The Fun of Research: #Travel & California Gold Country @LyndiLamont
March 16, 2017 by Linda McLaughlin in category The Romance Journey by Linda Mclaughlin tagged as California, gold country, historical romance, Linda McLaughlin, research, Travel, Western romance, writing
One of the most enjoyable parts of researching a new book is when I get to travel to the location where the book is set. That’s the case with my latest release, Lily and the Gambler, a Western historical romance set in California’s Gold Country.
Western romance is popular again right now, but most of the books are set in other states, ones that are more associated with ranching, like Montana and Texas. In California, Western history means gold mining towns.
My husband and I toured California Gold Country twice some years ago and I fell in love with it. The area is best enjoyed by driving State Highway 49. We started at the southern end, in Mariposa, and drove north to Sacramento, and then Grass Valley and Nevada City, where my book is set Valley in September 1868. I recall scribbling descriptions of the scenery as we drove along.
She watched mile after mile of open spaces pass by, all bathed in brilliant sunlight. In the distance, clusters of dark green trees dotted a hillside, standing out in contrast to the lighter yellow-green of the grass. Wispy white clouds, without a hint of rain in them, streaked the sky, separating shades of blue ranging from pale turquoise to bright azure.
We made the trip twice, first strictly as a vacation, though I kept thinking how I’d like to set a book in the area. The second was a research trip for me, if not for my DH. At one point, he threatened to divorce me if I dragged him through one more mining museum!
A lot of the old Victorian homes have been turned into bed and breakfasts, and we took advantage of that to stay in some lovely old homes.
Interesting stops along the way include:
Sonora, a lovely little town that hosts the Railtown 1897 State Historic Park. For the kid in all of us.
Columbia State Historic Park, the best preserved Gold Rush town.
California Columbia carriage in a real old Western Gold Rush Town in USA
Angels Camp, where Mark Twain heard a story on which he based his short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”
Placerville, formerly nicknamed Hangtown for the zeal of its law enforcement.
And my favorite, Grass Valley, a charming town with the attraction of having the wonderful Empire Mine State Historic Park, a fascinating glimpse into the lives of 19th century miners. I could see the rudimentary escalator they used to convey the miners down into the shafts, holding their lunch boxes, spherical tins that held tea in the bottom and a pasty on top. At the boarding houses, the cooks carved each miner’s initials into one end of the dough before baking them.
Grass Valley was especially interesting to me because of the large Cornish population in the 19th century. This area had deep gold veins that couldn’t be panned. The Cornish miners were encouraged to come because of their experience in the tin mines of Cornwall, which were petering out. To this day, the Cornish pasty is a local treat, and the city still celebrates a Cornish Christmas. I chose to make my heroine a Cornish lass looking for a respectable husband. Of course, she falls in love with a gambler.
If you’re up this way, do take a side trip to Sacramento, the state capital, with its charming Old Sacramento historic area, and the amazing California State Railroad Museum. This is one of my all-time favorite museums. It was fun to climb aboard the old trains and imagine a different time.
California poppies
If Bob were still around, I’d be nagging him to take another drive north. After all the rain, the scenery should be gorgeous this spring, esp. when the poppies are in bloom.
by Linda McLaughlin
Blurb: Respectability is in the eye of the beholder, or so Lily hopes. After her lover’s death she pretends to be his widow and travels to California to marry a mine owner. Then she meets King Callaway, a charming gambler. King knows he’s found his Queen of Hearts. But can he convince her to take a chance on a foot-loose card sharp? Only Lady Luck knows for sure…
Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Linda McLaughlin grew up with a love of history, so it’s only natural that she sets most of her books in the past. She loves transporting her readers into the past where her characters learn that, in the journey of life, love is the sweetest reward. Linda also writes steamy romance under the name Lyndi Lamont, and is one half of the writing team of Lyn O’Farrell. A native of Pittsburgh, she now lives in Orange County, California.
Website: http://lindalyndi.com
Blog: http://lindalyndi.com/reading-room-blog/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LindaMcLaughlinAuthor
Twitter: @Lyndi Lamont https://twitter.com/LyndiLamont
How I Got Bit In The Butt And Survived!
February 20, 2017 by Meriam Wilhelm in category A Bit of Magic by Meriam Wilhelm, Writing, Writing: It's a Business tagged as editing, Meriam Wilhelm, self publishing, The Witches of New Moon Beach
This past year I authored my first fiction series, The Witches Of New Moon Beach. Like all new authors, I was totally excited to share what I had written and couldn’t wait to see my books posted up on Amazon. I had such a blast writing the series and had fallen in love with both my characters and my newly created beach city. I felt confident that my book covers were strong and that I had a solid plan for marketing each of the three (now four) books in the series.
