Barak Obama’s battle cry, ‘Yes, we can,’ has touched the world in many ways. I hear people adding it to their campaigns whether personal or political.  For instance, Ben & Jerry’s newest ice cream? Yes Pecan. (from http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/05/02/yes-he-can-borrow/)

So I thought I would jump on the band wagon.

Yes, I can.

I can learn all the ins and outs of my new computer and it’s programs. I can figure out how to get back my lost programs (with the help of someone much smarter about computers than I but it will get done.) I can learn how to download pictures from my camera and then send them on email or post on this blog. However, I might not figure it out for this particular blog.

Yes, I can… enjoy summer while coping with all the extra work it brings–garden, travel, company. etc.

I can figure out my current story. Someone asked me this week if I had a formula. Don’t I wish I could just follow a formula, do A, B, C and then D follows automatically. However,  I find every story comes to me differently and develops differently so I can’t write a story based on what worked last time. Each story presents its own challenges and problems. Knowing that, I have to work through the process of creating a story, discovering characters, blending a whole lot of ideas into a structure. Sometimes I have to bleed from the ears to make it work. It doesn’t always come together. I have to accept that part of the process is failure. But when it does come together in a satisfying story, I am glad I persevered.

Yes, I can.

But no, I can’t get my pictures sorted out to put on in this post. Sorry.

Sara Mill’s husband died of a heart attack on Tuesday — he was 40 and leaves this young woman alone with 3 children.  She will now have her heart set on other things besides her book so her writing associates are undertaking to promote her book for her. Read her interview and then consider buying her book.

The thought of a hard-boiled female detective got my mind whirling.

I paused the movie and sat in my darkened living room thinking about how much fun a female Sam Spade could be. Intrigued but not yet ready to dash to my computer, I changed disks and put on Casablanca (my all time favorite movie ever). The sweeping love story, a tale full of hard choices and sacrifice was what finally made the whole idea click in my mind. If I could just combine the P.I. detective story of the Maltese Falcon with the love story from Casablanca, and make Sam Spade more of a Samantha, I could have the best of all worlds.

These books are so good, I wish I’d written them. How did you set the stage to capture that gritty PI feel without being dark?

I find that a lot of PI stories are gritty and dark, focusing on the worst of the humanity, and while I wanted the Allie Fortune mysteries to be exciting and tension-filled I didn’t want them to be stark and hopeless.

One of the things I tried to do to counteract the darkness was to give Allie a multi-layered life. She has cases, relationships, friends and family, all of which I hope combine to make the stories textured, rich and full of life.

Allie is a character I’d love to have coffee with. What did she teach you while you wrote these books?

Allie was a great character to write. One of the things I learned from her was that human relationships (man/woman, mother/daughter, friends) are complicated and full of unspoken rules and expectations. Allie is a rule-breaker at heart and it complicates her life on a regular basis. One of the storylines I loved most is Allie’s relationship with her mother and how it grows and changes and how it’s shaped her.

Another dimension of Allie’s character that really taught me a lot was her willingness to do whatever was needed to help those she loves. There is no price on that kind of friendship and it’s a characteristic I’d like to see more of in myself. Okay I admit it, I’ve got a bit of a friend-crush on Allie. LOL.

One last question: If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would that be and who would you take with you?

If I could go anywhere right now I’d head to Monterey, California (I’m writing a book set there right now) and I’d plant myself on the beach with a notebook, writing my story as the waves crashed. Sounds like my idea of heaven on earth. There’s something about the wind-shaped Cypress trees and the crash of the surf in Monterey that calls to me. I don’t know why, it just is.

Miss Fortune, Allie Fortune Mystery Series #1By Sara Mills / Moody PublishersIn 1947 Allie Fortune is the only female private investigator in New York City, but she’s kept awake at night by a mystery of her own: her fianci disappeared in the war and no one knows if he’s still alive. Until Allie finds out, she will have no peace. When there’s a knock on her office door at four in the morning, Allie suspects trouble as usual, and Mary Gordon is no exception. Mary claims someone is following her, that her apartment has been ransacked, and that she’s been shot at, but she has no idea why any of this is happening. Allie takes the case, and in the process discovers an international mystery that puts her own life in danger.Meanwhile, the FBI is working the case as well, and she is partnered up with an attractive, single agent who would be perfect for her under other circumstances-if only she knew whether her fianci was still alive.

