Jeff Bowles has been a member of the Writing to be Read team since March of 2017, as well as being a talented science fiction and horror author with his own unique style. He’ brought us blog series such as “Jeff’s Pep Talk”, “Words to Live By”, “Craft and Practice”, “Jeff’s Movie Reviews” and Jeff’s Game Reviews”. He’s been on haitus for several months, but now he’s coming back with a fantastic new blog series, “Bowlesian!: Short Stories from the Brink”, which will feature some of his amazing short fiction each month. You can catch it on the first Wednesday of every month starting… tomorrow, March 2, 2022. You won’t want to miss it!
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Jeff Bowles is a science fiction and horror writer from the mountains of Colorado. The best of his outrageous and imaginative work can be found in God’s Body: Book One – The Fall, Godling and Other Paint Stories, Fear and Loathing in Las Cruces, and Brave New Multiverse. He has published work in magazines and anthologies like PodCastle, Tales from the Canyons of the Damned, the Threepenny Review, and Dark Moon Digest. Jeff earned his Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at Western State Colorado University. He currently lives in the high-altitude Pikes Peak region, where he dreams strange dreams and spends far too much time under the stars. Jeff’s novel, Love/Madness/Demon, is available on Amazon now!
Check out Jeff Bowles Central on YouTube – Movies – Video Games – Music – So Much More!
It’s day two of the WordCrafter Chocolate Fudge saves the Sugar Dog Book Blog Tour, and today I’m bringing you my review of this wonderful little book. Robbie and her son Michael co-write the Sir Chocolate books, illustrated with lovely fondant scenes and filled with delectable recipes which will make your tummy rumble. Many of us know Robbie and are familiar with her “Growing Bookworms” blog series and the Sir Chocolate books, so today I’d like to bring you and interview with her son and co-author, Michael Cheadle and share my review of Chocolate Fudge saves the Sugar Dog.
The Authors –Robbie and Michael Cheadle
Author Interview
Kaye: How old are you, Michael?
Michael: I am 16 years old.
Kaye: How long have you been writing Sir Chocolate books with your mom?
Michael: Mom and I started writing the Sir Chocolate books when I was 7 years old and in Grade 1 at school.
Kaye: Being such a young author is quite an accomplishment. Does it make you a celebrity among your friends?
Michael: No, I have not told my high school friends about my books. It just hasn’t come up.
Kaye: Do you help your mom with the baking for the books, too?
Michael: I used to make a fondant creation for inclusion in the books although I haven’t done that for the most recent two books in the series. I don’t do fondant art anymore. I do enjoy baking with my mom and now I also cook with either mom or dad depending on who is doing the cooking that day.
Kaye: What do you like most about writing the Sir Chocolate books?
Michael: I enjoy thinking up a fun storyline with my mom and deciding on new and interesting characters for inclusion in the stories.
Kaye: What is the most difficult part of being a co-author with your mom for you?
Michael: My mom doesn’t always listen to my ideas and sometimes she changes them which can be annoying for me.
Kaye:Chocolate Fudge saves the Sugar Dog is the eighth book in the Sir Chocolate series. Which one is your favorite and why?
Michael:Sir Chocolate and the Sugar Crystal Cave story and cookbook is my favourite. I liked learning how to make sugar crystals. Mom and my first attempt to make the crystals was a failure because we didn’t let the water cool down enough before we inserted the sugar-coated sticks in the sugar mixture. The sugar on the sticks melted and no crystals formed. We redid the experiment and it worked very well.
Kaye: Do you think you might write books of your own when you are older?
Michael: Yes, I think I might write in the future. I have lots of ideas for stories.
Kaye: What are your aspirations for your future?
Michael: I want to go to university to study a Bachelor of Science: Computer Science like my brother, Gregory. I will write in my spare time like my mom does.
Kaye: What is the most important lesson gained from the collaborative writing experience?
Michael: I learned that if you put your mind to something, then you can achieve success in it. I wanted to write stories about a little man who lived in a world where you can eat everything. With my mom’s help, we have created Chocolate Land and all the creatures that live there and published 8 books in this series.
Kaye: Are you planning more Sir Chocolate books in the future?
Michael: Mom and I have a few books that are already written. My mom does most of the illustrations so it will depend on her and whether she wants to do more fondant and cake art. I think she will and the books will be published.
I want to thank Michael for agreeing to this interview. I think he provided some wonderful answers. It’s great to chat with an aspiring young author, and delightful to learn that Chocolate Fudge saves the Sugar Dog wont be the last in the Sir Chocolate book series.
