Our topic for the January Round Robin Blog is: Everybody wants to write a book, but most do not. Writing is hard work. What got you started, and what helps you get through a complete story?

I think everyone has a story in them and we often hear people say they want to write a book, or they should write a book. But the truth is, writing really is hard work. At least, writing that is captivating, convincing and capable of drawing the reader in, and keeping them on the edge of their seat until the very last page. There are some who freely admit they can’t or don’t wish to write. Back in the day of correspondence that included picking up a pen and paper, I had friends who shrugged and said, "I’d never know what to say." But story telling is as old as mankind. Writing a book is story telling in print.

Part of this month’s question was what got me started. Well, back in my junior year of high school, I was fortunate to be assigned to Mr. Fred Keye’s English class. I didn’t think I was fortunate on that first day, though. He began the class by informing us that we would lose five points for every misspelled word. I cringed. I was the worlds worst speller and those were the days when anything below a 70 was failing. He threw us a lifeline by suggesting that he expected us to keep our dictionaries on our desks and referring to them when we didn’t know how to spell a word. Even during a test. That was the beginning of my fascination with vocabulary. You would be amazed at the wonderful things you can find in a dictionary.

Mr. Keye’s next challenge was to write 500 words on something you could smell. OMG? What 500 words? Was he kidding? The assignment seemed impossible. But as it turned out, it wasn’t. When I stopped gasping and put my mind to the task, I ended up with 500 words about the smell of sheets dried on a clothesline – something most kids today have no idea what they are missing. Climbing into a bed my mom had just made up fresh was something I loved. I got an A+ on that very first assignment and every word was correctly spelled because that was what had been demanded of me.

Learning to write well is a lot like that assignment. I had something to say and I’d been given the tools to do it well. Writing a book is very similar, just a whole lot more than one night’s assignment in high school English. When I embarked on my first novel, I didn’t have the tools I needed. It’s written in pencil on yellow lined paper in a file somewhere, but I have no inclination to ever revisit it because I know how much I’ve grown as a writer over the years. And one thing I’ve found along the way is writers are the most generous of people in sharing the things they’ve learned from folk who came before them. Paying it Forward is alive and well in the world of authors. There are dozens of daily or weekly blogs that have terrific posts on the nitty gritty of writing. You can find conferences all over the country that feature workshops on “how to.” There are also hundreds of craft books from the essential Elements of Style, to character development, plotting, dialog, and books focused on specific genres.

So, now it’s just a matter of finding the time and discipline to write the story that’s in your soul, and if you end up enjoying it, all the stories that your busy imagination can come up with. Some folk are what we call Plotters and others, like me, are Pantsers. The plotters create detailed outlines, story-boards, and fully developed synopses before they begin writing the actual book. Pantsers generally have a good idea where they are going, but the road map could be nothing more than an image in their mind, a stack of index cards with plot points and ideas, or a file, like I have, filled with snatches of dialog, scenes and important turning points. I also start with a very detailed biography of my main characters which means I know my hero, heroine, protagonist and antagonist so well that once I put them in a situation, I don’t have to wonder how they are going to react, although I admit they sometimes surprise me and say things I never imagined coming out of their mouths.

As for the “What helps me get through a complete story?” That depends. I’m traditionally published and when I’ve already sold the story, I have a deadline and that tends to keep me focused on finishing. But when I’ve created wonderful characters I love, but have put in jeopardy, I am impelled to finish because I want them to have a happy ever after. But the most important word here is DISCIPLINE. I have to want to finish, for whatever reason. Then I have to find the personal discipline to put aside the time, turn off all the distractions (including social media) close the door to my library and as the Nike people like to say,    Just Do It!

What to know what inspired other writers and how they get the job done? Hop on over to these sites and read their posts.
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Heather Haven http://heatherhavenstories.com/blog/
Dr. Bob Rich http://wp.me/p3Xihq-SK
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

