October 8^th was WisRWA’s Fall Into Fiction workshop hosted by my own Chippewa Falls area group. Candace Havens, editorial director at Entangled Publishing, published author, and journalist spent the day teaching us about book mapping, revising, editing, and perhaps most interesting, how to write a book (Fast Draft) in two weeks! Candace Havens is a dynamo, a real pistol with a Texas drawl and a quick wit. Her mantra: NO WHINING! NO EXCUSES! I think I will hear that voice telling me to sit back down and write every time I think it’s time to quit and go do something else, like watch an all-day marathon of Hallmark movies. Heck, I edited 38 pages today and now I’m drafting this blog entry before turning on the television. She said wait and treat yourself AFTER you’ve finished your goal for the day. For me, the Packers are playing tonight so I need to get this blog draft completed within the next hour.

Going to a workshop (or conference) like this leaves me energized, anxious to get home and start writing. A good speaker will do that and she is a great speaker. I took copious notes but if I had the chance I’d still go see her again, even if she was giving the same talk. I’m sure I missed something. I got to meet some of my WisRWA friends I only knew by name on Facebook. That’s always fun. I even bought books from a few of them. I also bought Candace’s newest book to be released soon. Those of us who met her at the workshop had the chance to purchase advance copies. Watch for “Christmas With The Marine” from Harlequin. Yes, it’s as hot as it sounds. And if you don’t feel like reading at the moment, you can just sit and stare at the cover. You won’t be disappointed either way. I mean, a shirtless Marine wearing a Santa hat. What’s not to like? Right?

Candace also set aside times for those of us who wanted to schedule a book pitch. She’s always looking for new titles, new talent. I wasn’t planning to pitch “Mary Bishop” because, I admit, I was nervous. But I decided the day before that I would anyway, if for no other reason than the practice. So I prepared my talk (we were given 10 minute blocks but she said she only needed 5 minutes to determine if she was interested or not). I practiced it in the car all the way to Eau Claire and then pretty much threw it out the window when I walked in the room and nerves took over. But even Candace Havens can get nervous when she has to pitch and she led me through with questions and encouragement. Did I say she was really nice? Candace Havens is really nice! By the end she said she wants to see a full manuscript for consideration for their Women’s Fiction line! I smiled, shook her hand, thanked her, and then calmly walked out of the room before about screaming when I saw my friends waiting in the hall to see how it went. Obviously this is not a contract, a promise of any kind, but at least she wants to read it. I can’t sell it if I can’t get someone to read it first. So we will see what happens next and I will be keeping you all in the loop.

Now, to be clear, just because Candace Havens is nice, doesn’t mean she isn’t tough. Not only is her mantra “NO WHINING! NO EXCUSES”, but she told us just what she’d do if we started whining or making excuses… “I will come to your house and punch you in the face!” Then she’d smile and say, “No I won’t”, but that would be followed by the look and you were left feeling pretty certain that yes, she would.

Check out Candace at www.candacehavens.com.

What’s more romantic than a wedding? This past weekend we attended our niece’s wedding. An outdoor wedding is a risky thing any time of year, but October in Wisconsin can be particularly unpredictable. After three days of rain and cold winds and the certainty that some other arrangements would need to be made, our weekend dawned with an almost cloudless blue sky and a warm sun. Not too hot and not too cold. We couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day.

The guests gathered at the groom’s parent’s farm where they were met by three tractors pulling wagons. A ten-minute ride through the fields to the ceremony was a fun start to the day. The ceremony itself was held at the site of an old barn. All that remained was the cement floor, a partial stone wall, and the old stone silo. The groom’s sister painted sunflowers and vines up the side of the silo, an arch was placed at center, and in front were rows of hay bales (covered for our comfort) to seat the guests. No bride ever looked so beautiful on the arm of her proud father, and no groom looked more in love as he watched her come down the aisle. Surrounded by pumpkins, mums and other autumn flowers, the young couple said their vows.