No not mine. It’s Harlequin’s 6oth anniversary.

It began in 1949 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. (Yeah Canada). The first book was The Mantee by US author, Nancy Bruff, and sold for 50c.

Here’s a sample of a 1949 cover. All I can say is we’ve come a long way.

Harlequin is the world’s largest publisher and has sold 8 billion books since 1949. They have a base of about 1200 authors and are published in 107 countries and 29 languages. They sell 130 million books each year–that’s over four books every second.

They produce 120 titles monthly. One in every six mass-market papersbacks sold in North America is a Harlequin or Silhouette novel. (Information supplied by a calendar put out by H/S for its authors to celebrate this anniversary)

They offer everyone a gift–free downloads of 16 books. Go help yourself at this address:

 http://www.harlequincelebrates.com/index.php# (You might have to copy and paste it into your address bar.

Happy Anniversary, Harlequin.

After Christmas I did a blog about gifts on Writers at Play. You can check it out on the link below.

http://www.writersatplay.com/wordpress/?p=817

One of the gifts I mentioned was the joy of a book I have fallen in love with this year, Inside Story, the power of the transformational arc, by Dara Marks. (http://www.daramarks.com)

Well, another lovely gift has fallen into my lap. My CP heard that Dara Marks is going to be giving a workshop in Vancouver this weekend (Jan. 31-Feb.1). It was all very last minute—one week to make the arrangements. But we both wanted to hear this woman who had written such a great writing book. The price of the workshop was reasonable. We got special discounted prices to fly to Vancouver. Even the hotel rooms were at a great conference rate. So we are off to Vancouver Jan. 30 and anticipating a great workshop.

Here is the transformational arc as taught by Dara Marks.

Yup. That’s why I need help.

I like reading how other authors work. Listen to a famous author tell of his day.

Ernest Hemingway

INTERVIEWER
Could you say something of this process? When do you work? Do you keep to a strict schedule?

HEMINGWAY
When I am working on a book or story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and you know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.The Paris Review, Issue 18, 1958

Doesn’t he make it sound like a magical, wonderful process?

It can be. It often is. Other times, for me, writing is like trying to swim in peanut butter. I struggle through a sticky mess trying to find a rock, a bit of shore..something…anything that is clear and solid. Bits of ideas try and make it to the surface. When they do, they are often fragmented and chipped and bear no resemblance to anything solid. It’s a magical, scary, frustrating part of my writing when the story is stiff and unwieldy and when I wonder how, in the past, I ever got from a beginning idea to a fully formed story.

It’s times like this that encouragement about my writing is valued the most.

Someone tells me they enjoyed a book. Or I read a good review. Or I get copies of a new release. This week I did indeed receive copies. Not of a new book but one in which I have a story reiussed.

This book will be on the shelves soon. I guess it proves (to me) that I can somehow, with perserverance, figure out how to shape this current mess into a story.

I am fascinated to hear how authors get the idea for a particular story. I can never quite remember how it all started. Usually the seminal idea is a little flash or a scene, one that often doesn’t make it into the book but gives me a feel for the story. For instance I wrote a book Unchained Hearts (Also available in the recollection Alberta Brides) that began in my mind as a dream where I saw this scarred, withdrawn man hiding in a cave with a pretty young woman. She is trying to console him as he sits huddled in the opening of the cave looking out at something that fills them with trepidation. So I had to figure out this story and write it.

It’s one of the few I can remember WHY I started writing it.

