Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Tuesday Teaser

Tuesday Teaser is a weekly bookish meme (rhymes with “cream"), hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. (I’ve borrowed it from LDS Women’s Book Review.) Anyone can play along! Just do the following:


  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share at least two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

I’m adapting the rules slightly: I’ll be quoting some random lines from the last page I read before I post my teaser. I'm a slow reader, so here's my second teaser from The Hollow Hills:

There was a hiss and a spitting, and a cloud of herb-smelling steam billowed thick between me and the girl, obscuring her. Through it I saw her hands, those still hands, moving quickly to fan the pungent mist away from her eyes. My own were watering. Vision blurred and glittered. The pain in my head blinded me. The movement of the small white hands through the steam was weaving a pattern like a spell. The bats went past me in a cloud. Somewhere near me the strings of my harp whimpered. The room shrank around me, chilled to a globe of crystal, a tomb...

From The Hollow Hills, by Mary Stewart, p 203

If you'd like to share a Teaser from a book you're currently reading, I'd love you to do so in the comment section. And you don't even have to share it on a Tuesday! Be sure to include the title, author, and page number in case others would like to check out the book you're reading, too!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

RWA Desert Dreams Conference 2010

I'm back from the Desert Dreams Conference! Lots of fantastic workshops. Learned about Scrivener for Mac. (Going to download as soon as I get back from Salt Lake City.) Learned I need a professional assistant. Alas, can't afford one just now. (Much more expensive than a Scrivener download!) Sat next to a woman with an iPad. She even let me hold it! (I want one! Unfortunately, I don't need one, so I guess I'll hold off on that awhile.) Enjoyed some great meals. (Loved the tuxedo pie! The margarita pie, not so much.) Won a gift certificate for Honey Moon Sweets. (My sister's getting one heck of a birthday cake this year!)  


I made new friends and reconnected with old ones.   


Oh yeah, and I worked a little on my WIP. And I thought a LOT about my WIP. Maybe someday I'll even WRITE some new WIP! You never know. 


Tuesday begins my trek to the Storymakers Writers Conference in Provo, UT. Can't wait!

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Brand New Regency Romance by Donna Hatch


Donna Hatch's long awaited companion book to The Stranger She Married is finally available! Here's what you have to look forward to in The Guise of a Gentleman:

The widowed Elise is a perfect English lady living within the confines of society for the sake of her impressionable young son. Her quiet world is shattered when she meets the impulsive and scandalous Jared Amesbury. His roguish charm awakens her yearning for freedom and adventure. But his irrepressible grin and sea-green eyes hide a secret. A gentleman by day, a pirate by night, Jared accepts one last assignment before he can be truly free. Elise gives him hope that he, too, can find love and belonging. His hopes are crushed when his best laid plans go awry and Elise is dragged into his world of violence and deceit. She may not survive the revelation of Jared's past...or still love him when the truth is revealed.

I interviewed Donna in June 2009. Click here to re-read the interview!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Tuesday Teaser

Tuesday Teaser is a weekly bookish meme (rhymes with “cream"), hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. (I’ve borrowed it from LDS Women’s Book Review.) Anyone can play along! Just do the following:


  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share at least two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

I’m adapting the rules slightly: I’ll be quoting some random lines from the last page I read before I post my teaser. I'm a slow reader and once again, this is an exceptionally long book, so I will probably share multiple teasers over the next few weeks.

"I'm sorry...Emrys." It was a measure of our new, easier relationship that he should add, with a suspicious meekness: "And had you forgotten that my name is Ban?" Then, laughing as he dodged my cuff at his head: "Do you have to call me after the half-wit?"

"It's the first name that came into my head. It's a king's name too, the King of Benoic, so you can take your choice which was your sponsor."

The Hollow Hills, by Mary Stewart, p 66


If you'd like to share a Teaser from a book you're currently reading, I'd love you to do so in the comment section. And you don't even have to share it on a Tuesday! Be sure to include the title, author, and page number in case others would like to check out the book you're reading, too!