My Review
I’m a huge fan of Dr. Suess, and the cadence and ryhming in the verse written by Robbie and Michael Cheadle is reminiscent of that found in the lovely books from Dr. Suess, so of course, I loved Chocolate Fudge saves the Sugar Dog. And then there is the beautiful illustrations created by the talented Robbie with fondant figurines making up the lovely scenes described in the verse, which let the story unfold before your eyes. (They may make you hungry too, because they look deliciously sweet.) One I found especially endearing is the scene for the actual rescue of the Sugar Dog, where Chocalate Fudge is emerged in the hot chocolate pond.
The extra added feature that the Cheadle books include which Dr. Suess never thought to include is the wonderful recipes, and the accompanying photo illustrations for each one are sure to make whet your appetite. Included in Chocolate Fudge saves the Sugar Dog, are recipes for scrumptious peanut butter cookies, delectable Oreo cupcakes, mouth-watering avacado and bacon scones, poured fondant icing, and chocolate chip shortbread dipped in chocolate. Yummy!
Chocolate Fudge saves the Sugar Dog is a delightful children’s book with delicious recipes sure to please both young and old. I give it five quills.
Thanks for dropping by and helping us celebrate the release of Robbie and Michael’s wonderful new book, Chocolate Fudge saves the Sugar Dog. In case you missed the opening day, yesterday on “The Showers of Blessings” with a post by Robbie and a review by blog host, Miriam Hurdle, you can still read it here.
I hope you all will continue to follow the tour, because we’ve got some great things planned for each blog stop. Tomorrow’s stop features an interview with Robbie and we have at least two more reviews coming, too, in addition to Robbie’s wonderful posts on Thursday and Friday. I hope to see you there.
Today’s author must be both writer and marketer. Authors in the the world of digital media and the rise of independent publishing are responsible for not only writing the book, but selling it, too. Even authors who are traditionally published are often responsible for a good portion of the promotional efforts.
These days, everyone knows that people can and do judge books by their covers. Most authors emphasize the importance of a a good book cover in selling books, but they’re talking about more than just the image and text on the front. Perhaps as important as that front cover, is the book’s description or blurb, found on the back cover for print books, or in your ebook’s meta-data.
A good book description’s job is to capture reader interest and make them want to know more,. Whether we’re talking about the hook of the first line, which must make you read on to the next sentence and then the next, or about the description as a whole, which must hook the reader, making them want to buy the book to learn the rest of the story, the book description is one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal to sell books. According to Brian D. Meeks, a good book description has three elements: a powerful hook, engaging copy, and visually appealing formatting.
Mastering Amazon Descriptions
In Mastering Amazon Descriptions, Brian D. Meeks offers a formulaic plan for writing book descriptions that will sell books, including examples of description re-writes for books in varied genres. Although these descriptions are specified as Amazon descriptions, I’m sure this technique will work equally well with Kobo, or Barnes & Nobel, or even the Apple Store. By the time you’ve read through this book, you’ll be writing back cover copy like a pro, because Meeks’ method is simple enough that almost anyone can do it.
To prove it, I’ll share with you the re-write I did of the description for Delilah, which I am preparing for its re-release in the coming year.
Here is the original description:
“Brutally raped and left for dead, her fourteen-year-old ward abducted, Delilah’s homecoming from prison quickly turns into a quest for vengeance. Tough and gritty, sheer will and determination take her to the Colorado mining town of Leadville in her hunt for her attackers and the girl, Sarah. Somehow along the way, the colorful inhabitants of Leadville work their way into Delilah’s heart, giving her a chance for a future she thought she’d lost along with her innocence.”
Here is the description I wrote for the re-release before I read Mastering Amazon Descriptions:
Delilah is a woman haunted by her past. Her homecoming from prison quickly turns into a quest for vengeance when she is brutally raped and left for dead, and her fourteen-year-old ward is abducted. Sheer will and determination take this tough and gritty heroine up against wild beasts of the forest, Indians and outlaws to the Colorado mining town of Leadville, where the colorful inhabitants work their way into Delilah’s heart, offering a chance for a future she thought she’d lost along with her innocence.
Now, here is the description I wrote using Brian D. Meeks’ method:
Haunted by her past.
Raped and left for dead; her fourteen-year-old ward abducted.
Sheer will and determination take this tough and gritty heroine up against wild beasts of the forest, Indians and outlaws.
Can the colorful inhabitants of Leadville work their way into Delilah’s heart, offering a chance for a future she thought she’d lost along with her innocence?