It's been one of those days . . .  like for about a week now. You know the kind of day, I'm sure. Ever heard the joke about the woman who decided to clean the kitchen and came across an unpaid bill in a pile of stuff shoved into the corner of the counter? She decided to pay it straight away because it was already late. She heads for her desk and the checkbook, but discovers the last check was written out on Sunday for the church offering. So, she digs through the closet for the box with replacement checks, but it's empty. Then she remembers the new checks were in yesterday's mail which she left in the car. So out the garage she goes. Yesterday's pile of mail is still sitting right on the front seat where she left it. But so are three empty water bottles. She grabs the bottles and heads to the recycling bin. But the bin it out by the curb awaiting collection. When she gets to the curb, the recyclables have not been picked up yet, but the rubbish has. So she drags the rubbish barrel back into the garage and hunts for a replacement plastic liner. But the box is empty. Her husband has another box in the basement, so back to the house, down the stairs and to hubby's bench. She pulls a new plastic rubbish liner out of the box and returns to the stairs, where she decides to grab the half full paint can and take it back out the garage. The shelf where the paint should go is soaking wet. What? Where did the water come from? Wait - that's not water. She sniffs her fingers. It's not paint thinner. Not water either. She's not sure what it is, so she hustles back to the kitchen to get the spray cleaner and some paper towels. But the towel dispenser is empty. And the new package of paper towels is still in the trunk of her car. Back out to the car, lug the paper towels, and while she's at it, the giant on-sale package of toilet paper, plus a box of bath soap, also on sale. She deposits the paper towels on the counter and heads for the linen closet to store the TP and bath soap. The linen closet it open and she remembers that she meant to change the sheets on the kids beds. So, after stowing her purchases, she finds two sets of sheets and matching pillow cases and heads to the kids room. Turns out crossing the floor to get to their beds might be dangerous to her health so she leaves the sheets on the corner of a dresser and promises to make up the beds after the kids get home from school and clean up their room. By now she's exhausted. Time for a cup of coffee. As she sits with her hands wrapped about the steaming mug she realizes she's been on the go all morning, but the kitchen is still not cleaned up, the bill has not been paid, the mail is still in her car, the shelf in the garage is still wet with unknown substances and the rubbish barrel is sitting in the driveway without a new liner. How can she possibly have been so busy and yet gotten nothing done?

Well, that's my day. After spending the last two weeks getting two newsletter's out, my own and one for my writer's chapter, sorting through piles of my father's paperwork and getting payments scheduled for his care in the nursing home, trying to get both my own and my father's brokerage accounts unrestricted (due to a letter I need to sign and return, but which hasn't yet been sent to me) so I can place a couple trades, I had planned to get back to my work in progress this week. It's been so long since I actually worked on it, I spent yesterday catching up to where I stopped writing. And today was supposed to be  . . . well maybe tomorrow . . .

For the most part, I don’t care for reality TV, but I make an exception for Dancing With the Stars. But I admit I don’t pay close attention to all the drama between dances. Two seasons ago, one contestant stood out. Noah Galloway, and perhaps I should have been absorbing the drama. He didn’t win, but making it to the finals was no mean achievement considering he was a warrior who had lost an arm and a leg to an IED in Iraq. In spite of his injuries, he was a joy to watch on the dance floor. And then there was his heartwarming proposal to his sweetheart.

Needless to say, when I saw that he had written a book about his journey from dedicated warrior to severely injured man struggling with depression and a new normal, to the man we saw on TV, I wanted to read it. My daughter dropped Living With No Excuses onto my Kindle for Christmas and I couldn’t wait to get started.

Perhaps I wouldn’t have been so let down by Noah’s unflinchingly honest story if I was not a romance author, I would have been able to applaud Noah’s achievements without wishing he had been a better, more caring husband. I do like my happy endings. But it’s more than that. I enjoy cheering on two people, real or imaginary, who love each other and have to find a way to make that love work through challenges that put that love on the line. I especially like it when they succeed. Noah did not.

His first marriage was on the rocks before his injuries, partly due to the stress of his military deployments but even more due to his selfish and single-minded devotion to being a warrior. He honestly admits to letting go of that relationship, often citing how young they were when they married. But unless he left a lot out of the telling, he didn’t really put much effort into being a good husband and making his marriage work. He was more focused on loving his job as a soldier. He says more about loving his life as a soldier than he does about loving his wife. Perhaps by the time he wrote this memoir, he no longer remembered loving her.

After his injuries, and even after he’d begun to heal and find himself again he struggled a lot with depression – who wouldn’t given the extent of his injuries and the cataclysmic changes that brought to his life doing what he loved? But in the midst of that he reconnected with a friend from high school and that turned into a love affair and then marriage. Another caring woman who gave Noah an incredible amount of love and support during very difficult times.

And yet, he had found another single-minded focus – and again it was not his wife or their marriage. It was in competition to prove he could still cut it as an athlete. Competition after competition, race after race, and he never mentions how his wife and chief supporter felt about the time he spent away from the family, both competing and encouraging other athletes with disabilities. Nor does he mention anything he did or tried to do, to keep their marriage healthy and strong. Once again, he was selfishly focused on being better with each race or each event and neglecting to be a good husband. Being in a relationship requires work, caring and dedication. I am not minimizing the effects of depression, but it seems, from Noah’s own account, that he did very little to mend the rifts that appeared in his marriage and eventually that failed just like the first. He didn’t have youth to blame this time.