After the ceremony, we all returned to his parents’ farm where the pole barn was beautifully decorated for a truly country celebration of love. All the food was “raised, grown, harvested, baked and caught” by the two families: smashed baby reds, carrots, corn, salmon, beef and prime rib on the buffet line. Home-baked bread and jars of jam made from their own berries waited on every table. Nothing could have better represented the farming, sportsmen, outdoors-loving couple. We danced and toasted the couple well into the night.

Every romance novel ends with what we call our HEA: our happily-ever-after moment. Sometimes it’s a wedding, sometimes a promise of a wedding to come. Saturday was Gus and Megan’s HEA and I couldn’t have been happier to be a part of it.

October 2^nd will be the first anniversary of Morning Coffee. Over the past year I’ve managed to share my thoughts with you every week; not always an easy thing to do. Not only because it can be hard to come up with the time, but because who would have thought I had so many thoughts! Right? Ok, Ok, no chiming in from the peanut gallery…and you know who you are.

I’ve accomplished a lot over the past year. My biggest accomplishment: I finished my first novel, a historical romance, “Mary Bishop”. I’m now in the submission stage, hoping to soon be able to report I have a contract. Currently, there is a publisher who has voiced an interest in it. The editor acknowledged my talent and said if I was willing to change the book from first person/present tense to third person/past tense I should feel free to resubmit. Of course, my response to that was thank you and I will. That’s what I’m working on right now and it’s not so much a difficult task as it is more time-consuming that I originally guessed it would be. You see, the original version has two timelines. One takes the reader through the story of Mary’s first love with her now late husband Earl. This takes place from pre-Civil War through the end of the Civil War in Virginia. These chapters were written in first person/past tense. The other timeline is the story of her current second chance at love and takes place in post-Civil War Wisconsin. These chapters were written in first person/present tense. I’m currently in the process of slowly reading through the entire 300+ page manuscript and carefully changing everything to third person/past tense. The editor’s right; it is better.

I’ve also started researching and writing my second novel, another romance set in Wisconsin, but this one takes place in 1919. The United States is at war, both in Europe and on the home front as the Spanish Flu epidemic sweeps the nation, killing without mercy. This one is entitled, “The Healing Heart”. More on this later.

This past weekend I attended my first romance writers’ conference and the speaker was the one and only Eloisa James. She spoke not about writing techniques like how to write dialogue, plot a romance, or how to write a really steamy sex scene. Instead, she talked at length about the business of being a writer. You see, this is a business. I am a business. She talked about agents and editors, contracts, bookkeeping, doing your own PR and marketing, branding. She talked about what to expect and what to accept, how to stand up for ourselves in negotiations. She told us how to get noticed in a good way, and how to get noticed in such a way as to ruin our careers before they even start. Ms James (a pseudonym) is a tenured Shakespeare professor. She runs the graduate program at her university. She’s a wife and a mother. And she is an incredible speaker, very inspiring…but, then again, that’s what makes her a good teacher. She was honest. You can write only what moves your heart and then you can put it in a drawer to collect dust, or you can admit you want to make a living doing this and write what you love that also fits with the demands of the current marketplace.

I’ve accomplished a lot this year in the pursuit of my dream to be a published novelist. Over the coming year I plan on being able to tell you when and where you can purchase “Mary Bishop”, and in the meantime, I will finish “The Healing Heart”. Thank you everyone who has come along on this ride so far. Some of my posts have been hits and others not so much. I appreciate everyone who hung in there with me and I hope you feel you can stay with me a little longer, maybe bring along a few friends. CHEERS!

This morning it rained, not hard and not for long but enough to make everything wet. This afternoon the sun came out and the leaves glimmered like emeralds sprinkled with diamonds. Looking out the window of my office I get the feeling of summer; yet, when I open the sliding glass doors to the deck the cool breeze reminds me that it is that uncertain, ever-changing, time between summer and fall. (By the time you read this, fall will have officially arrived.)

I love autumn! It’s one of my favorite seasons. While winter is mostly white with muted blue/gray shadows and stark black tree trunks, spring a promising pastel, and summer just about every shade of green you can think of, autumn is a multitude of bright colors. Autumn is a Mardi Gras parade. Autumn is the high school gymnasium on prom night. Autumn is a grand farewell-see-you-soon party for Mother Nature before she goes down for her long winter’s rest.