Except for the story to be released next week with Love Inspired Historical release. I had a contract for 3 books set in the Depression Era. I had only written one (The Road to Love). I came up with the second, The Journey Home. But I was near the end of the second story and still had no idea for the third when Emma walked on to the final pages of The Journey Home as Charlotte’s new friend and bridesmaid. This is what it says in my book, “Emma had joined the hospital staff during the summer, and she and Charlotte soon became fast friends. Emma, practical to the core, seldom bothered to dress up. She usually kept her thick blond hair in a tight bun, as suited a nurse, she insisted, when Charlotte tried to talk her into letting I hang loose. But Emma had allowed Charlotte to have her way for the wedding and her hair hung in shimmering waves halfway down her back.”

So I had my heroine. Now I needed a hero and into my computer leapt Boothe Wallace, a widower who is running from his life back east. Not for his own sake but because of his little son, Jessie. I immediately knew why because both my husband and myself have relatives who were born in the Depression and taken by friends because of economic circumstances. In both cases, the parents were powerless to prevent it as the courts considered such things as how many children the biological family had as opposed to the family wanting to adopt the child. As well, they considered the fact that the adoptive family was better off financially. This happened far too often and left permanent scars in the child and the family who lost their child. But it seemed a natural fit for my story.

I needed something to happen to Boothe’s wife that would make him resent the medical profession. About that time I was visiting my daughter and son-in-law (who is a doctor) and we talked about medical mistakes in the 30s. While I was visiting, he received a medical journal that mentioned the history of quinine—guess what? The drug that was used widely in the 30s and caused death in certain cases. (I love synchronicity.)

I needed one last element—something that made Emma irresolutely committed to being a nurse to the exclusion of marriage. I again drew from my own experiences and the guilt one feels when things go badly wrong and one feels they are responsible for that bad event. I don’t want to give any more details from my book on this matter because it is a secret that isn’t revealed in the story until close to the end.

Doing research was also fun. Of course I had done extensive research on the drought and how it affected residents of the Great Plains but now I had to research medical things.

One books was Yes, Father, Pioneer Nursing in Alberta written by Alvine Cyr Gahagan.  

I don’t remember where I found the copy I originally read but enjoyed it so much I wanted my own. I searched for it on Alibris and found a copy at a nearby city so didn’t have to pay postage. And it’s signed by the author. How cool is that? The book is full of personal details and specific details about nursing in that era. Some of the things she shares emphasizes the difficulties of the era. She mentions that a grateful mother had crocheted a bit of lace around a little hanky as a gift. The material used was a bleached salt bag. She talks about dressing a lye burn. Lye was used freely in making soap and bleaching the wide unfinished floorboards. Lye burns and scalds were too frequent as boiling water was used widely on washday or when rags were dyed for making braided rugs.

Dust Bowl Diary by Ann Marie Low was another excellent book.

The author mentions in an early entry that she went to the first talking movie then at the end of the book mentions a movie in Technicolor. She worked part time in a library for twenty-five cents an hour and considered herself fortunate. Under a 1931 entry she says ‘The heat deaths in the country total 1,231. I mean humans. Lord only knows how many animals have died.’ Her description of the conditions is heartbreaking.

I found a children’s book that was excellent. It is part of the series Dear America and called Survival in the Storm, The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards. 

 Her descriptions of how they made things from flour sacks and working as a volunteer in the hospital where people were dying from or recovering from dust pneumonia were so good.

My story was fun to write because so much of it seemed to fall into my lap—a gift.

I hope you pick up my book or order it on-line and I hope you enjoy the story. I love to hear from readers about what they like about it. (Or didn’t like so long as you’re gentle about your criticism.)

Happy New Year to all. I wish for you health, peace and happiness.

In my own life (the writing part of it) I’m working on a story that seems destined to be written entirely in the dark. First, I was in the dark about my story. I couldn’t find it but I pushed on ahead and created a synopsis. Of sorts. I wrote over 100 pages but every day it felt wrong, stilted, and worse, I dreaded facing the keyboard the next day and trying to figure out what next??? So Dec. 23, I gave up and threw it all out and started again. This time I did two things I know I need to ALWAYS do. First, I made sure I had a clearly definable conflict that put the 2) motivated characters in opposition. Duh. How basic is that?