Unfortunately for me, I let my excitement to share override my common sense. Sure, I had checked and rechecked for spelling errors and I even had three different people read my first book. I knew that there were individuals out there that you could pay to edit your books, check for typos, misused words or grammatical errors. But since I hadn’t yet made a dime I was resistant to spend money on the above mentioned even though in the back of my mind, I had a pressing fear that I might just have missed something. Grammar is just not my thing!
And so I proudly posted my first book for all to see and was immediately bitten in the butt by reviewers. Yes, there were a few kind comments, but then the bite came as I read “the grammatical errors were sometimes humorous” and “the book is filled with typos that simple editing could rectify.” One reader said I wrote like a teenager. Ouch!
How had this happened? I had done more than simple editing. What had I missed? I immediately took the book down and got some help. I repeatedly read the book back to front searching for errors. I tried out several editing software packages before purchasing Ginger and I ran book one past a high school English grammar teacher who I respected. I agonized before putting it back up. But the cleaning apparently worked since 73% of my reviews from then on were 4’s and 5’s and I’ve not been hit with negative remarks on spelling or typos again.
Let me say this clearly, I deserved to be bitten in the butt for posting a book with internal errors. I own this and boy did that hurt! I’m sure that I lost more than a few readers who were disappointed by my poor editing skills and either didn’t finish reading book one or never ventured toward purchasing books 2, 3 or 4. I’m saddened that they never got a chance to get to know my characters or to experience the magic within the pages.
Skip forward to my 5th book which will be out in early February 2017. I have spell checked it repeatedly, used my Ginger software for grammatical screening and had two different people read it for possible errors. However, this time, I’m also going to spend a few bucks to have a professional edit my book. Why? Because I can still remember how badly I felt when reading those negative reviews; reviews that I had earned. There is nothing worse than being disappointed in yourself.
I also learned something very important. It’s hard to see your own errors after you have lived with a story from birth to finish. I guess that I read right past mistakes more than once. My brain read the word site when I had actually spelled it sight. And semicolons took the place of far too many commas. I even failed to capitalize a word or two clearly by reading too quickly through the story.
In the end, I survived. Painful though it was, I learned a great deal from this experience. My counsel to you? Protect your butt – take your time, do your homework and then consider getting some professional help.
My best wishes to you as you successfully share your future stories with the world!
The one thing I know, after all my years as an elementary school principal, is that there is magic everywhere and in everyone. When I retired after 35 years in education, I longed to share all that I had learned and created several parenting books on topics from bullying to homework strategies. While I miss those enchanting moments with children and their parents, I always wanted to let my imagination run wild as I sought out my own magic and wrote about it. In short, I was lured into the world of fiction writing where I soon created my first series, The Witches of New Moon Beach. The first book, Morning Magic is currently FREE.
Inspiration isn’t hard to find as I have lived in Redondo Beach, California all my life and New Moon Beach might have more than a passing resemblance to my hometown. Every day I walk on the path that runs along the beach, sometimes with my sisters, but most often with my thoughts as I plot out my next book. I am long married and mom to three great grown kids. When I’m not writing or walking on the beach, you’ll find me sewing, reading or traveling and taking pictures.Feel free to check out my website: www.meriamwilhelm.com
Character Flaw(less)
February 16, 2017 by Rebecca Forster in category The Write Life by Rebecca Forster tagged as #amwriting, Rebecca Forster
Rebecca Forster
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How Mercy Street on PBS reminded me why I write romance by Jina Bacarr
February 11, 2017 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat tagged as 99 cents, alpha, billionaire, books, box set, Confessions of a Podcast Goddess, Jina Bacarr, Mercy Street, PBS, romance |
It’s been a rough week.
Make that year.
A lot of stuff going on in my life that sometimes makes me crumble in a heap and ask myself why I keep going.
But I do.
Because I like I what I do. Writing. Some days I love it, other days . . . well, you know the drill.
Recently, I’ve taken on a deadline to write a new book for a Kindle Worlds series (there’s nothing more gratifying than when you’re asked to write for a line), but it’s a short deadline and it’s a genre that’s different than what I’ve been doing (vampires as opposed to princesses — more about that as we hit that March deadline).
But I’m also in a box set with a novella I wrote that releases next week. Now, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with the PBS Civil War series, Mercy Street. It’s simple. After a grueling week of staying up as late as 6 a.m. every night to write my novel and make videos (I do it all — from the voiceovers to the production of the videos with music and graphics), I finally got to watch Episode 3 of Mercy Street.