I don’t think anyone would argue that this last description is an improvement. It has a better hook, shorter sentences, and leaves the potential reader with a question to make them want to learn more and read the book.
How to Write Fiction Sales Copy
How to Write Fictin Sales Copy, by Dean Wesley Smith offers three different formulas for writing back cover blurbs and sales copy, which are aimed toward a wide distribution, and several different approaches. Smith is an old pro in this writing game and he’s good at what he does, (which is write). While his methods are not as formulaic and are not specific to Amazon, they are never-the-less effective in posing unspoken questions about the book and making readers want to know more. Smith also offers 32 actual story blurbs as examples in multiple genres.
To experiment with one of Dean Wesley Smith’s techniques, I thought I’d try to rewrite the blurb for my paranormal mystery novella, which is riddled with what Smith calls “The Author Problem”, which results from too many passive verbs and too much focus on the plot. My description doesn’t have a lot of passive voice, but it does focus on the plot too much, revealing more than necessary, which is a common author error. The idea behind the blurb is to give potential readers just enough to pique their interest and make them want to purchase the book. If you reveal too much of the plot, there’s no reason to buy.
Cassie is nervous about her return to her ancestral lands with her boyfriend Tony for more reasons than one. She hasn’t been up in these mountains since the unexplained drowning of her parents. And her parents aren’t the only ones who have died or mysteriously disappeared in the area. Cassie doesn’t really believe the old legends passed down from her Native American ancestors, but she harbors no desire to become the keeper of her tribal legacy or the protector of the gold that goes with it. In fact, she plans to tell her Grandmother to pass the legacy to someone else, perhaps her cousin Miranda, who has been searching for the treasure for years. Cassie wants nothing to do with it now that she carries Tony’s baby in her womb. When Cassie forces herself to go out on the lake that took the lives of her parents and she discovers a cave which holds the treasure of her people, she must admit that the legacy is real, which means the curse that guards the treasure and threatens the males of her tribe must also be real. When Miranda’s boyfriend, Jake disappears on the lake, Cassie must find a way to stop the curse, before Tony becomes the next victim.
So here is my attempt at a rewrite, using Smith’s basic blurb pattern, beginning with a character summary that “nails the genre if possible”.
Cassie wants nothing to do with the legacy her grandmother wants to hand down to her. She doesn’t believe in all those Native American legends anyway.
She and Tony plan to be married and start a family. They’re only returning to her ancestral lands now to tell her grandmother to pass the tribal legacy on to someone else, along with the cursed gold that goes with it.
When she forces herself to go out on the lake where her parents drowned, she discovers the cave which holds the tribal treasure and the lake takes another life. Now Cassie must rethink all that she believes. If the treasure is real, could the curse be real, too?
Can Cassie find a way to stop it before Tony becomes the next victim?
If you love paranormal mysteries, pick up a copy of “Hidden Secrets”.
Which one of these descriptions would make you more likely to buy the book? You can see what a difference a few simple changes can make.
Authors must be able to write sales copy, as well as fiction or nonfiction, because stories don’t sell themselves. On The 6 Figure Authors podcast suggest that if a book isn’t selling well, the first things to look at are cover art and blurb. We see here with the examples I provided, what a difference changing up the blurb can make. I recommend both Mastering Amazon Descriptions, and How to Write Fiction Sales Copy to any author who wants to polish their blurb writing skills and improve their sales copy.
Even traditionally published authors need to have their work edited. In the past, authors who were traditionally published could count on their publishers for certain benefits, including help with marketing, editing, cover art, etc… But with the rise of independently published authors, those benefits can no longer be taken for granted and today, some publishers don’t provide any more, is editing. In their article “Why your publisher won’t edit your manuscript – and what to do about it”, (https://withoutbullshit.com/blog/why-your-publisher-wont-edit-your-manuscript-and-what-to-do-about-it), Writing Without Bullshit claims that publishers in 2021 are looking for ‘publishable as is’ manuscripts. That means that they are expecting your manuscript to be ready to publish, requiring at the most, minimal copy editing before sending it through the publication process.
If traditionally published authors still need to have their work edited, then it goes to figure that it’s just as vital for an indie author. Independently published authors once carried a bad rep, because of a flux of new authors, or want-to-be authors, who flooded the market with poorly written and badly edited, if edited at all, books with the new lack of gatekeepers which came with the rise of independent publishing. While self-publishing became more affordable and accessible to aspiring authors, there were not the quality buffers of traditional publishing, leaving gaps wide enough to allow a plethora of poor-to-horrible quality books out into the market.