Autumn means back to school. Autumn is football games and the Homecoming dance. It’s when we put away our swim suits and bring out those warm fuzzy sweaters. It’s hot chocolate instead of lemonade. It’s chili with cornbread, pot roasts with baby red potatoes, baked squash, apple pies, and anything pumpkin. (I just ordered four boxes of pumpkin spice K-cups. I don’t want to run out anytime soon. They’re seasonal, you know, and sell out fast.)

Red and green apples hang heavy from the trees, waiting to be picked and made into sauce, pies, and cider. Orange pumpkins and yellow and green squash are ready for harvest, soon to be baked or roasted. Hardy mums both big and small bloom in burgundy, purple, pink, orange, yellow and white replacing the delicate flowers of summer. Cornstalks that were cool and green not so long ago are now a dry dusky brown rattling in the wind; soon to be gathered and tied in bunches to decorate our yards. Clouds begin to take on a darker more ominous gun metal gray. Even the deer that happen through our yard have changed from their rich auburn coat to the heavier brown cover they’ll need to keep warm during the short days of a long winter.

Most spectacular are our trees. They’ve already begun their change from green to red and yellow and orange. Soon the hills and roadsides will be ablaze with color. Air temperature and moisture are the main two influences on how bold and bright the colors are from year to year. For truly amazing color we need a succession of warm, sunny days and cool, but not freezing, nights. A late spring, or a summer drought, can delay the start of fall colors by several weeks. I don’t recall what our spring was like, but based on our very wet summer (no drought here) and our current temperatures, I’m going to predict a glorious autumn this year. Plan a long weekend and go leaf-peeping in our beautiful Wisconsin woods, or any other northern state where leaf-shedding trees are in abundance. Go to https://weather.com/maps/fall-foliage to find the current leaf-viewing hotspots. Take your family, the dog. Stay in a cute little B&B. Pick some apples and buy some pumpkins to take home. And by all means, don’t forget the camera! You won’t regret it.

 

 

Leaf Color Guide
Ash: yellow, chartreuse
Linden: green, chartreuse
Aspens: yellow
Yellow Poplars: light golden yellow
Hickories: yellow
Oaks: red, brown, russet
Dogwood: purplish red
Red Maple: bright red
Sugar Maple: orange-red
Black Maple: yellow

Hubris, the Greek word for Man acting like a God, excessive pride or self-confidence. The ancient Greeks believed the gods punished those who did not recognize and live within their own limits.

They tell the cautionary tale of Daedalus. He fashioned wings using feathers and wax and with these wings he was able to fly. He gave a pair to his son, Icarus, but with the warning not to fly too close to the water or they would get wet, nor fly too close to the sun or they would melt. The shepherds and plowmen who witnessed their flight from below believed them to be gods. Well, we all know how this story ends. Icarus, filled with the arrogance that comes with pride does, indeed, fly too close to the sun. The wax melts from his wings, he falls to the ocean below, and he drowns. Hubris caused Daedalus to lose his son, and Icarus to lose his life.

Such tales of pride, though usually not as colorful or dramatic, are not absent from today’s world. For example, just because we are capable of manufacturing nuclear weapons does not mean we should. God gave some of us great knowledge with which we can create great things, but with that there is also great power. . .and power can be abused. Armies with massive weaponry can either protect us or tempt our leaders to go where we don’t belong, or take what is not ours. Ventilators that can buy an ailing and damaged body the time to heal can also keep someone otherwise deceased “alive” for untold days, weeks, months, even years, without any hope of recovery. Where is the line between true greatness and hubris? How can we defeat the Siren’s song that lies deep within us all?

I don’t know if I have the answer to those questions. The line is gray, blurred, often shifting position depending on circumstances. All we can do is look deep within our heart, pray for guidance, and ask ourselves what our true motive is, whether it is money or fame or the hope for a solution to a much bigger problem. We can vote for leaders who are wise and willing to listen to their advisors, able to weigh all the possible outcomes to their actions and pick the best for all. . .even when every option on the table is undesirable in and of itself. As individuals, we should remember our words can hurt or they can heal, but they cannot be unsaid once out of our mouths. We should be more aware of our actions toward our family, friends, neighbors, even strangers. When you see someone in need and you look away, ask yourself why.