Monday, April 12, 2010

"Mormon Mishaps and Mischief": Review and Interview

I wrote an endorsement of Mormon Mishaps and Mischief before it was ever published, and I stand by that endorsement:


"Mormon Mishaps had me chuckling, giggling, and chortling so hard, my cats came trotting into the room to see what was 'wrong'. Nothing was 'wrong', but everything was 'oh, so right!' D.N. Giles and C.L. Beck have put together a delightful compilation of laugh-out-loud gems. What's not to love about laughter? We all need more of it, so buy this book!"


Well, of course, I can't make anyone actually buy this book, but if you're a member of the LDS Church, I think you'll be glad you did.


Whoever thought sacrament meeting could be so silly? In Mormon Mishaps and Mischief you'll find a unique collection of hilarious short stories from celebrated LDS authors that turn the spotlight on ordinary members to illuminate the lighter side of Mormondom. Whether it's the annual Primary program or a simple Sunday school prayer, you'll soon find that where two or three are gathered together . . . there's bound to be potential for some humor. Cure your family's Sunday afternoon doldrums with a little dose of mishaps and mischief.


Believe me, this will cure Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday doldrums, too!


Now, having endorsed and laughed my head off at this book, I'm excited to be able to present today an interview with the compilers (and authors of several of the mischievous mishap stories),  D.N. Giles and C.L. Beck.


JDP: What prompted you to write Mormon Mishaps and Mischief?



Cindy: The moon was full, Aquarius was on the cusp, and the chickens were molting, all of which combined to make this the right time for a book of humorous anecdotes. Well, that and the pantry was empty, so a book that might actually sell a few copies seemed like a good idea.

Nichole:What Cindy says might be true. Or it could be that one sunny spring morning, one of us woke up and said, “I think I’ll write a book of humorous anecdotes today.” Then there was email involved. Lots of email. And brainstorming and collecting and chocolate eating. And maybe some Twinkies. Thus, proposal for a book of humorous anecdotes was born.

JDP: Ah, chocolate. That has inspired many an author, has it not? I've never tried the Twinkie method. An experiment may be in the offing. What’s your favorite story in the book?

Cindy: There’s this fantastic story about a crotchety old man who gets visited by three ghosts at Christmas, and by the end of the story, he vows to keep Christmas … oh wait, that’s Charles Dickens’ stuff.  All right then, my next favorite is “A Good Impression” contributed by Cathy Witbeck. It’s about a little girl who gets all decked out for Easter and puts something interesting into her purse to take to church. (But I’m not going to tell you what, because it would ruin the fun.) On the other hand, I do have to tell you that because they’re all so funny, my favorite story changes about every five minutes.

Nichole: I’m with Cindy. Choosing just one favorite would be like playing favorites between my children. Which I’ve never done. Ever. I’m a good mother. I promise. Oh, but speaking of motherhood, there are several stories about children doing funny things, like licking worms and bringing a head of lettuce to pray. Love all of those.

JDP: I know what was in that Easter purse, but I'm not telling, either! Where do the stories come from?

Cindy: From the demented … er … I mean, the creative genius of our minds. And from the funny events that we, and our contributors, saw happening at church, home and everywhere in between. Rest assured, however, that all contributors to the book signed a statement that the stories were true, and so even though real names were seldom used in the anecdotes, the situations actually happened. Which means if you think you recognize your bishop in there, well … we’ll never tell.

Nichole: None of them came from my current ward. They all came from other people’s wards, which I visited while wearing my invisibility cloak. So if you happen to be in my ward and recognize a story or five or twenty, well I didn’t see those things or write them down in my handy-dandy notebook. Er. Um. I mean…I plead the fifth?

JDP: (Hmm, maybe I'd better start paying more attention at Church and less time plotting my WIP.) What are your favorite things to eat?

