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Guest Post from Becky Due

Becoming a Writer

I wrote, but I wasn’t serious about writing until the summer of 1995 when I sold my car, quit my job, and jumped on a greyhound bus with no idea where I was going. My life was a mess and I needed to find myself. I got off the bus to discover new places like Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC, before I ended up in Moorhead City near Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. There I rented a small house (I think it may have been haunted), bought a typewriter and started writing my story, which became my first novel, The Gentlemen’s Club: A Story for All Women.

“No matter where you go, there you are,” kept ringing in my mind. I had heard the saying years earlier but it didn’t make sense until I was alone, sitting in that house, looking for the answers that were hidden deeply inside of me. While writing my book I got honest with myself, and wanted to face my problems the way Angie, my main character, was facing hers. I had to stop running, get strong and stand up for my life. So with the first draft of the manuscript in my hands, I got back on the bus and headed back to Minnesota.

Once back in Rochester, Minnesota, I returned to my old job at Dison’s Drycleaners. I rented a hotel room; I had to pay rent by the week and had to share the shower with others, but at least I had my own toilet and sink. I liked it. The place was perfect for a writer—old, rundown, lots of character and lots of characters living there; I was one of them. With my feet planted firmly on the ground, I focused on work and my writing.

My writing was giving me purpose and a deeper understanding about life. Feeling confident that I wouldn’t run from my life anymore, and being tired of paying for phone calls and eating out for most of my meals, I decided it was time to find a place to live and sign a year’s lease like normal people. I rented an apartment in an old building—another great writing place. I lived above a variety of always failing businesses—furniture store, hobby shop, record store—and the people in the store below controlled the thermostat for my apartment. When the store was empty, I had no heat. So during the winter, I’d pull a folding chair in front of the open oven door, sit down and write for hours.

Around that time, my mother was cleaning closets in her house and wanted to get rid of a lot of old school art projects, report cards and other keepsakes from my younger years. She packaged it all up and mailed it to me. As I sifted through the box, throwing most of it away, I came across an old test comparing students in the same class throughout the state. As I looked down the column of my x’s, it was clear I was average in everything. But I noticed one x that was further to the right, meaning above average. I curiously followed the x to see what it represented—written expression. I started crying and knew this was a sign that I was on the right path.

Never having had a father, I was taken in by a man who owned a small publishing company. Ray offered to help me but refused to publish my books, claiming I needed a bigger publisher. I took the bus or walked to his place almost every day after work all year long. I didn’t have a car, a warm coat or winter boots, but I’d trudge my way through the Minnesota seasons to his place to use his computer and to get his guidance. Ray disciplined me, motivated me, inspired me and encouraged me to be great, just the way I envisioned a real father would.

At night I’d leave his place and walk two blocks to catch the bus back to my cold apartment. If I was early, I’d step inside the gas station and grab a vanilla coffee from the machine before getting on the bus. Then high on caffeine, I’d write into the early morning hours.

I was writing constantly but publishing nothing, so Ray helped me send out about fifty query letters. Eight agents were interested in The Gentlemen’s Club until they read the manuscript. I was told that the story was good, but the manuscript needed some work. I couldn’t afford a professional editor, so my written books were put on hold and I continued writing.

In spite of this, my many rejection letters gave me a sense of accomplishment—at least I had tried. Every small step I took in my writing career was a step in the right direction, and one step closer to achieving my goals. So for two years, I lived a disciplined life of work, writing and living below my means. I went back to school and I started volunteering with Victim Services. I wanted to do better, and I wanted to be better.

When the hard work paid off and I had money in savings, I started looking for an editor and investigated independent publishing, which is basically starting your own publishing company. You put up all the money, do all the marketing, promotion, etc., and hope your book sells. The idea was exciting: Instead of going back through the long route of looking for an agent to look for a publisher, I started Due Publications, found amazing people to help me and the rest is history. I published The Gentlemen’s Club, Blue the Bird On Flying, Touchable Love, Returning Injury, The Dumpster and I’m working on my sixth book, and all of my books have either won or been finalists in several national independent competitions. I’ve made many mistakes; I’m still making them, but I love my career.