Humility is the opposite of hubris. It doesn’t mean living beneath our God-given talents, ignoring the knowledge we were born to achieve. But it does mean recognizing what is good and what is not, what will bring good to others and what will only bring good to us. Our naturally sinful nature means we will not, cannot, always succeed, but shouldn’t we at least try?

Fall From Grace
By Jane Yunker

Adam fell from God’s eye.
Not soft and gentle as
the seed of the milkweed
drifting on a warm breeze,
but a hard fast freefall,
like Icarus from the sun.
Hot arrogance melting
wax from his wings, releasing
feathers of selfishness
to flutter slowly after,
covering his body in sin.

I have a new addiction: Hallmark romance movies. Saturdays from ten in the morning to ten at night I can watch six Hallmark original movies about love and romance. In fact, that’s what I’m doing as I write this blog. Every now and then there’s an actress/actor/storyline that doesn’t interest me, or life interrupts and I have to record for later, but it no longer feels like Saturday without at least a couple Hallmark movies under my belt. Then I round out my weekend with their new Sunday night series, Chesapeake Shores. They make me laugh. They make me cry. They make me smile.

Week days are filled with a million responsibilities, chores, expectations. Our schedules both at work and at home keep us all hopping. Then there are the committees, the foundations, all the volunteer opportunities that allow us to give back to our communities and our churches. At the end of the day we are left with very little time for ourselves, sometimes even for those we love the most.

Everyone needs to make time in their life for a little love and romance…or a lot of love and romance. Not just romance movies and books, although I whole-heartedly recommend them, but through the little things we do for or with the one we love.

Turn off the television and turn on some nice music during dinner. Light a candle, pour some wine, and actually talk to each other, maybe get up and dance. Later, finish off that bottle of wine as you share a bubble bath. In between, wash those dinner dishes together. That’s right, you heard me, even washing the dishes can be romantic if done together. Your hands touch over the dish drainer; you brush against each other in passing.

Romance isn’t all grand gestures, expensive jewelry, or exotic vacations. It’s found in those small moments. It’s there when you laugh together about your day. It’s in the shoulder or foot rubs, the quick hug as you pass in the hall. It’s there when you kiss good night and again when you open your eyes in the morning and that person lying next to you smiles.

Romance isn’t only for the rich, young, and good-looking. Romance is free and it’s for everyone.

When I wrote my first novel, Mary Bishop, I was very much a “pantser”. I sat down one day and just started writing, the story coming to me “by the seat of my pants”, so to speak. This worked for me because my heroine was telling me her story and insisting I get it down as fast as I could. Unfortunately, by the time I reached the end of my first draft this had become a problem. You see, while I wrote, questions came to mind; and as I answered those questions, I had to keep going back and making changes. Then when my critique group read my first draft they called me out for being lazy, leaving out long sections of time because it was easier than trying to answer some of the tougher questions about my heroine’s back story. They were right. This meant I had to go back and revise my existing chapters as well as add many new ones. I even added an entirely new character that had to now be accounted for throughout the book. By the time I was done, my manuscript had almost doubled in length and was, I admit, much improved. But it was accomplished over a longer period of time than necessary.

So, as I prepare to begin writing my second novel, The Healing Heart, I’m trying a new approach. I’m going to become a “plotter”. Some plotters map out their manuscript down to the last detail and then stick to that outline until the last word. Not me, I can’t go quite that far. I recognize my characters are going to insist on going their own way from time to time and I will want to follow them. But at the same time, if at all possible, I don’t want to find myself back in the position of having to do some of those same major rewrites I experienced the first time around.

I started with my characters. My friend Danielle shared with me her “character profile” form, two pages of questions meant to fully define each character’s past and present. This tool has proven to be invaluable. In order to answer each question I have to consider everything about them that makes them who they are, and it’s raised additional questions that are adding to my plot. I won’t use every little detail of their back stories, but they are more real to me now and will act according to the life experiences they’ve had in their past.