At this point I am wondering why Noah thought that embarking on yet another relationship with another wonderfully loving and supportive woman was fair to either of them if he wasn’t going to be willing to give at least as much as he got. He went down on one knee on national television and proposed to this woman in a wonderfully heartwarming moment. And one is rejoicing that finally, Noah, who has been through so much loss, is going to have his happy ever after. How quickly that hope is dashed. When his fiancé quite normally expects to have children and Noah has always loved his role as a dad, it’s kind of shocking when he says no. He has three kids, one from the first marriage and two from the second. He admits that he loves his children and they are an amazing and wonderful part of his life. And yet, he would deny the woman he loves the chance to experience the wonder of carrying a child and becoming a mom. To me that was the deal breaker.

Noah is an amazing man. He’s come through an ordeal that few can even imagine. He’s rebuilt himself and he is an inspiration to thousands. And yet, he is so focused on himself and what he wants that he would not give the woman he loved a child of her own. How can I admire the hero would won’t give anything in his power to the woman he loves? Where is her happy ever after?

Reading Noah's story is an amazing journey. He struggled and fought his way through devastating injury, dozens of surgeries, months of rehabilitation and therapy, years of depression, failed relationships and so much we’ll never know or understand. He is a remarkable man and an inspiration to anyone who has their own mountain to climb. But in spite of all that, he disappointed me. Perhaps I was expecting too much.

Living with No Excuses: The Remarkable Rebirth of an American Soldier

Military hero and beloved Dancing with the Stars alum Noah Galloway shares his life story, and how losing his arm and leg in combat forced him to relearn how to live--and live to the fullest.

Inspirational, humorous, and thought provoking, Noah Galloway's LIVING WITH NO EXCUSES sheds light on his upbringing in rural Alabama, his military experience, and the battle he faced to overcome losing two limbs during Operation Iraqi Freedom. From reliving the early days of life to his acceptance of his "new normal" after losing his arm and leg in combat, Noah reveals his ambition to succeed against all odds.

Noah's gripping story is a shining example that with laughter, and the right amount of perspective, you can tackle anything. Whether it be overcoming injury, conquering the Dancing with the Stars ballroom, or taking the next steps forward in life with his young family - Noah demonstrates how to live life to the fullest, with no excuses.

It’s that time of year again . . . Are you going to make resolutions? Or have you decided to just move forward with a vague idea of being a better you this year?

I always make them, and occasionally I’ve actually kept one, but far more often, I’m as bad as the next guy, and it’s history before January is even over. It’s like my frequent promises to lose weight – it always seems so easy while I’m driving in the car, or stretched out in bed considering the topic. But the next time I’m at Publix, there is always at least two or three things that have no place on anyone’s diet shouting my name. Okay, the forbidden food isn’t really shouting, but my psyche sure is. It would be a lot easier if giving something you love up had immediate results – or at least a sign you can see that it’s doing the job you were hoping for. But unfortunately that isn’t how weight loss works – at least for me. I can go three weeks before I see even a half pound melt away. And it continues that way. Which is why I get discouraged and don’t follow through.

Over Christmas, after listening to my very talented granddaughters play two beautiful pieces on their violins, I mentioned that I’d thought about learning to play now that I’m retired and have more time – in between writing more books that is.  My son commented that the best way to make sure I failed was to not even give it a go. So maybe I will consider it seriously this year. But it’s not a resolution. I walked a thousand miles last year according to my Fitbit – maybe I should try for 1,500 this year? Or maybe I should sign up for a water aerobics program? I’m still trying to decide.

But then I saw a list on FB about books to read this year. Not just books that catch my eye - the kind of books I always read - but others that stretch my envelope and broaden my knowledge. So, I’m definitely going to make that list a resolution. Along with writing another book for my series and finally getting down to writing a story that’s been cooking in my brain for some time.

So, what about you? Do you make resolutions? If so, how are you planning to challenge yourself this year? And definitely don’t give up on being a better you. Our world needs a whole lot of better YOUs. Be kinder. Be gentler. Be more accepting. Be more open to differing opinions and beliefs. Be more loving. Be more generous. I’m going to open up that gratitude book of mine and be grateful for the discipline to be a better me.  Happy New Year.

Prologue and Epilogue. Do they have a use? Should they be used? Can you have one without the other?

Personally, I like prologues and epilogues whether they are action packed or just information that I might find interesting. The former because it gives me a glimpse into the past and piques my interest in what’s happening now and the later because it often gives me a peek into the future to see how these people I’ve come to like and root for get on after the story ends.