Cindy: I’m not particularly fond of witchetty grubs from Australia or puffer fish from Japan—not to mention Brussel sprouts from my mother’s kitchen—but otherwise I like most food. Especially Twinkies. Yes, I think Twinkies count as a very nutritious snack. Which reminds me, I’m almost out of ‘em.

Nichole: Chocolate, licorice, carbonated beverages, and cheese. And snow crab. But not all mixed together. Fondue is great and all, but only if you have the right recipe. Sometimes I like Twinkies, but since Cindy loves them so much I try to give her my share to be nice.

JDP: I'm with you on the chocolate and cheese! And considering the Twinkies. (Did you know the Twinkie is 80 years old this year?) Passing on the witchetty grubs, puffer fish, Brussel sprouts and (sorry, but I don't like seafood) snow crab, though. If you could choose to be any animal, what would it be?

Cindy: I’d choose to be pixie dust. Oh wait, dust isn’t an animal. Okay, I’d choose to be the pixie. In fact, I think I probably was one in a previous life. At least I had a haircut that made me look like a pixie when I was a kid.

Nichole: If Cindy gets to be a pixie, I want to be a mermaid. Then I could swim around from island to island and eat all the snow crab and mango I wanted. Plus, I think mermaid fins are beauteous.

JDP: Pixies and mermaids. Good choices! (I'd still pass on the snow crab, though.) Thank you for letting me interview you. Do you have anything you’d like to add?

Cindy and Nichole: It was our pleasure! Readers can visit us at our website, MormonMishaps.com, or laugh with us at our humor blog at ldshumor.blogspot.com. In addition, there are our personal blogs—follow Nichole at nicholegiles.blogspot.com or Cindy at bythebecks.blogspot.com.

We really like having followers. It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Plus, we like to post funny stuff and make you laugh. 

JDP: Sorry, JDP NEWS readers, no giveaway freebies with the interview this time. You'll each have to buy your own copies. (Or find some generous visiting teacher to give you one for Christmas. Hey, there's an idea! I think I just struck one Christmas gift off my list. Unless they all read this blog first, then they'll all have copies by December and I'll have to think of something else!)

To the FTC: I bought MMM with my very own hard earned money.

Winner of "Free Men and Dreamers" giveaway!

Congratulations to Debra Guyette of Connecticut! Debra has won her choice of volumes from L.C. Lewis's Free Men and Dreamers historical novel series. Since Debra hasn't read any of the series, she has chosen to begin with the first volume, "Dark Sky At Dawn".

Thank you to everyone who entered!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Summary Sunday

Some writers I know write much faster than I do. Some writers I know write slower. Some writers I know write more hours a day than I do. Some writers I know write less. One thing I've learned. I cannot successfully complete a new book if I worry about comparing myself to others, therefore...I write the number of words a day that I write. I write the number of hours a week that I write. When my efforts feel so small that I sometimes wonder if it's worth it to continue, I take this verse as my mantra:

"Out of small things proceeds that which is great." (Doctrine & Covenants 64:33)

Here is a weekly summary of my often "small" writing efforts. And just for fun, I'm throwing in one "new" sentence a day from my daily writing. These sentences may or may not make the final editing cut when all is said and done, so enjoy them while you can!

Thanks for joining me on my journey!

Monday: 636 words

Sentence: She would mock and gibe and cast little daggers honed to a fine sting with her tongue.


Tuesday: 409 words


Sentence: But her brother's face smudged amidst her tears, the red-gold ringlets smearing into silken flax as his features melted into those of another.


Wednesday: 763 words


Sentence: "The man is double-tongued and double-hearted."


Thursday: 1072 words


Sentence: She had seen alarm in his face, heard panic in his voice, but she did not know just how desperate he truly was until she felt his fingers digging into her wrists hard enough to bruise her.