I’m currently researching my plotting questions. The Healing Heart takes place against a backdrop of WWI, the Spanish Flu epidemic, and early nursing. As a history major, I love research. With all this information at hand I’ll be able to craft a general outline of my plot and then, only then, will I be ready to start writing. Hopefully, even though all this pre-planning delays the start of my writing, it will make that part of the process go much smoother with fewer major revisions.

So, as the days grow shorter and the nights longer and colder, as the trees begin to show a hint of the bright colors to come, and I try to patiently await word from publishers regarding my first novel, join me as I happily delve into the world of my second novel.

Last week I wrote about the power a good book has to transport you to another time, another place. The author has to find just the right words to pull you into their world, make you care so deeply for the characters that it is near impossible to put the book down. That’s my goal.

In my novel, “Mary Bishop”, Earl and Mary move north from Virginia after the Civil War hoping to replace all their pain and loss with a new life in Wisconsin. Instead, when the people of Deer Creek learn the Bishop’s son died fighting for the Confederacy a campaign of harassment begins that leads to Earl’s suicide, leaving Mary alone to fight the on-going hatred while learning to open her heart to the possibility of a new love.

The book opens with Earl’s funeral:

If anyone in town looked up from their business that November morning they would have seen the distant black silhouette of a wagon moving slowly along the hill’s crest. They would have shaken their heads and said, with a slight smile, there goes Mary Bishop, off to bury her husband. Then they would have turned back to their day without a second thought. This I, Mary Bishop, know.

The undertaker drives the team while Reverend Elias Clark sits quietly next to him. I sit straight-backed on a bench next to Earl’s casket, my hands folded over the Bible on my lap. An icy wind cuts across the hilltops and through the pines standing dark against the sky, releasing the last of the leaves to fall and crunch beneath our wheels. It bites at my cheeks, makes my eyes water, loosens the hair I pinned so carefully beneath my hat.

I do not look away. I do not try to shelter myself from the coming storm. Instead, I welcome the numbness that spreads slowly but steadily to my core, as I imagine it must have spread through Earl as he swung limp from that rope he’d thrown over the barn rafter.

Leaving me alone to cut him down. Leaving me alone to drag his lifeless body into the house. Leaving me alone to wash and dress him for burial. Leaving me alone to ride into town and inform the Reverend of his sin. Leaving me alone.

In the second chapter I take the reader back to when Mary first meets Earl. She’s a young girl of twelve and he’s the new boy in town, just fourteen:

I stretched out as still as a stick in the tall grass, flat on my stomach, and pressed my chin as close to the ground as I could. My cap slipped off my head to hang from one braid but I didn’t mind. I wanted to see the world from the viewpoint of the ants, the spiders, the beetles. I watched as they scaled clumps of dirt barely big enough for me to feel beneath my bare feet as if those clumps were great mountains. I held my breath when a bumble bee flew past my head, lightly brushing my ear, stopping to inspect one clover flower after another in search of something sweet….

Footsteps approached, legs swishing through the grass. It was probably one of my brothers, either Harlan or George, sent to find me and I wasn’t ready to go home yet. He stopped in front of me. All I could see were bare feet and legs wet and muddy half way up the calf to the cuff of his rolled up trousers. I smelled fish.

 “What do we have here?” he asked. “Some kind of snake or over-sized beetle bug?”

It wasn’t George or Harlan. It was someone I’d never seen before. From where I lay the sun formed a halo around his unruly curls, the color of roasted chestnuts at Christmas. A string of dripping wet fish hung from one hand; the other held his pole balanced over his shoulder. I had to squint to make out his face through the glare, but he was undoubtedly the cutest boy I’d ever seen.

“Better close your mouth if you don’t want bugs to crawl in.” He plopped down beside me, laying his catch and pole on the ground next to him.

It’s up to you, Reader, to decide if I’ve succeeded.

There’s power in a good book, a story that pulls you in so deep you feel like you’re there. You can smell, feel, even taste the rain on your face. You can see the rocky cliffs rising behind you and the racing white river in front of you. You feel his arms reach around as he pulls you beneath the protection of overhanging trees, the kiss on your neck, and you’re both happy for and jealous of the heroine. I’m currently totally immersed in the Outlander series–up to book 3.