The Last Page by Lacy Camey

Norah Johnson needs to escape. After her boyfriend, who happens to be a Major League baseball player, announces he is leaving her for another women- who he got pregnant- Norah needs to mend her broken heart. And get away from the paparazzi cameras. Along with her sister and best friend, the three girls head to a summer beach house to clear their minds and find happiness. Norah even starts to attend therapy classes, and tries to get back on track with her clothing line that she is designing. But while there, Norah vents her personal feelings about her ex and the break-up in a journal, and flings that journal into the ocean, never to be seen again. Or so she thought.
The Last Page by Lacy Camey is a light romance story about finding love again after heartbreak. Norah is a sweet character that chick lit fans will be able to relate with, and it was fun watching her create her clothing line and everything that is involved with that process. The close bond that she shares with her sister and friend is also inviting, and the next two books in the series focuses on their characters, which really intrigues me. I did think that book skipped around a bit too much, like when Norah finds out her sister’s fiancée is just using her. She overhears his phone conversation, but then nothing really happens with that plot twist. That happened a few times throughout, almost like the book was just too fast-paced. Other than that, I enjoyed reading The Last Page and will be looking forward to more from this Lacy Camey series.
[Rating: 3.5]

In My Mailbox: Week of September 18

In My Mailbox: Week of September 18

Title: High Heels and Slippers
Author: Ella Slayne
Received: From Ella Slayne via CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: Meet Josie Jenkins, a Brit living in Texas, fan of indulgent body-scrubs and the odd glass of wine. She’s currently Customer Service Manager at Harpers & Green Co, home of high-end shirts and also, rather unhelpfully, Bob Green: her ex-boyfriend (who also happens to be married). She is thousands of miles away from home and her job appears to be in jeopardy – safe to say, Josie’s going through a wobbly patch. So when the rather handsome Callum Doherty, (just picture blue eyes and Irish good looks) begins flirting with Josie, she is thrilled…until she realizes she’s not the only girl at work with her eye on the office heart-throb. How can she compete against her pert-bottomed rival from the accounts department? Josie’s love-life takes another complicated and unexpected turn when out of the blue Josie receives a mysterious Facebook friend request from her high-school sweetheart, Tom Barker. Tom is keeping something from her, drawing her in and causing her to question if it’s time to reconnect the past with the present. It’s time for some soul searching. Will Josie take the emotional trip back to the UK or try her luck with the handsome Mr. Doherty? Is there heartbreak ahead in Josie’s future?

Title: Three Daves
Author: Nicki Elson
Received: From Nicki Elson
Synopsis: Jennifer Whitney was the last American virgin. At least that s what she felt like in 1986 as she began her sophomore year at Central Illinois University. She was proud of her decision to wait for the right guy, and yet she was getting restless. It seemed like everyone around her was doing it… and having fun doing it, too. She didn t want to become the campus slut or anything, but surely there was a difference between a trashy skank and a nice girl with a little experience. Perhaps it was time to stop relying on fate to guide her and instead take matters into her own hands. And with that realization, Jen decided to find the one and lose her virginity, although not necessarily in that order…
Nicki Elson has created a heroine that everyone will cheer for as she comes of age in the mid-1980s. Whether you lived through the decade and survived the bad hair and acid-wash jeans, or just heard the wild stories, readers of all ages will identify with Jen Whitney as she searches for the one, enjoying her romantic ups and downs, made even more entertaining by Nicki Elson s amusingly wry sense of humor.

Title: The Kingdom of Childhood
Author: Rebecca Coleman
Received: From Meryl L Moss Media Relations
Synopsis: THE KINGDOM OF CHILDHOOD is the story of a boy and a woman: sixteen-year-old Zach Patterson, uprooted and struggling to reconcile his knowledge of his mother’s extramarital affair, and Judy McFarland, a kindergarten teacher watching her family unravel before her eyes. Thrown together to organize a fundraiser for their failing private school and bonded by loneliness, they begin an affair that at first thrills, then corrupts, each of them. Judy sees in Zach the elements of a young man she loved when she was only a child. But what Zach does not realize is that– for Judy– their relationship is only the latest in a lifetime of disturbing secrets.

Future Tour: Dollars to Donuts by Kathleen Kole

Kathleen will be on tour November 7-28 with her novel Dollars to Donuts Take one newspaper columnist; move her from the anonymity of her home…

Challenge:Post Reviews:September

September Challenge Reviews January Reviews February Reviews March Reviews April Reviews May Review June Reviews July Reviews August Reviews Please note this is not the…

Blog Tour Sign Up: Chosen by Denise Grover Swank

Everything Emma Thompson owns fits in a suitcase she moves from one roach infested motel to another. She and Jake, her five year old son who can see the future, are running from the men intent on taking him. Emma will do anything to protect him even when it means accepting the help of a stranger named Will. Jake insists she needs Will, but Emma’s never needed help before. And even though she’s learned to trust her son, it doesn’t mean she trusts Will.