Friday: 1358 words


Sentence: His voice was deadly level, as steady as the wrist that held his blade.


If anyone would like to start a Summary Sunday on their own blog, you're welcome to share my idea. All I ask is that you link back to my original blog link.

Friday, April 9, 2010

What Am I Reading for My 2010 New/Old Reading Challenge?

Well, I've finally closed the covers once more on The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart. This was an old friend that was very difficult to leave! For the record, my very favorite chapter in the whole book remains Chapter 12 of "The Falcon". It's not an "action" chapter or a "magical" chapter. But to me, it is a very touching chapter and one that I love so much I have read it many, many more times over the years than I've ever read the entire book. Do any of you have favorite sections of books that you read over and over again? Just sections because you love them?


Anyway, I simply can't help myself. Though I know (having read it before) that no sequel can ever quite measure up to the "young Merlin" I grew to love in The Crystal Cave, I am nevertheless abandoning my strict "new book/old book" policy, and am going to read two "old" books in a row: I am following up The Crystal Cave with Mary Stewart's sequel, The Hollow Hills. At some point, I'll read two "new" books in a row to make up for it. I promise!


Here is the back cover blurb:


The countryside of England and Wales in the Dark Ages forms an almost tangible background to this wonderfully and powerfully realised picture of an ancestral hero coming to manhood. "The Hollow Hills" is the brilliant portrayal of the young Arthur from his birth to accession to the throne of Britain. And behind and around him is the strong, yet vulnerable figure of Merlin who sees and knows so much but is powerless to prevent the strife and violence of his turbulent times. "The Hollow Hills" was first published in 1973 and tells the story of Merlin's guardianship of Arthur. He leads Arthur to the sword that tests his claim to power and the crown.


Once again, because of its length, this is likely to be a multiple Tuesday Teaser of a book. For your first glimpse of The Hollow Hills, stop by here on Tuesday!


If you'd like to join my 2010 New/Old Reading Challenge, its not too late! Click here and here for more information. And remember, there are prizes involved if you join us! :-) 


Wednesday, April 7, 2010

From Reader to Writer

Presented by Joyce DiPastena 
at the Kearny (Arizona) Public Library on April 7, 2010

(Delivered in my new haircut to the right. It's one of the few times you'll catch me with straight hair. I'm washing all the curls back in tomorrow!)

I had an exciting year last year! I did a lot of traveling and visited both new and familiar places.

One stop I made was in England! I saw so many exciting things there, my head still spins when I try to remember them all. As some of you might know from the kind of books I write, I love the Middle Ages. So I was especially thrilled when I got to stand on the battlefield of Hastings (1), where William the Conqueror defeated the Saxons in the year 1066 and united two races that would eventually merge into the people who would become some of my ancestors. From there I visited a cold and drafty medieval castle where a young girl named Catherine once lived. (2)

After my tour of medieval sites, I visited the town of Bath, a popular resort in Regency England. While there, I learned to dance two popular Regency dances called the cotillion and the quadrille. I visited some of the magnificent Regency-style houses in London, watched the fireworks at Covent Gardens (3), and had the privilege of attending the great concert hall where a performance of Handel’s oratorio, Messiah, so moved King George II that his excitement drove him to his feet during the Hallelujah Chorus (4), beginning the tradition of standing during that chorus that continues to this day.

I saw some exciting things in America last year, too! I got to follow the Underground Railroad that helped slaves escape from the South to freedom in the North during the American Civil War. From there, I joined a company of covered wagons and crossed the great plains back to the American West. (5)

By now you may have guessed that I did not actually visit any of these places physically. So it probably won’t surprise you that, in addition to the experiences I just mentioned, I also lived life for a week as a dog (6), visited the palace of Sushan in Persia where Queen Esther saved the Jews through her courage and faith as recounted in the Bible (7), and made a stop in Germany where I helped that famous detective, Adrian Monk, solve a murder case (8).