Independently published authors have managed to overcome that initial bad rep for the most part, but only by putting on the work and creating books of excellent quality, which are professionally edited, with covers that are professionally designed, at some expense to the author. But of course, we all want are books to be the best that they can be. Right? Right.
So why are some authors tempted to skip the editing step in the writing process? Maybe they think that as writers they know all the rules so they can edit it themselves just as well. But another set of eyes can pick up things that editing with author’s eyes may not. It’s true. And even if you use a critique group, beta readers, or even relatives or friends to look over your story or book draft, chances are, they will pick up mistakes that you have missed.
No matter the reason, what it all comes down to though, is that editing is expensive, and many aspiring authors, who haven’t hit the bestseller lists yet, can’t afford to pay a professional editor. I know I certainly can’t. I do have my fellow authors, who are kind enough to help me out, (authors really are a great group, aren’t they?), give my manuscripts and stories a going over, but authors are busy people and editing takes time; time that could probably be used better writing, so it is not an ideal arrangement.
That’s why when I founded WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services, and added Write it Right Editing Services to those available, my motto was “You should not have to mortgage your house to have your book edited.” So, I tried to make Write it Right Editing‘s rates affordable, especially for those who haven’t risen to the top, or made it into the six figure authors club yet.
If you don’t want to spend a fortune to have your book edited, or you just want a quick proofread to be sure your work is ready for publication, maybe it would be worth your time to drop over to the WordCrafter website and give Write it Right Editing a look. I’ve been editing since 2010 and I am currently part of the Mirror, Mirror editorial team for Kevin J. Anderson and the Western State Colorado University‘s publishing cohort, as well as my editing duties for WordCrafter, so I have plenty of experience editing novels, anthologies, poetry and non-fiction. I’ll be taking on new clients in 2022, as I move my writing business into the full-time realm. If you’d like to learn more about Write it Right Editing Services, visit the WordCrafter website here.
Kaye Lynne Booth lives, works, and plays in the mountains of Colorado. With a dual emphasis M.F.A. in Creative Writing, writing is more than a passion. It’s a way of life.
She’s a multi-genre author, who finds inspiration from the nature around her, and her love of the old west, and other odd and quirky things which might surprise you. She has short stories featured in the following anthologies: The Collapsar Directive (“If You’re Happy and You Know It”); Relationship Add Vice (“The Devil Made Her Do It”); Nightmareland (“The Haunting in Carol’s Woods”); Whispers of the Past (“The Woman in the Water”); and Spirits of the West (“Don’t Eat the Pickled Eggs”). Her western, Delilah, her paranormal mystery novella and her short story collection, Last Call, are all available in both digital and print editions.
In her spare time, she keeps up her author’s blog, Writing to be Read, where she posts reflections on her own writing, author interviews and book reviews, along with writing tips and inspirational posts from fellow writers. She’s also the founder of WordCrafter. In addition to creating her own imprint in WordCrafter Press, she offers quality author services, such as editing, social media & book promotion, and online writing courses through WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services. When not writing or editing, she is bird watching, or hiking, or just soaking up some of that Colorado sunshine.
Like this post? Let me know in the comments. You can be sure not to miss any of Writing to be Read’s great content by subscribing to e-mail or following on WordPress. If you found this content helpful or entertaining, please share.
Well, we’ve all made it through another year and now have a whole new year ahead of us. I’m not into making resolutions that will just be broken, probably before the month of January has come to a close, but it seems like this time of year always brings about changes, so I thought I might share with you the changes planned for 2022, some of which are already in process.
Writing to be Read
On Writing to be Read, we have a few changes to the line-up. Jeff Bowles will only be doing one blog series, “Words to Live By”, on the first Wednesday of every month. Art Rosch will be doing “Mind Fields” and “The Many Faces of Poetry” bi-monthly, alternating every other Friday. Robbie Cheadle will still be offering all three of her monthly blog series. While “Growing Bookworms” and “Dark Origins” will keep their spots on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month, but “Treasuring Poetry” will be moving from it’s Saturday spot to the third Wednesday of each month.
My new series, “Writer’s Corner” will appear once a month on Mondays, as will my reviews, including any “Review in Practice” posts. I was considering making my monthly “Chatting with the Pros” series into a podcast, but I think that will have to wait, since I have so much on my plate already for 2022. So, what I’m wondering now, is does anyone miss this series and would like to see me bring it back on the blog? If you do, or you would, I’d love to hear about it in the comments. It will help me to decide whether or not this series is worth reviving.