Sometimes there is some piece of backstory – perhaps history – that is important to the outcome of story as a whole. And often, if it is separated by time and or place from the rest of the action, it seems more appropriately placed in a prologue. Sometimes the story is complete at the end of the last chapter, but the writer wants to share something extra about the future of these characters that happens after the book ends so the author adds an epilogue.

But sometimes that backfires. In my first book published, a reader made this comment: “I loved the book and the characters, but why did you kill your hero?” I gaped at the man. “You didn’t read the epilogue?” His answer: “No. Should I have?” I told him to go home and read the epilogue and then let me know what he thought.

But that little exchange made me look at how I’d handled the ending in a whole different light. All of my romances are neatly tied up in the last chapter, the conflicts resolved and the happy-ever-after assured. I only include the epilogue to give the reader a peek at their life down the road. But if they choose not to read it, they don’t come away dissatisfied with the resolution of the story they just spent 300 pages reading. But that first book, ended with my hero being shot by a disgruntled citizen while he was waiting to vote. It’s a chaotic scene with my hero, Matt coping with confusion, pain, weakness and finally loss of consciousness. It leaves the reader not sure just how that election would turn out, since my hero was one of the candidates running for the office of President. But I thought I was being so clever with my epilogue that showed him two years later among the dignitaries at the launching of a new destroyer giving his wife a very personal hand sign that they had shared in other places in the story. Should that book ever get amended I will change that epilogue to be chapter 30 where it should have belonged in the first place. I’d only separated it out because of the lapse of two and a half years between chapter 29 and the epilogue. I guess there’s a time and place for everything and some books don’t need an epilogue. And some information shouldn’t be saved for an epilogue no matter how clever the writer thinks it is.

As for Prologues. While I like them and always read them with no expectation that the action is going to begin immediately, in our world of instant everything, readers expectations are for things to start right away, and perhaps prologues aren’t the best way to begin a book either. I just recently critiqued the prologue and first few chapters of a book by a writer not yet published but working toward that goal. His prologue was eloquently written and his description of the scene so vivid that I could feel myself in that silent room watching the dust motes dance in the shaft of sunlight and listening to the majestic ticking of an antique grandfather clock. The problem was that outside of this well described scene the action dragged. Several pages of troubling conversation hinted at an unpleasant situation, but didn’t really go anywhere. A reader eager for action would put the book down long before they got to the end of the prologue. Once I got to chapter one where the action did start, I suggested to this author that the prologue could be either seriously shortened or removed without impacting the story. The vague hints of information divulged in the prologue could just as easily be incorporated into the story at a later time, perhaps with a journal entry, a flashback, or a recounting of some bit of family history. Especially since his very first sentence in that first chapter was an attention grabber that left the reader with questions demanding answers.

Authors spend a lot of time and effort researching their stories and setting the scene. It’s a natural urge to want to share all that fascinating information with our readers. But does a prologue come across as an unnecessary dump of backstory? Or does it suck them into the story, and make them want to turn the page?

In the fourth book in my Tide’s Way series I included a prologue. It was brief, one page and all action with little introspection and a minimum of scene setting. An IED explodes, and my hero, a career Marine snaps into action rescuing fellow Marines who were trapped in their upended MRAP. He is shot, and seriously wounded, but perseveres in spite of the pain until all his men are accounted for. And I leave him there in the care of the medic reciting the 23^rd Psalm. A lot happens in those few short paragraphs, but it’s urgent and important and if I've made you care about this young man you definitely want to know if he’s going to survive. So you turn the page. I could have titled it chapter 1 and perhaps that would have made no difference, but its brevity and nature just seemed different, so I called it a prologue. Had the reader decided to skip the prologue, they would have discovered the important information eventually anyway, but without that glimpse of the caliber of the warrior.

So, I guess my advice to other authors would be: Every book is different. Know your genre and what the expectations of your readers are and avoid using prologues or epilogues unless there is a very good reason to include one.

Why not hop on over to these other bloggers and see what they think about prologues and epilogues?
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Dr. Bob Rich http://wp.me/p3Xihq-QS
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/

Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/

Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/
 

Years ago, they cared for us. They walked the floor or rocked us when we were fretful as infants. They encouraged us to take our first steps, guided our hands when we first learned to write our own names and sent us off to our first day of school with hopes that we would do well. They cheered us when we succeeded and comforted us when we failed. They were our staunchest supporters in every undertaking. Eventually they sent us off to college or out into the working world, knowing their lives as parents of growing kids were over and a new chapter had begun. And still they were there to support us. Dads walked daughters down the aisle or counseled sons on how to be a good husband when we married. They pitched in with child care and advice when we became parents. They reveled in their roles as grandparents and passed on stories and advice to a whole new generation of youngsters.