How did I do all these wonderful things? Through the magic of books, of course!

Every writer, before they become a writer, starts out as a reader and lover of books. But every reader does not turn into a writer. Since all of us sitting here tonight love to read (or we wouldn’t be sitting in a library, right?), what, I wondered, tipped the scale for some of us from being contented readers of words to becoming crafters of words?

I knew some of the things that had personally tipped that scale for me, but I wondered what had tipped them for other writers. So I did a mini-survey last week and asked some of my writer friends this very question. The first thing I learned from the responses I received is that fiction and non-fiction writers come at their writing from two very different directions. Since I’m a fiction writer, those were the answers I most related to and the ones I’d like to share with you.

As I read my friends’ responses, I identified two defining quirks in the brain of a fiction writer. I call these the “What If? Syndrome” and “The Dissatisfaction Syndrome”.

Joan Sowards, author of Haunts Haven and Chocolate Roses, said in answer to my survey question: “You can’t write fiction into [an] ancestor’s story, but I kept feeling prompted to sit down and write what she would say if I got a chance to interview her. When I did, it blossomed into a short story, then a novel. That book isn’t published, but through it, I learned that I love to write.”

And Anne Patrick, author of Lethal Dreams and Reservations for Two, said: “I may be strange, but as a kid after I’d read a book, and sometimes even as I was reading it, I would start imagining how I would have done a scene differently. And I still do this often, especially with mysteries/thrillers. It never fails, before I’m done with the book my mind is going haywire with ideas and possibilities.”

Both of these authors suffer from the “What If? Syndrome”.

In Joan’s case, it manifested itself a bit more subtly. Somewhere in her subconscious lay the thought: “What if I were to sit down and interview this ancestor. What might she say to me?” And from that “What if…?” question grew the interview that turned into a short story that turned into a novel.

The “What If? Syndrome” manifested itself much more glaringly in Anne. When her mind goes “haywire” with imagining different twists and turns that a scene she is reading might have taken instead of the way the author wrote it, she is basically asking herself: “What if this happened in this scene, instead of that? How would the characters have reacted? What if the author had thrown in this twist instead, how would the characters have dealt with it? Oooo, wouldn’t it have been fun to see how the story might have ended if such and such had happened instead?”

I understand what Anne is saying and thinking and feeling, because I have said and thought and felt those same things when reading a book. In fact, the first book I ever wrote (still unpublished) is filled with characters and plot points that I consciously took from other books I had read and sought to twist and turn. Keeping in mind that I’m referring to plots that were popular in romances in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s: “Why,” I remember asking myself, “is the hero in romances always portrayed ‘like this’? I hate those kind of heroes! What if I took all those cookie-cutter hero-characteristics and poured them into my villain instead? And why is that, when what stands between a hero and heroine is the humble birth of one vs. the aristocratic birth of the other, the one of humble birth always turns out, in the end, to be as highly born as the other in order for them to have their happy ending? What if the one of humble birth never turned into an aristocrat at all, but remained humbly born from the beginning to the end of the story? How would such a story be resolved?”

These are the kinds of questions—What if? questions—that dig and nag and finally burn themselves through a writers brain until the writer finds herself compelled to sit down and try to answer those questions with pen and paper or computer keyboard and screen.

The second syndrome—the “Dissatisfaction Syndrome”—is described by two other friends of mine.

Carmen Ferreiro Esteban, author of Two Moon Princess, said: “For me [what tipped the scale] was that nobody seemed to get it right. So I decided to write it myself, the book I would like to read.”

Rachael Renee Anderson, author of the novel, Divinely Designed, said: “For me it was because I couldn’t find enough books written in the style I liked to read (that were clean, that is). I was a voracious reader and the authors I enjoyed reading couldn’t keep up!”