Author Kaye Lynne Booth
Back in May, for the 2021 WordCrafter New Beginnings Virtual Writing Conference, Anthony Dobranski, author of Business Class Tarot, did a workshop on the use of the cards he created. We didn’t have a great turn-out in 2021 and there were numerous set-backs, including my loss of internet causing me to miss out on a full day of the conference I was hosting, so when no one showed up for this wonderful workshop, Anthony was kind enough to do a reading for me. It was a lot of fun and I was surprised at how accurate to my own life his reading was. One of the things that was revealed was that I was trying to do too much and I needed to enlist others to take a part of the load on me, because I have always tried to be a one woman show and do all the various tasks involved in being an independent author and publisher. (You can see the video of the full reading here.)
Acting on the revelations from that reading, as I ramp up to transition into a full time writing career, with several releases planned for 2022, I realized I needed beta-readers and reviewers, and others to just help spread the word on social media, and so the Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Street Team group was born. It’s a great group with members who support my writing endeavors and want to be a part of the process. Members have exclusive access to behind the scenes information, opportunities to weigh in on scene and cover creation, and early access to new releases and book events, in exchange for their support as beta-readers and reviewers, or their help in spreading the word through their social media channels.
I’m also reviving my newsletter after letting it fall by the wayside for over a year. Newsletter recipients will receive early notice of new releases and book events, and sometime news of works by other authors bi-monthly. You can sign up for my newsletter here.
My first release for 2022 is scheduled for June, with the re-release of Delilah, in an edition that is the story I originally intended to tell. (You can find out more about the decision for this change here.) The current edition of Delilah will come down from the Amazon shelves sometime in April, and the new edition will be released wide, so it will be found not only on Amazon, but on Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Baker & Taylor, Bibliotheca, Borrow Box, Overdrive, Scribd, and other selected digital book outlets because WordCrafter Press publishes through D2D. (I’m a member of their affiliate program. Sign up for your own D2D account here.)
In the past, I told you about my science fantasy series, Playground for the Gods. The first book in that series was my thesis project when I was earning my M.F.A. at Western State Colorado University, back in 2016, so the it has been finished since then, yet you’ve never seen the implied promise of publication come to fruition. In 2022, I plan to release not just Book 1: The Great Primordial Battle, but also Book 2: In the Beginning, and Book 3: Inanna’s Songsometime toward the end of the year, but release dates for these haven’t been set yet.
WordCrafter Press & Author Services
WordCrafter Press has some great releases coming in 2022 as well. An updated version of the writing reference, 2022 Ask the Authors, is scheduled to be released in March. The original Ask the Authors, was taken from a Q&A blog series I ran in 2018. While the much of the advice offered from the 17 different authors who participated in that project is still valid today, this edition will address the changes in the publishing industry since the original edition was published and will feature an anthology of essays on craft and publishing in addition to the Q&A advice. This edition will feature advice from 13 authors, including Bobby Nash, Mark Leslie Lefebvre, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Nancy Oswald, Christopher Barili, Mario Acevedo, L. Jagi Lamplighter Wright, Kevin Killany, Paul Kane, Jeff Bowles, Enid Holden, Christa Planko, and myself, Kaye Lynne Booth.
The call for submissions for the 2022 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest posted on January 3rd. However, in 2022, WordCrafter Press will be putting out not just this one anthology, but a total of three short fiction anthologies. In addition to the Visions anthology, which contest submissions may be included in, that will be released in August, there will be two by invitation only anthologies: Slivered Reflections, which will be released in September, and Once Upon an Ever After, which will be released in November.
In 2021, we released the first edition of Poetry Treasures poetry anthology, featuring the works of Robbie Cheadle’s 2020 “Treasuring Poetry” poet guests on Writing to be Read, and we’ve decided to do it again. 2022 Poetry Treasures will feature the works of the 2021 “Treasuring Poetry” guests for a spectacularly unique poetry anthology, and will be released April to celebrate National Poetry Month.
WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services
Last, but not least, Write It Right Quality Editing Services is open to new editing clients in 2022. If you’re looking for affordable quality editing, Write It Right could be the editing service you’ve been looking for. A part of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services.
I’m looking forward to 2022. I hope you’ll all join me in the coming year, as it promises to be a good one.
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The 2022 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest is now open for submissions. The submission deadline of May 31, 2022. The winner will receive a $25.00 Amazon gift card and their story will be guaranteed to be featured in Visions. All finalists will also receive an invitation to be included in the anthology, which offers a small royalty share for your story contribution. Submission guidelines are pretty simple, but as they are different from last year, I suggest you read and follow them carefully.