Still, the story is being stubborn. I can blame the holiday season when it’s hard to pull my thoughts into the office and force them to remain on the words appearing on the screen. Or I could blame it on a touch of the flu. No brain power.  But the last couple of days something miraculous and odd has occurred. When I go to bed, my story becomes a living organism in my head. I see the characters moving, talking, laughing. Like a mixed up dream, I see bits from different scenes. I have to jot things down in the dark. Last night I ended up with four pages of notes that will translate into 20 pages or more in my story. I could complain about missing my sleep but after agonizing over this story, I am not about to whine about that (though I might steal a nap during the day). In fact, I intend to do all I can to nurture this particular event.

It’s like I have fallen back into my childhood when I always made up stories to put myself to sleep. (One big difference-this is NOT putting me to sleep.) It just goes to prove that I can nurture the creative process but I can’t control it.  Not that I intend to trust my future to this method. In fact, I strive always to prepare well for writing a story. I don’t know all the details (in this case it seems I know none of them) but I need to know the major turning points, the emotional journey, and have a feel for the theme (which often changes and develops as I write).  As I said,  I need to have understandable motivation, and then, clearly definable conflict. I have learned the horrible frustration of trying to write a story without and vow every time it won’t happen again. 

Oh yes, a pen with a light in the tip or a little book light at the bedside are absolutely essential as well.

Here are the light and pen I use.

BTW, my newest book, The Path to Her Heart, is out mid January so watch for it.

We had the presents. We had the meals. We had the company. And we had the good news–2 new babies coming in 09.

Some unusual visitors came through our yard on Christmas Day. I managed to grab my camera and get one picture before the camera announced my memory card was full. That’s what happens when I don’t erase any pictures all summer and autumn. Here’s our visitors leaving.

We had a great time over the holidays. We made a big jig saw puzzle and enjoyed visiting the kids and grandkids. We had 22 here yesterday for the family dinner. Fun.

But I am ready to get back to work.

On Christmas Eve day I finally accepted that the story I was working on wasn’t working. It wasn’t simply a matter of pushing through resistance because the resistance wouldn’t go away. I expect my ‘muse’ tried yelling and when I wouldn’t listen, started yawning. Eventually, I stopped and went back to square one. I’m happy I did because the story I came up with is so much better. I’d tell you about it but it might take a few unexpected turns before it actually is finished (and published).

Which makes me think of things that make me unique as  a writer. (I suspect every writer has similiar traits)

•  I talk to voices inside my head.
• Some of the letters on my keyboard are worn off.
• There are food crumbs in my keyboard. (And coffee stains on the keys)
• I have favorite pens that no one is allowed to touch (especially the one from Harrod’s)
• I would rather stay home and write than go out (even for dinner)
• My idea of a perfect holiday is just me and my computer.
• I love the smell of books.
• A bookstore is one of my favorite places.
• I know several good on-line sites for used books. (In fact, I get special shipping rates).
• When I’m working I’m happy.

With that, I will confess that I am looking forward to Monday morning and getting back to work.

I was walking with my sister-in-law today. She told me about the books she got at the library. I told her about the coffee table book I saw there about the most beautiful libraries in the world. Pages folded out to give one a panoramic view of many of them. Libraries in Paris, London, Rome, Spain and the New York Central library. 

 The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World (Hardcover)by Guillaume de Laubier (Author), Jacques Bosser (Contributor), James H. Billington (Photographer), Laurel Hirsch (translator)(Author)  

Of course the library I remember most wasn’t there. It wasn’t even beautiful. In fact, it was at one time a one-roomed school house that had been moved to town as a ‘portable’ classroom when our school burned to the ground in the dead of winter. I was eight and my mother couldn’t find me because I had taken shelter at the wrong house but that’s a different story. After the new school was built one of the temporary classrooms served as a library for many years. I didn’t care if the building was old or not. It was always exciting to walk into the library and smell the oiled wood floors and the dusty shelves. In the winter the only warm spot was near the pot-bellied stove but we didn’t care. We made our selection and hurried to the desk so the librarian could mark the due date in the back.