(My mom with me - a long time ago)

But now they are aging and sometimes their bodies fail them. Things they once did with ease become harder and harder each day. They can’t wrestle with their great grandchildren, as much as they might wish they could and it’s the youngsters who now wait on them.

Eventually the time comes for us to take over their life decisions and it’s not easy. It’s especially not easy if they haven’t come to terms with their diminished capacities. My mom had Alzheimer’s and eventually had to move to an Assisted Care facility. She had always been an outgoing woman who loved her world and the people in it, and she didn’t really understand why she could no longer live with her beloved “Johnny.” We, her kids, knew it was because the stress was aging him too fast and his health was threatened. In actuality, she thrived in the new surroundings where there were activities and people to interact with all the time, but still she pined for her love. By the time she died she no longer knew who I was when I came to visit, but she still recognized that I was an important part of her life and her smile when she saw me lit up the room. We were blessed that she passed away before the disease robbed her of all enjoyment of her life. (My dad with his great granddaughter Anna)

And now it’s my dad who requires us to step in and help with his care. He’s always been an active man and at 96 was still mowing his own lawn and puttering in his shop creating various projects from wood, all skillfully and wonderfully made.  Then, in July, he had a bad fall. I just recently read that falls are the leading cause of death in the elderly – something I’d not known before. And his was a serious fall. He broke his pelvis and two vertebrae. He was in an unyielding neck brace and unable to put any weight on his feet for three months and by the time he was cleared to remove the brace and start learning to walk again, he’d lost a lot. We still believed he’d go home again, though. He wasn’t like other 96 year olds. He was strong and capable – he’d go to rehab and get better. Or so we hoped.

But by mid November that hope had begun to fade. Our most recent meeting with the staff at the excellent nursing and retirement community he’d been fortunate to find a bed in dashed our hopes completely. He can’t be on his own and probably won’t ever be so again. So, my brother flew in from Kansas and I flew up from Florida to join my sister to help convince him this is his new normal. He’s forgetful and is often happy to have us take over tasks like his banking and taxes, but now we have to take over all of his affairs. Fortunately he’s okay with that. It could be worse. But it’s hard to see the man you once thought was a god reduced to being so dependent on you and his other care givers. The man who once carried me on his shoulders now needs me to carry on his affairs for him. He has ceded those responsibilities with grace, but it’s still hard.

In the next few months there will be much I have to do on his behalf, but then, no matter how big those tasks are, no matter how hard they might be, they won’t be a fraction of the care he once gave me. And I am blessed that I still have him with me for at least a little while longer.

This month our Round Robin Blog Topic is: How does wording choice develop a story's character? How do you use and select your words?

Suggested by Dr. Bob: She had to be the sexiest-looking 42-year-old on the planet, the best that money could buy.-- Is this a positive or a negative when you read a book? How can such statements be used to describe character?

This is the kind of description I like best. It tells you a lot about that character without the reader even thinking about it. She’s sexy, but not young. Some of which is about her age, but sexy isn’t always about perfect breasts and a shapely body. It’s about the way a woman holds herself and moves. Sexy can also imply confidence. So from this brief description we get the idea this woman is confident about her appeal to the opposite sex. And we know she’s a hooker. An expensive one. Which might tell you something about her lifestyle and expectations. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but if I was, I’d be swiftly disabused of that as I read on. But that one short sentence sets me up to admire her at least, even if I don’t approve of her career choices.  I like descriptions that give me a sneak peek into what the character is going to be like.

An author can spend a lot of words describing a character the first time they appear in a book that really doesn’t tell you anything more than you would know if you passed that person on the street.  An example from my own book, Trusting Will, reads like this:

“The woman, who had to be Sam’s mother, was gorgeous. Stunningly gorgeous. If Will had been wearing a hat, he’d have been inclined to sweep it off his head and offer a totally uncharacteristic bow. As it was he struggled not to gawk. The long wavy blonde mane and striking whiskey-colored eyes looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t believe he’d have forgotten her if he’d ever met her before.”

As nicely put as I thought it when I wrote those words, the introduction to Bree Reagan tells the reader nothing about her character. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe we’re more interested in Will’s reaction to her at this point in the story anyway. But still – we really don’t know anything about Bree from this description except that she’s pretty. And we have little hint about who Will is either, except a healthy, heterosexual male.