One of my favorites, though, is “Giants In The Earth” by O.E. Rölvaag. It’s a story of Norwegian pioneers in South Dakota in the 1870s. Rölvaag published his story in two volumes, 1924 and 1925, in Norway and then assisted in its translation for American publication in 1927. A fisherman in the Lofoten Islands, Rölvaag came to America and tried his hand at farming in South Dakota in 1896. Finding himself better suited to academics, he attended St Olaf College in Minnesota, and then continued his studies at the University of Oslo. He later returned to St Olaf College where he eventually became a professor of Norwegian literature.

Rölvaag’s writing is simple but powerful. Consider the first two paragraphs of the novel:

“Bright, clear sky over a plain so wide that the rim of the heavens cut down on it around the entire horizon…. Bright, clear sky, to-day, to-morrow, and for all time to come.

… And sun! And still more sun! It set the heavens afire every morning; it grew with the day to quivering golden light—then softened into all the shades of red and purple as evening fell…. Pure color everywhere. A gust of wind, sweeping across the plain, threw into life waves of yellow and blue and green. Now and then a dead black wave would race over the scene…a cloud’s sliding shadow…now and then…”

You’re there, the great flat plains spread out as far as the eye can see, the horizon melting into the sky. He continues:

“It was late afternoon. A small caravan was pushing its way through the tall grass. The track that it left behind was like the wake of a boat—except that instead of widening out astern it closed in again.”

You can feel the hope and promise of a better tomorrow in the sun, and the forewarning of hardship and tragedy in the “dead black wave” that would occasionally “race over the scene”. This is the kind of writing, the kind of bare emotion all writers strive for in their work. It’s the kind of writing that stands the passing of time. It’s been almost 100 years since Rölvaag first published these words and still they move people.

It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What’s beautiful to you? Is it flowers blooming in spring? Perhaps an overflowing vegetable garden ready for harvest? A baby’s first smile, full belly laugh, or “mama”?

I love beautiful things. This is obvious if you were to look at my bucket list. Before I die I want to learn how to play the guitar, to draw and paint, and obviously to publish poetry and stories/novels that move people and outlive me. I like to embroider, make jewelry, and put together jigsaw puzzles…the more colorful the better. I like to sing along to the radio; although it may not always be considered a beautiful thing to listen to it makes me happy. I also like to dance, but mostly when no one is looking. I’d love to learn to salsa. I got a taste of that when a friend married a Cuban man and his family took to the reception dance floor. So much joy, you couldn’t help but move your feet. Even my husband, who doesn’t like to dance, joined in.

But most of all I find beauty in a well-turned phrase, the perfect word. It’s why I read so much. And it’s why I write. According to the Global Language Monitor, there is estimated to be 1,035,877.3 words in the English language as of January 1, 2016. A new word is created every 98 minutes, or about 14.7 a day. Amazing!

You can see it in the many ways there are to express love. My Roget’s Thesaurus has twenty-three subheadings under love (noun): affection, self-love, Cupid or Amor (God of Love), courtship, beloved, love affair, ladylove, flirt, love potion, love (verb), cherish, make love, flirt, enamor, in love, loving, lovesick, affectionate, endearing, loved, lovable, amatorial, and flirtatious. And there are numerous suggestions under each subheading. In the Emotion Thesaurus there are pages dedicated to ways to describe love, the way we act when we are in love. It’s the same when you look up any emotion, be it sadness, anger, loneliness, or happiness.

So why is it we rely so heavily on the same vulgar four-letter words when expressing a strong emotion? I know I’m as guilty as anyone else. I’ve been working hard at removing a certain expletive from my golf game but so far with limited success. Perhaps I should use one of my thesauruses to find alternatives and start throwing them into the mix. Even if all it gets me is giggles from my fellow golfers it’s better than the shocked stares I sometimes get now.

The English language is so vast, so varied, that there’s really no excuse not to be exact in our meaning. A good novel should read like poetry; it should transport us to that very place where we can see, hear, smell, feel, even taste what we’re reading. That’s my goal, to create scenes that grab my reader, makes him or her go back and read it again, maybe have to stop and absorb the words before reading further.

Tell me, what do you find beautiful?