Submit your story with a cover letter to KLBWordCrafter@gmail.com with “Submission: [Your Title]” in the subject line and pay the $5 entry fee below.
Contest Entry
Enter the 2022 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest for a chance at an invitation to the Visions anthology and a grand prize $25 gift card.
$5.00
WordCrafter Press wants your visions.
For 2022, WordCrafter Press is looking for original short stories in the fantasy, science fiction, horror or paranormal genres. Past contests and anthologies have been limited to paranormal, and for Visions, your story can still have a ghost if you like, but it is not required. What I’ll be looking for for the 2022 WordCrafter anthology are your very best thought provoking stories, the kind of stories that will stay with readers long after they close the book.
WordCrafter Press is looking for original short stories to include a mix of fantasy, science fiction, horror, magical, and paranormal elements. Previously unpublished stories only.
Genres: Paranormal, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror or any combination there of.
Length: up to 5000 words
Submission Deadline: May 31, 2022
Pay: Royalty share
Rights: First Anthology Rights and audio rights as part of the anthology; rights revert to author one month after publication; publisher retains non-exclusive right to include in the anthology as a whole.
Open to submissions from January 1 through April 30, 2022.
Submit: A Microsoft Word or RTF file in standard manuscript format to KLBWordCrafter@gmail.com
In the spring of 1843, Charles Dickens read a government report on child labour in the United Kingdom. The report, compiled by a journalist friend of Charles Dickens, comprised of a series of interviews with working children. It detailed the long hours, crushing work, and poor conditions suffered by these children.
The new and heartless attitude towards child labour was a result of three things:
an increase in the population by 64% in 30 years;
workers leaving the countryside and crowding to the cities in search of work; and
the demise of cottage industries and there replacement with mundane and menial labour in factories.
Employers thought of the workers as commodities whose labour was measured purely on output and productivity.
There was a lot of controversy among the wealthy classes and the clergy as to whether assistance should be extended to the poor. A lot of people were of the opinion that people were poor due to their own laziness and malingering and that giving help would exacerbate these tendencies.
The work houses of the day split up families, provided minimal food, and extracted hard labour from its occupants, including children, in an effort to discourage the poor from seeking help.
I am reminded at this point of the song Food, Glorious Food from the musical Oliver based on the book by Charles Dickens:
Rev. Thomas Malthus advocated letting the poor go hungry to decrease the population. His view was that it was better to let the poor starve to “decrease the surplus population”.
Charles Dickens’ response was to write the novella, A Christmas Carol, which eloquently expressed his views on employer responsibilities towards workers.
If you don’t know the story of A Christmas Carol, this is a very brief overview:
The story opens with Ebenezer Scrooge sitting in his counting house on Christmas Eve. His clerk, Bob Cratchit, is sitting shivering in the anteroom because Scrooge won’t spend any money on heating. He turns down his nephew, Fred’s, invitation to a Christmas party and chases away two men collecting money for charity. At the end of the day, he returns to his cold, dark home.
After Scrooge has retired for the night, he is visited by the ghost of his dead partner, Jacob Marley. Marley is weighed down by heavy chains and is destined to make his way through the afterlife dragging them after him because of his mean-spirited and selfish life.
Marley tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three ghosts that night, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. The ghosts show Scrooge where he made mistakes in his past life due to choosing money over love and life, how his clerk and the Cratchit family are suffering because of his present day meanness, and show him a lonely future death. Scrooge is offered, and takes, an opportunity to change his ways and find redemption.
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas if you celebrate or Happy Holidays.
Although I cannot compare my take on Victorian child labour to Charles Dickens’ brilliant works, I have written several times about this and I thought I would share this short extract from my book, Through the Nethergate, about a serving girl in a tavern in Bungay in 1589.
“The rich, amber fluid flowed into the waiting tankard, in striking contrast to the damp, darkness of the barrel filled cellar.
The small, frail girl stood with the tankard in her trembling hand. She was hungry, thirsty and cold. She hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since last night’s frugal supper of leftovers in the Inn’s kitchen. A wave of dizziness washed over her as she contemplated the drink. Its golden depths seemed to entrance her as she lifted it to her lips.
At least the kitchen was warm, she thought, remembering the delicious heat of the enormous, roaring fireplace. The kitchen was a much better place to steal a moment of rest than this freezing cold cellar, in the bowels of the building.