Mercenary Will Davenport lives in the moment. Hauling Emma to South Dakota should have been an easy job, but his employer neglected to tell him about Emma’s freaky son and the gunmen hot on her trail. Instinct tells him this job is trouble, but nothing can prepare him for Jake’s proclamation that Will is The Chosen One, who must protect Emma from the men hunting her power. A power she doesn’t know she has.

Will protects Emma and Jake on a cross-country chase from the men pursuing them, while struggling with memories from his past, his apprehension of Jake, and his growing attraction to Emma. Will’s overwhelming urge to protect Emma surprises him, especially since it has nothing to do with his paycheck and possibly everything to do with the tattoo Jake branded on his arm. Rich and powerful men are desperate to capture Emma, and Will must discover why before it’s too late.

Chosen was winner of The Beacon– 2010 Unpublished Division, Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal category.

On Tour: Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes by Denise Grover …

Denise is on tour August 22- September 5 with her novel Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes “It all started when I saw myself dead.” For…

Guest Post by Susan Fales-Hill

The realization that one MUST write books can dawn slowly, over the course of a lifetime, or in a Joan-of-Arc-hears-a-voice sudden flash of inspiration. I had my first epiphany during a dismal meeting with T.V. network executives as I burned at the stake of their unrelenting criticism of a script I had written about a subject I knew cold: glamorous black divas. It was 1998 and I was a thirteen year sitcom veteran having worked as a writer on “The Cosby Show, “as Executive Producer/Headwriter of its spinoff, “A Different World,” two other less memorable shows, and served as Consulting Producer on Brooke Shields’ comedic vehicle, “Suddenly Susan.” (Thirteen years may not sound like much, but TV writers’ careers are measured in dog years, we are hideously overworked and grossly overpaid. For that decade plus, I had no life, and was mother to a large brood of handbags) This was the tail end of the last great Golden Age of Network television, a time before niche networks and the proliferation of reality shows featuring disgraced politicians and Republican baby mamas mamboing their way to image rehabilitation and big cash prizes. During a lull between show running jobs, I had agreed to write a pilot, with Whoopi Goldberg as producer, about a Broadway diva who had fallen on hard times. Having grown up around a group I like to call the Original Divas, Diahann Carrol, Eartha Kitt, Lena Horne, my own mother, Broadway legend, Josephine Premice (who would awaken me every morning with a song, a homemade chocolate shake and wearing her false eyelashes,) I knew the breed. I more than knew them, had a Doctorate in Advanced Divology.
. Rather than comment on the story, the executives launched into an attack on the depiction of the “Diva. “ They reeled off a list of actresses they considered divas, all of them white, and though all talented, more “Mae West” raunchy/vulgar than naughty and refined like the performers I’d known all my life. Whoopi objected: “None of the women you’ve mentioned is a woman of color.” “Our Yoga instructor is Indian,” the executives countered brightly without a trace of irony. With all due respect to this no doubt lovely and obviously enterprising woman, I submit that opening a Yoga studio in a strip mall in Santa Monica in the 1990’s doesn’t quite compare to changing the image of African American women from sexless, subservient mammies to sophisticated, empowered glamazons in the era of Jim Crow. Call me crazy. Beyonce, Halle Berry, Viola Davis, Angela Basset and scores of others owe their careers to the strides made by this prior generation of path breakers. But the executives were clearly oblivious to these truths. As they steamrolled over Whoopi’s comment and the original concept of the piece, I felt as if I had landed in the third circle of Dante’s Hell and was being punished for all eternity for a crime I didn’t remember committing. Aside from the fact they had no frame of reference for the world, or the women we were depicting, they weren’t going to bother to do their research. I had had the privilege of working on groundbreaking shows that had systematically dismantled stereotypes, but in this case “the revolution (would) not be televised.” I knew in that moment that to do justice to the Original Divas, I would eventually have to turn to another medium.
I wish I could tell you, dear reader, that I stood up then and there, cast my pencil down before these benighted bores and declared “Enough is enough, I’m done with T.V.” In the first place, the discussion was taking place via phone, in a time before Skype, so the drama of my standing up and tossing said pencil to the ground would have been lost on them. In the second, I’m nothing if not practical and security oriented. It took a couple of more years to loose myself from television’s golden handcuffs. That same year, I sold a show to Showtime with Tim Reid that starred the incredible Pam Grier. For two seasons, we enjoyed much greater creative freedom . But I realized I still had not told my story. It was my husband who asked me one night over dinner: “Other than the money, what keeps you in TV?” I stared at him dumbly and looked down at my designer purse. I had to admit to myself that woman does not live by luxury accessories alone. It was time to take a chance. An article I wrote about growing up bi-racial in the 60’s and 70’s and not ending up in an asylum led me to immortalize my mother in a memoir, “Always Wear Joy,” published two years after her passing and the year my daughter was born.
All I can say, dear reader is, “once you go hardback, you never go back.” The work of writing books is far lonelier. I can no longer bounce ideas ofF an entire staff, but am reduced to talking to myself (hopefully not in public) until my editor weighs in on the first draft. And there is no one to fetch me cappuccinos at will. That said, the freedom to depict the world as I know it, big, messy, multicultural, and not be told that a character is too old (because she’s all of thirty two), too unlikeable, too exotic, too badly behaved, too too much is well worth the “sacrifices.”
My debut novel, “One Flight Up,” the first multicultural chick lit novel, is dedicated to the notion that we don’t pick our friends like Garanimal pajamas, (i.e.they don’t all match. ) Tired of books that end with an “I Do,” I wanted to explore the choices women face between marrying sexy Mario in the Mazerati, who rocks your world but won’t be there to change diapers, and Murray the Mortician who will, but between the sheets may make you feel like you’ re being embalmed. I’m now on book three and counting.
With each tome, I learn, grow, and hopefully improve. My television training served me well. I don’t treat deadlines as mere suggestions and I’m the first to edit myself. I don’t treat any part of my books like the stone tablets of Moses. Writing is re-writing. And so, I suppose I should thank the two executives whose whining incomprehension drove me to seek out new territory. And should book writing not pan out, I can always return to my first job out of high school and before college: peddling designer purses behind the counter at Gucci. Anyone for a calf-skin clutch?