By contrast, from The Night Watchman by Mark Mynheir: 

“The Guy seemed at ease with the weapon and wasn’t holding it like a novice or a gang member.”  tells us nothing about what the man looked like, his height, build, coloring etc, but what does it tell us? Mark’s protagonist Ray Quinn had once been a tough, quick-witted Orlando homicide detective and since we’re in his point of view, this brief description of the man who held Ray up tells us something important about the assailant.  Given Ray’s background his assessment of the way the man held the gun is important. He’s not a gang member and he’s not a novice. So what kind of person would hold up a seriously injured man? Was it someone with a score to settle? Someone hired to take Ray out? Or perhaps warn him off something? And just what is his connection to the plot? We don’t know any of those things, but we do know if he personally isn’t important, his appearance here is. And it’s threatening in some way.  In the very next paragraph, Ray tells us that he left this detail out of his statement to the police. In part because something he’s investigating might involve a cop gone bad. Adding that detail to the way the man held the gun and the fact that Ray didn’t report that fact leads us to surmise this little detail will be key later in the plot.

In the introductory scene from Loving Meg, book two in my Camerons of Tide’s Way series, I begin in my heroine’s point of view with a little more information that still leads more to character and hints at the plot.

“All those days ago when she’d been walking the other way with tears brimming in her eyes, she’d been naïve. Committed, eager, and incredibly naïve. She wasn’t the same woman who’d said goodbye to Ben that day. She was no longer innocent. And her idealism had fled in the face of the things she’d seen. And done. Would Ben notice? Would he see it in her eyes? Would he feel it in her touch? Would he still love her if he knew the whole of it?”

Meg Cameron is a Marine lieutenant just returned from a year in a war zone. She is already haunted by her experience and we get the idea she isn’t all that happy about the person she has become. She’s fearful that her husband might not love her if he knew everything she’s done, or thought. “She’s not the woman he fell in love with.” Shortly after this we see Meg from Ben’s eyes. We get her physical description, but the more importantly we learn Ben is just relieved and happy to have her home with no clue that things won’t be the same.  “Meg was back. Whole and unharmed. And as beautiful as memory had promised. He couldn’t wait to hold her again. He couldn’t wait to kiss her and feel her arms circle tight around his neck. To feel her lips returning his hunger and longing.” Those two very different descriptions of Meg tell you a lot about Meg and something of Ben, but more than that, they set up the whole conflict of the story.

Here are a few more interesting introductions to a key character in a book. I’ll let you decide what they might tell you.

The past swaggered through the door of Darlton’s Bar & Grille in cowboy boots.” From Deployed by Mel Odom.

“He was tall and young, and when he looked up and saw her, he took off his hat.” From High Tide at Noon by Elizabeth Ogilvie

“He was a nerdy-looking guy with glasses tied around his neck, but he had a set of shoulders on him. Forearms too.” From Deep Shadow by Randy Wayne White

And lastly, two different characters from my book, The Candidate as they arrive at a debate event. There is some physical description, but it’s the other information these introductions tell the reader that helps the reader form an idea of the character of these two very different men and how they might impact the plot:

“Rolly Miller certainly looked the part. Slender and distinguished, with steel-gray eyes and hair to match. He carried himself like a winner. He never simply arrived—he made an entrance. He was gracious in a way most men running for the highest office in the country hadn’t been for generations.”  And—“Blair Cabot was a very different adversary. Anyone in his presence felt the power of his personality. Another man who got things done. His sturdy, shorter-than-average stature didn’t command the instant impression of competence Roland Miller did. But Cabot was far more ruthless.”

What kind of introductions do you like for the characters in a book you’ve just picked up to read? Do you want to see how they’re dressed or if they are attractive or not? Or do you, like me, favor having a hint at the type of character they are? Hop on over and check out what some of these other authors think.

    
     Margaret Fieland https://margaretfieland.wordpress.com/category/blog/
    
     Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
     Dr. Bob Rich  http://wp.me/p3Xihq-OB
    
     Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
     Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
     Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com
     Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

     A.J. Maguire  https://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/

    Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/

     Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca

The game was hard fought and the stakes were high. Both teams played with single-minded devotion to winning, both quarterbacks were great, the coaches were brilliant. Fantastic catches, incredible passing, carries that defied belief, sacks that left the offense reeling, bone jarring blocks, spectacular interceptions and so much more. But in the end, good sportsmanship meant shaking hands and congratulating the winner. The Super Bowl always has a champion, but after the glow wears off, both teams are back to thinking about next year, just like the rest of the NFL. What can we do to be better next season? Who do we need to draft to make us stronger? Who were the key players we need to keep? Who needs to go? Before too much longer practices will begin again and every player will be out there working as hard as he can to be the best that he can be to make the game and his team great.