The strong, rich taste of the ale brought a smile to the girl’s pale face. She greedily drained the tankard, closing her eyes and allowing a feeling of well-being to permeate through her skinny, undernourished body. The girl, called Lizzie, worked as a servant at the pub and she was twelve years old.
She knew she should be grateful for the job, but it was hard to forgive the heavy-handed punishments metered out to her by Will, the owner of the establishment.
A rough hand grasped her shoulder, its thick fingers digging viciously into her flesh.
“What have you done?” the loud, grating voice of Will blasted through her euphoria.
Lizzie jerked with fear and the tankard fell from her fingers, clattering to the stone floor before rolling away.
She looked up into piggy eyes staring out of a fat and well-fed face. Will’s usually florid complexion looked even ruddier and coarser than usual.
“Why, you little thief,” continued Will. “You know what we do with thieves in this Inn.”
A short while later, Lizzie found herself chained to the wall of the cellar. Her pleas and cries for mercy had fallen on deaf ears as Will, filled with righteousness and piety at her ungodly action, attached the manacles to her wrists and ankles.”
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You are reading this, so chances are good that you are familiar with me and my writing, as well as WordCrafter Press and its books, because I talk about all of these things a lot. Since you are hanging out here, reading my posts and those of my wonderful blog team members, there’s also a good chance that you are interested in my work, so you will be interested in this opportunity, as well.
Being a multi-genre author creates the need to reach multiple target audiences. I write western, paranormal, science fiction, dark fantasy & vampires, and maybe even a little bit of romance. Although unpublished, I’ve even written a children’s series. That makes it more difficult to hit my target market and find readers who enjoy the kind of book I write, but I’m learning that I’m just not a write to market kind of girl. I have to write what my heart says, and it refuses to remain in a single genre.
I’ve decided to build a street team to help spread the word about new releases and release events. So, I’ve created a private Facebook group “Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Street Team” group, where you can help by becoming a beta reader and providing feedback prior to release, or reviewer, or just an enthusiastic fan, sharing new release and release event information on social media to help get the word out.. This is a group for those who want to help create, promote or just support me and my books, and find opportunities to free books, for an extra perk. As a member of the group, you will be privy to news regarding works-in-progress, new releases and upcoming book events, as well as early cover releases and sneak previews.
I hope that you will click on the link above and join us, as 2022 looks to be a exciting year, with between 7 and 12 new releases coming!
WordCrafter Press will be putting out, not just one, but three anthologies this year, including the resulting anthology from the annual short fiction contest. The call for submissions for the 2022 WordCrafter Short Fiction Contest will be posted in January, this year’s anthology will also feature the stories by invitation, which will not be included in the contest, but will be included in the Visions anthology. The other two anthologies will be by invitation only, Once Upon an Ever After, and Slivered Reflections. WordCrafter Press will also be doing a new edition of the writer’s reference, Ask the Authors and a new edition of Poetry Treasures. For my own books, I will be dropping my contract with Dusty Saddle Publishing and publishing a special edition of Delilah myself, and publishing at least the first three books of my science fantasy Playground for the Gods series, and possibly the fourth.
If you join my street team group, you’ll be privy to all the latest news about all these great releases and more! Bring your enthusiasm and help me make my writing dreams come true. And don’t forget the free books and other perks. See you there!
Bats, Bandits & Buggies, by Nancy Oswald was the light, entertaining read I needed after two months of serious short story selection for two separate anthology collections. A thoroughly enjoyable read, this book is a nonstop adventure that is sure to put a smile on the face of readers of all ages, not unlike the other books in her Ruby and Maude Adventure series, featuring a young girl named Ruby and her ice cream loving donkey, Maude.
In the first book of the series, Rescue in Poverty Gulch, Ruby and Maude come to Cripple Creek, Colorado in the 1800’s, but over the series the cast of characters has grown to include a cat named Trouble and a young donkey named Willie, and they’ve all moved down the mountain to Colorado Springs. But, trouble always seems to find Ruby and her friends in a whirlwind of seemingly unrelated events, which somehow leads to danger.
In Bats, Bandits & Buggies, Ruby and Maude set out to go into business offering buggy rides around Colorado Springs. But, when Ruby tries to help her friend Roy earn the money to pay his aunt for a book that was ruined, she finds herself with an uninvited partner. As Ruby trains Maude to pull the buggy and set forth on their new business venture, odd occurrences lead her to believe that something strange is going on in Colorado Springs. First, someone abducted her cat, Trouble, while Ruby was napping; then there’s the string of recent robberies in which the bandits leave the store with the stolen merchandise and mysteriously disappear; and then there’s Roy’s peculiar aunt, who seems to be taking advantage of her young nephew, and alternates her mood faster than you can blink your eye. Ruby isn’t sure what is really going on, but she’s determined to find out.