 I remember The Green-eyed Stallion that I read when I was home with pink eye. I had to pry my eyelids apart to read. And Cherry Ames Nurse stories that took me inside hospitals and into romance.  Nancy Drew– girl detective took me into the world of mystery and logic. I read everything and anything.

 I’ve had an on-going love affair with libraries. I confess that I know the whereabouts and the general layout of libraries across the country. It’s one of the first places I locate when visiting a place especially on research. I have found lovely treasures. One library in a nearby university town had a special room to house old and rare books about Alberta history. It overwhelms me to simply look at the titles.

 Thanks to the foresight of librarians and powers that be, we can access books from across the country in our own library through inter-library loans. I’ve held and read rare and hard to find books this way though I confess I usually go to an on-line used book source and try and find my own afterwards so I can read and reference them often.

 The history of libraries goes back a long way. About 30,000 clay tablets found in ancient Mesopotamia date back more than 5,000 years. Archaelogists have uncovered papyrus scrolls from 1300-1200bc in the ancient Egyptian cities of Amarna and Thebes. The Great Library of Alexandria, a public library open to those with the proper scholarly and literary qualifications, was founded about 300bc.It wasn’t until waves of immigration and the philosophy of free public education for children that public libraries spread in the US. The first public library in the country opened in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in 1833. Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie helped build more than 1,700 public libraries in the US between 1881 and 1919. (information from http://www.history-magazine.com/libraries.html)

 I know that in many pioneer towns one of the first things the community got after a school and church was a library.

I found this information on an early Canadian library.

Claremont established a Mechanics’ Institute in November 1891. Mr. Jobbitt was the first librarian and the library operated from his store. In 1895 the institute became a public library (not free). After 1897 the library was open three afternoons and evenings each week. It continued in its location until Mr. Jobbitt resigned in 1903. (from http://www.uoguelph.ca/~lbruce/photos/Claremont.htm)

Rows and rows of books. It makes me want to pop into a library right now and breath deeply. I hope you have lots of fond memories of libraries and books.

Finally a post not about autumn (I hear great sighs of relief) though I can’t promise I’m done with the subject yet. Especially if the fine weather continues. But I’m a writer and I haven’t mentioned any writing lately. Not that I haven’t been hard at it. I’ve finished the first, rough draft of a story that I hope to propose to my editor in the near future. I went back to the drawing board two or three times before I felt like the story had the elements I wanted in it.

My book The Journey Home is sold out at Harlequin/Silhouette. I don’t know if it’s still available at Amazon. Selling out is a good thing. Yes?

 Then I’ve been busy doing research for the next project after all that. I’m planning a series of books set in the Depression era again. This series, however, will be set in western Canada with unique elements. I’m enjoying the research mostly from books. I’ve found some wonderful first person stories. I just wish I had more time to hunker down and read.

Which brings to mind two things recently that were a complete waste of time. First, the movie Burn After Reading. I thought with Brad Pitt and George Cluny in it, it couldn’t miss. I was wrong. It is without doubt the worst useless movie I have ever seen. Totally unsatisfactory. Though Brad played his role very well.

Then there was the writing workshop I attended yesterday. I haven’t been together with other writers for months so I was really looking foward to it. I was hoping for some instruction and inspiration from a multipublished author. But it did nothing for me and again, I was disappointed especially at the waste of a whole day. The only saving thing was I got to see some friends and also, while sitting through the sessions, wrote in long hand the first chapter of my new Depression Era book. I’m excited about getting started on it now.

Here’s Carolyne Aaresen and I at the workshop.

And I got to meet Allison Lyons, senior editor at Harlequin/Silhoutte. She was articulate and enthusiastic. I appreciate what she had to say. Here she is sharing her information.

I’m now hard at work trying to get caught up after a day away. Okay, I’m not working THAT hard. But I should be.