Election Day 2016 was epic for many reasons. Among others, because no one really expected Donald Trump to win, except perhaps himself. It was epic because it was the first time since Dwight Eisenhaur that an outsider with no political experience became president-elect. And the loss for Clinton was epic as well - in her own words, "it hurt, and it will hurt for a long time." Both parties fought a hard campaign. Both put their heart and soul into doing everything they could to win the election. But in the end, there was no tie - there had to be a winner - just like the Super Bowl. Good sportsmanship demanded Hillary call to congratulate Trump and Trump to find a way to compliment her and all she gave to the fight. In the months to come, both parties will review the results, decide what needs to be done differently, who they need to listen to and why, and how to be stronger and better in the future.

It's also up to us. We are all Americans. We need to shake hands, congratulate the winner, compliment the loser and then begin to work together. The losers are grieving, perhaps more than any other election, at least in my memory. And the winners, are stunned. Some of the losers are not being very gracious in their loss, screaming "NOT MY PRESIDENT!" Well, sorry to tell you, but he is. Unless you're planning to renounce your citizenship, Donald Trump will be your next president. Likewise, some of the winners are not being very good sports either. Some of them aren't even being good citizens. What we all need to be doing once the mourning and the celebrations are over is pretty much what the NFL players do once the celebration and all the replays are over after the Superbowl.  While Trump is deciding who he needs to draft to fill out his team, we need to get back to business, working as hard as we can to be the best we can as Americans, as friends, as neighbors and as families. We need to leave gloating and fear behind and reach out to understand our opponents.

If you are a person of faith, pray to your God, by whatever name you call him or her. Pray for our country. Pray for our new president-elect that he will choose his team wisely. Pray for all the other elected representatives, senators, governors and state congressmen that their leadership will be honest and true. Pray for understanding and acceptance for men and women of all colors, creeds, races and gender. If you have no faith, then try hope. Put the hate and the condemnation behind you and look forward with optimism. This is not a time for name-calling and drawing lines in the sand. It's not a time for running around like Chicken Little declaring the sky is falling. We are all on the same team and it's time to play as if we were headed to the Superbowl. I read an interesting mime on FB the other day before I left the nastiness behind until things calm down. It read something like this - "Hoping for Trump to fail is like hoping the pilot of the plane you are on will crash." So lets hope for everyone to be surprised. Suprised that the worst you fear does not come to pass. Pray that Trump will become a better leader than anyone expects. Pray and hope for America to be strong.

One of the things I like about the Wall Street Journal and Public Broadcasting is that instead of throwing 45 seconds of inflammatory information at you, or peppering you with controversial statements that are chosen more to get ratings than to inform, is that when they cover a story, they do so in depth. I’m not suggesting there isn’t any bias, but there is a lot of meat to the story and room to form your own opinion. That has not been the case with mainstream media for some years. The days of Edward R Murrow are long gone and even young journalists who start out with ideals, soon discover that with 24/7 news coverage, sensation is what sells, not just straight unbiased journalism. So it's been hard to find a balanced, even handed voice in the campaign that has dominated the news over the past several months. And if you pay much attention to social media the outrageous, over-the-top, often blatantly distorted stories are even less informative and more vicious.

But then there’s another reality. If you haven’t seen the movie, A Few Good Men, (1992) let me recap. Tom Cruise, playing the young idealistic Navy Jag lawyer, LTJG Kaffee, had Colonel Jessup played by Jack Nicholson on the witness stand. The dialog went like this:

  Col. Jessup: “You want answers?”

  LTJG Kaffee: “I think I’m entitled to them.”

  Col. Jessup:  Beginning to get angry, “You want answers?”

  LTJG Kaffee:  “I want the truth.”

  Col. Jessup:  “ You can’t handle the truth!”

Colonel Jessup went on to explain how things worked in the military, especially the military as he saw it. He understood the risks that soldiers take that those who have never been on a battlefield will never fully appreciate and he resented this idealistic young lawyer badgering him for answers that he was sure would not be understood.

Politics like war, has unpalatable truths that not everyone wants to know or hear. Among those who support Hillary Clinton, there is an incredible level of skepticism about her truthfulness, but to dig deeper into the veracity of her public persona requires a willingness to accept undesirable facts. For those who think Donald Trump is the least of the evils, it takes an ostrich to hide from acknowledging the worst of his offenses. The ratings for both are abysmally low and no one believes a third party candidate can actually win which leaves all of us making a choice whether we to admit to the uncomfortable truths or not.