But not until I uploaded video #18 tonight — yes, I made 18 + 2 more videos in the past week to promote the box set (a 60 second video for each author). Yes, 20 videos in all.
I was bleary-eyed, slumped over, sick of listening to myself on the videos, and crazed over trying to make them perfect little gems (they’re not, but I try).
Then I watched Mercy Street.
***Spoiler alert — if you haven’t seen Episode 3 of Mercy Street, you may want to come back when you have.
Now I love Dr. Foster, the hero. He’s a lot like the hero in my Kindle Scout winner, Love Me Forever (a Civil War time travel romance) and Nurse Mary is like my time traveling heroine. Mary is sick — and the new meanie on the show, a Union officer whose name I don’t want to remember, is sending her away from the hospital (and Dr. Foster).
This is where the resident female rival comes into play. You just can’t help but want to kick Nurse Hastings in the petticoats most of the time, but on this episode she’s a true romance heroine. We find out she lost her soldier love in another war and she has a change of heart about messing up the lives of our doctor and nurse. She sends Dr. Foster back to the hospital hotel in time for him to go to the docks to see Nurse Mary.
Here’s the moment that made my week:
When Dr. Foster jumps onto the steamboat taking our Mary away, he claims her as his patient and comforts her. When he takes her hand and their eyes meet, I wanted to cry. Then he gives her a book. Ulysses. As they quote from the Tennyson tome about not giving up, you know they love each other. He kisses her on the forehead and their hands try to hold onto to each other, but they’re forced to break away. But in spite of the war and the mean old Union major, we know somehow these two will be together again.
Made me proud to write romance.
Because love endures. In spite of everything.
And ain’t that grand.
============
Thanks for listening! And in case you’re wondering about all those videos I made, here’s the promo for our Facebook Party next Wednesday, Feb 15th 7:30-11 p.m. (CLICK here to see the vids)
Happily Ever Alpha Facebook Party February 15, 2017 from Jina Bacarr on Vimeo.
See you next time!
Jina
PS — I’m worried about Nurse Mary. She may be sicker than we thought. Tune in next week to find out. I know I’ll be watching . . .
PPS — if you’re curious about the Kindle Scout program:
***You can read my posts about my experience with the Kindle Scout program by clicking on Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5
blog: www.jinabacarr.wordpress.com
www.facebook.com/JinaBacarr.author
https://twitter.com/JinaBacarr
www.pinterest.com/jbacarr
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Planning Your 2017 Calendar by Kitty Bucholtz
February 10, 2017 by Kitty Bucholtz in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz, Writing: It's a Business tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, time management, Valentine's Day
It might seem in December when the new year is looking bright and shiny and empty that you can get everything done you ever imagined! But when you look back over the last year, you may realize that you are often overconfident about what you can do.
Being disappointed in yourself erodes your confidence for the next year, which erodes it for the following year, etc., and I want to help you keep that from happening. So this is what we’re going to do: go get a calendar. Any calendar will do, but one you like and can use easily will be the best one for you.
Starting in January, cross off every day that you know you won’t be able to work on your goals. For instance, if weekends are always for family, cross off all the Saturdays and all the Sundays from the year. Your 365 days just came down to 261 – poof! Just like that!
About how many days were you home sick last year? How many days were you taking care of someone else who was sick? Plan a few sick days into your calendar, subtracting them from the total days left but leaving them “available for use.” There is no point in feeling guilty about being sick, and we both know that a good rest will often get you back to work sooner and better than trying to work through it.
Now look at your list of the 5 to 10 goals you wrote down since last month. You can either plan forward or plan backward. To plan forward, look at each goal and figure out about how much you can accomplish per day on that goal. Then plot it out on your calendar to see what date that last day lands on. Put a sticky note on that date with the goal. The sticky note is so that when things come up, you can move the goal without scribbling all over your calendar.
Or if you already have a goal date in mind, you can plan backward. Say you want to finish the first draft of your next book by May 1. How many days do you have left on your calendar, the ones that are not crossed out, between now and May 1? And how many words do you expect your first draft to be – 50,000 words? 100,000 words? Take the word count and divide by the number of days. This is your daily writing goal.
Continue in this way, planning forward and/or backward for each goal, until you’ve plotted everything out on your calendar. Now look at each of the twelve months. Is it challenging but doable? Does it make you break out in a cold sweat? Do you need to move a few things around? Did you schedule in a little down time, “you” time?
Kitty Bucholtz
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her superhero books for women and romantic comedies are available wherever ebooks are sold, as well as in print and audiobooks. Check out her new Valentine’s Day novella, My Bullheaded Superhero Valentine.
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