Again, I remember a time in my life when I haunted the bookstores, desperate to find a book already written that told the story I had swirling around in my mind at the time. I was certain the characters and plot I was thinking of couldn’t be that unique, and that surely someone else had thought up the same characters and plot and published it in a book. But every time I thought I’d found a book that was at least close, I’d buy it and take it home and read it, only to be disappointed, not only because it didn’t quite tell the story that I was looking for, but because it was filled with graphic sex scenes that I didn’t want to read. And so, just as my friend Carmen said, I finally came to the conclusion that if I were ever going to get to read that story I had in my head (without the graphic sex scenes), I was simply going to have to sit down and write it myself. Which is what I finally did.

For one reason or another, Carmen and Rachael and I were all dissatisfied with what we found on the bookshelves. Not that there aren’t a lot of wonderful books to read! There are and we still read them. But none of them quite tell the stories we envision in our own, unique heads, and for that, each of us has learned that if we ever want to read that story, we are simply going to have to write it ourselves.

There is one last syndrome that I just remembered that every author suffers from. I’m not quite sure what to call this one. It may sound like pride or arrogance, but it really isn’t, and without it, there would be precious few books to read in the world.

Marsha Ward, author of The Man from Shenandoah and two sequels that make up her Owen’s Family Western series, put it this way:

“Back in the 80s, I enrolled my children in a library summer reading program. Since we spent a lot of time there, I naturally increased my reading list. For some reason, I picked up a couple of Western novels. One was poorly written [NOTE: SHE ONLY SAID “ONE”!], leading me to say to myself, ‘I can write better than that!’

“The truth is, for years I had dabbled in writing for my own pleasure. This occasion spurred me to get serious and study the craft.”

Whether they will admit it out loud or not, every writer has read at least one book that has lead them to shout, “I can write better than that!”

As I said, this may sound like arrogance, but if it weren’t for such moments of cockiness, self-confidence, whatever you want to call it, writers might write until they were blue in the face, but none of us would have the courage to ever send our writing out to those all-powerful people called “PUBLISHERS”, and without Publishers, readers, as I said, would have precious little to read.

So the next time you pick up a book, remember that behind the words you are reading stands a human being who is badly smitten with three diseases:

The “What-If? Syndrome”. The “Dissatisfaction Syndrome”. And the “I Can Write Better Than That! Syndrome”.

And if you love books and reading, then just smile and say, “Thank you.”

Thank you for coming and listening tonight.

Footnotes:

1. The Conqueror, by Georgette Heyer

2. Catherine, Called Birdie, by Karen Cushman

3. Various Regency romances by Georgette Heyer, Heidi Ashworth, Jaimey Grant, and Donna Hatch

4. Messiah: The Little-Known Story of Handel’s Beloved Oratorio, by Tim Slover

5. Martha’s Freedom Train, by C. LaRene Hall; Trail of Storms, by Marsha Ward

6. Dogsbody, by Diana Wynne Jones

7. Esther, by Norah Lofts

8. Mr. Monk Goes to Germany, by Lee Goldburg

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Tuesday Teaser

Tuesday Teaser is a weekly bookish meme (rhymes with “cream"), hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. (I’ve borrowed it from LDS Women’s Book Review.) Anyone can play along! Just do the following:


  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share at least two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

I’m adapting the rules slightly: I’ll be quoting some random lines from the last page I read before I post my teaser. I'm a slow reader and this is an exceptionally long book, so I will probably share multiple teasers over the next few weeks. Here's the third, and I can almost guarantee, last one:

We faced one another in a small silence. I was almost as tall as he. He said, gently: "So now it is goodbye."

"How does one say goodbye to a King who has been given immortality?"

He gave me a strange look. "Shall we meet again, then?"

"We shall meet again, Ambrosius."

The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart, p 310

If you'd like to share a Teaser from a book you're currently reading, I'd love you to do so in the comment section. And you don't even have to share it on a Tuesday! Be sure to include the title, author, and page number in case others would like to check out the book you're reading, too!