susanfales-hill.com

In My Mailbox: Week of August 7

In My Mailbox: Week of August 7, 2011

Title: The Last Page
Author: Lacy Camey
Received: From Lacy Camey via CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: Norah Johnson is at a crossroads and is in desperate need to heal after a highly publicized breakup from her major league baseball player boyfriend. To escape, she moves to her summer home at the beach with her sister and best friend where she journals, attends therapy and works on her pending clothing line. When a gorgeous stranger finds her lost journal, he seeks to find the author and make her fall in love with him. But is Norah ready to love again?

Book 1 in the romantic comedy trilogy of living, loving, and laughing again; a Norah Johnson story.

Title: Scorpio Rising
Author: Monique Domovitch
Received: From Monique Domovitch via CLP Blog Tours
Synopsis: Some people have ambitions so great, that to achieve them, they must put aside all else. Alexander Yvanov is such a man. Born in Brooklyn from an embittered mother, he climbs his way to a better life in New York. Thousands of miles away, beautiful Brigitte Dartois, also has big dreams and raging ambitions. This is the story of two people whose single-minded obsessions are put to the test when they meet. Will they choose love or success?
Monique Domovitch takes us on a breathtaking journey of twists and turns, from New York to Paris, in this, her stunning first novel, Scorpio Rising.

Title: Q
Author: Evan Mandery
Received: From Harper Collins
Synopsis: “You must not marry Q.” This is the fateful and heartbreaking message delivered to the protagonist by someone who knows him very, very well, and it comes deep into a sweet courtship all around New York City. Yet Q is the love of his life and they are engaged to be wed. But for clear and painful reasons, he knows that for her sake, he can’t go through with it. And so his journey begins, and he must find a way to spare Q any pain and embark on any new path possible to happiness—or any semblance thereof.
According to Booklist, Q is “a deeply funny, seriously smart novel, at times both romantic and pragmatic. Fans of Mark Kurlansky and Matthew Norman will appreciate Mandery’s eloquently witty authorial voice.”

Title: Jennifer’s Garden
Author: Dianne Venetta
Received: From Dianne Venetta
Synopsis: Dianne Venetta lives in Central Florida with her husband and two children–and her part-time Yellow Lab (Cody!). An avid gardener, she spends her spare time growing organic vegetables. Surprised by the amazing discoveries she finds there every day, she wondered, “Who knew there were so many similarities between men and plants?” What began as a brief hiatus from writing has blossomed into an ever-expanding home garden and blog at BloominThyme.com — stop by and share some tips! When she’s not knee-deep in dirt or romance, Dianne contributes garden advice (challenged!) for various websites (a crazy existence to be sure). But at the end of the day, if she can inspire someone to stop and smell the roses–or rosemary!–kiss their child and spouse good-night, be kind to a neighbor and Mother Earth, then she’s done all right.