If you want to know more, you’ll have to buy this delightful book, for you won’t find spoilers here. But I will say that Bats, Bandits & Buggies is a purely fun read, all the way through. The pacing is wonderful, carrying the reader pleasantly moving along through the story, and the characters are delightful. I give it five quills.
Kaye Lynne Booth offers honest reviews in exchange for a copy of the book. If you have a book you would like a review for, contact her at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
Thank you for joining us for Day #5 of the WordCrafter Lingering Spirits Whisper Book Blog Tour. In case you missed any of the posts from earlier in the week, you can find them all right here on Writing to be Read, and you can visit the author interviews on Un dawnted , but you can only leave comments on Writing to be Read.
Today we have a guest post by author Christa Planko about the inspiration behind her winning story, “Olde-Tyme Village”, which is featured in Where Spirits Linger.
“Where Spirits Inspire: The Inspiration Behind ‘Olde-Tyme Village’”
By Christa Planko
A stroll through a Victorian shore town during off-season leaves enough to the imagination to raise goosebumps and stir the creative mind. The brightly painted homes with their steeply pitched roofs and ornate gables give the sensation of having stepped into a time machine. With summer’s tourists packed and gone, the streets lie practically barren. The exception is the few living beings taking in the autumn air and architecture—and the spirits who may be joining them unseen.
That was the inspiration behind my story, “The Olde-Tyme Village.” It was an October trip to historic Cape May, NJ that fed my imagination. Wandering through the quiet town, I marveled at the elaborate homes, many of them vacant. I couldn’t help but fancy I saw a curtain move in a window or a grey face peering through a dusty pane. A shift of wind carried a moan that could have been the spirit of a woman watching from a widow’s peak for her husband to return from sea. Mind trick or imagination?
Certainly, many of the homes have a long-standing history. The peninsula was originally inhabited by the Lenni-Lenape tribe before Cornelius Mey purchased the land in 1621. It soon developed into a prosperous fishing and whaling industry for English colonists. Later in the 18th century, Cape May began its development as a resort town for enjoying the ocean and fresh seafood. The town saw its share of pleasure, prosperity, and promiscuity over the years. It saw an equal share of tragedy. Surviving wars and devastating fires, residents’ emotions must have run deep. The wealth of books and oral accounts of Cape May’s ghostly occupants suggest that many tormented souls were left to linger.
Was “Olde-Tyme Village” based on any researched history? The answer is yes and no. Like my October stroll through Cape May, the story was fueled by pure imagination. It takes place at a fictional resort remote from modern society. The “historic residents” and guests of the village are made up as well. The research I did do was to learn about Victorian architecture and industries that prospered during this era in order to ground the descriptions and backgrounds in historic fact. The story’s mood and time-warp occurrences were exaggerations of my own experiences in Cape May.
A final question may be: Do I believe in ghosts? While I enjoy a spooky story around a campfire or during Halloween season, I can’t say that I ever truly believed in ghosts. I did have an unexplained experience at a historic site near my hometown a few years ago. That experience—or possible encounter—has since opened my mind to the possibility. I’ll spare the details until I have the chance to do some further research on the area and possible tragedies. I sense a future story on the horizon!
To see my bio and a list of published works, please visit:
Christa is a professional writer with a passion for creative expression. She has had her poetry and short stories featured in several publications, including River Poets Journal, Wingless Dreamer, Tanka and Haiku Journals, Rune Bear, Jitter Press, and Every Day Fiction. When she’s not writing, she is likely bicycling, kayaking, or dancing. She currently resides in South Jersey with her 4 feline muses.
Lingering Spirit Whispers paranormal anthology set
Thanks for joining us on the WordCrafter Lingering Spirit Whispers Book Blog Tour! I hope that you’ve enjoyed Christa’s guest post here on Writing to be Read, and the Un dawnted author interviews earlier in the week. If you missed any, the links can be found at the top of this post to go back and catch them all.
As a reminder, tomorrow will be Sonoran Dawn’s Autumn Wonders Book Event on Facebook, so be sure to drop in. Contact the host, D.L. Mullen and Sonoran Dawn Studios, if you’d like to reserve an author slot for promotion of your work. WordCrafter has a slot in the event, so you can find more about this anthology set, as well as other WordCrafter Press books there. Come and join in the fun.