But by this time tomorrow, there will be a winner – probably. There have been times in our history that the final vote came from our congress. But presumably, we will know who takes over the reins next January. We’ll also know if the new congress will be left or right leaning. If we listen to all the talking heads we’ll be overrun with conjecture about the Supreme Court, the future of our military, the continued threat of terrorism, immigration, joblessness and national debt. Conjecture that is not always the truth it is presented as. It depends on which channels you watch or what papers you read. Either way, it’s mostly heavy handed opinion. On one station the world will be a rosy place. On the other, it will be doomsday. But we can be braver than that. Find the courage to handle the truths about our country, our leaders, our government and what we as voters can do to keep America strong and confident in an ever changing world.

And even more importantly, find the open mindedness not to let the outcome ruin friendships, families and relationships with the people in your neighborhoods. This campaign has been incredibly divisive. Tomorrow morning, it will be time to mend fences. Remember the words of both Trump and Clinton at the end of the final debate when they were asked to say one positive thing about the other. Clinton waffled at first, saying she admired Donald Trump’s children, but then added “I think that says a lot about Donald.”  Trump responded with, “I will say this about Hillary. She doesn’t quit. She doesn’t give up. I respect that.”

Let’s show respect for each other regardless of who we supported in the campaign and regardless of who wins. Let’s all be Americans tomorrow. Not Democrats or Republicans. But Americans - eager and hopeful for a better, brighter future for our country and all who call the United States home.

Our Round Robin Blog for October is How important is a title? What attracts you to a certain title, and how do you determine what to title your book?

One of the first books that I wrote bore the title WORRY STONE while I was writing it and right up to the moment when my publisher decided all the books in that series had to have a similar sound to them. It got renamed, and I’m only partly reconciled, but my editor has more experience in what catches someone’s eye and makes sales than I do, so I bowed to her wisdom. But that title was important to me because the small smooth stone that sat on my desk while the book was being written was a worry stone – as my heroine explained it to my hero when she gave it to him, a small stone you carry in your pocket to feel and fiddle with when you’re worried or stressed. That little stone was my writing talisman, and it appeared many times in the book, mostly when my hero was stressed about something, and tying it to his relationship with her. But maybe I’m the only one for whom that title would be important.

Sometimes I think titles catch one’s interest because they provoke a question. Like THE THINGS THAT THEY CARRIED. The title is intriguing, but it really doesn’t tell you much of what the story is about. Neither does OUTLANDER which is even less attention getting without the cover art to draw the eye. Back when Books like YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN, or GONE WITH THE WIND were first published, most books were in hard cover and didn’t have elaborate cover art to draw attention, so the title was the entire first impression one got. Today things are very different and I think the title is far less important than the art it is printed against.

Take BLACK ICE – there are probably a number of books by that title, but the one I read was about Detective Harry Bosch, the other cover I saw was for a very different kind of story and the two very different covers were far more influential than the title of the book. My first mainstream novel was WHATEVER IT TAKES. Not being very savvy about titles, I didn’t realize there were half a dozen books by the same title and my book didn't appear until page 2 or 3 on the Amazon listing if you didn't include my name. Other covers with that same title were a wide range of genres and many were romance, which mine definitely was not. When my publisher re-released it earlier this year, we chose to retitle it as well, changing it to THE CANDIDATE, which was a lot more specific to the story line.

I think when I used to find nearly all my reading choices at the local library where books are shelved spine out and only the title was showing, I paid a lot more attention to titles as a reader. Today it’s the cover art that captures my attention, in spite of the old adage about judging a book by its cover. I think some authors go out of their way to make titles obscure - GIRL ON A TRAIN leaps to mind. And the cover art is just as obscure. It's been a hit, but I doubt the title had much to do with its ratings. The kinds of titles that do grab my interest when it's not an author I'm already following promise me something I'm pretty sure I'm going to like. One recent non-fiction title that caught my interest was DUSTOFF 7-3. I know what a Dustoff is and I know I'm probably going to enjoy reading the exploits of a pilot who risks his life to save wounded soldiers. My most recent release is titled HEALING A HERO, a title that would have attracted my interest as a reader and I hope any other reader of romance who is touched by heroes who might have a vunerable spot either physically or emotionally. But I think, with all the graphics available now, both on the printed cover or online, an intriguing title is a lot less important than a unique title and an eye-catching cover.   

But that's just my take on titles - check out how these other authors view the importance of titles.

A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com
Dr. Bob Rich  http://wp.me/p3Xihq-MI
Connie Vines http://connievines.blogspot.com/
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com

Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/

Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/

Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca