the feel of the fountain pen-a marvelous instrument I also love...though not for composing fiction. J.K. Rowling wrote longhand because she couldn’t afford a typewriter or computer, and still writes her first drafts that way. It must be a tactile feel, the physical transfer of thought to pen to page, and for many it still works best.

These days, you eventually have to sit at the computer and create the document that will become your book.  Like Christie, I’m a lover of notebooks filled with thoughts, scene ideas, research, etc.  But when it comes to actually writing I need that keyboard. For me, I just can’t write fast enough to get my words down longhand. I’ve tried dictating...but as Christie found out, the sound of your voice is an odd sensation that doesn’t quite go with the story. For me, the words flow fastest, smoothest, and most creatively when my fingers are on a keyboard.

Of course...there are those days when words just won’t come. But that’s a topic for another blog!