AMERICAN QUEST by Fantasy Author Sienna Skyy: “…writing is one of those things that isn’t just about the destination—it’s about the journey.”

I have a friend who writes his novels in spiral notebooks. Beginning to end. This is his primary means of writing because, as he explains, he is not a typist.

Me, I suppose I’m a typist. The art of writing longhand fascinates me, though. Obviously, writers have been doing it that way for centuries, and plenty of them still do. I’ve heard that when James Patterson sits down to write, he arms himself with a bundle of sharpened pencils and a stack of legal pads. I’ve actually tried that approach myself once or twice, if only in tiny experimental bursts. My handwriting comes more slowly than my typing does. I must admit that when I’ve given it a go, my thought processes slow down, and I develop each individual moment with maybe just a touch more richness. And there’s a smoothness to it. I’m not saying that it’s necessarily better; just different.

Still, I’ve never gotten very far with the whole longhand thing. Just a child of the faster-faster-more-more-more generation—antsy by sheer biology. In fact when trying to write longhand I can almost count backward from 100 before I launch my pen across the room and throw myself at my computer. Not to mention the pen-and-paper combo inflicts the curious side-effect of transmuting my right hand into a claw.

I have two laptops and two desktop computers. By function these are really just one laptop and one desktop, but when a computer tries to give up the ghost, I can never fully let go. As long as it gives me a gasp I’ll try to limp it along in perpetuity, and trump up some half-baked job for it. (A server! I can use it as a multimedia server!) Typically, I like to write on a desktop computer because if I’m writing for ten or twelve hours straight, I really need an ergonomically-friendly environment. When I wrote American Quest, however, I did it almost entirely on a laptop. I had gotten really, really sick to the point where I could barely sit at my desk. But it wasn’t long before I started going stir crazy just wallowing around in my bed. So. I heaped up about three pillows behind my back, two under my knees, one in my lap, a pot of tea at my side and a terrier cupped between my feet, and I just wrote, wrote, wrote on my laptop right there in my cushy little bed while convalescing. Really, when I think about it, it was like a kind of cocoon. After three months, I emerged rosy-cheeked and in strapping good health, and American Quest was complete. (If some of the passages read like fever dreams, now you know why.)

Nevertheless, I intend to someday challenge myself by writing a novel entirely in longhand. Just for a lark. Could take me years (and if each passage is written during the span of a one-hundred-back-to-one countdown, it probably will.) But what have I got to lose? It’s wonderful to have a finished book in hand, but really, writing is one of those things that isn’t just about the destination—it’s about the journey.

Sienna Skyy is the author of the fantasy novel, AMERICAN QUEST.

EASY ENTERTAINING FOR BEGINNERS by Patricia Mendez: “I was considering starting a business of my own at that time.”

I have been catering and coordinating special events since the early 1990’s and am also an avid home cook who loves to learn new cooking techniques, experiment with new recipes and entertain our friends and family. In 2006 I threw a birthday party for my oldest son Martin’s 27^th birthday. It was a lot of fun and the menu was delicious. One of the guests was Martin’s business partner, Rene. At the party we conversed about how difficult it is for newlyweds and new nesters to find resources to help them learn to entertain without overwhelming them. That one conversation led to Martin and Rene approaching me the following week to ask me if I would consider writing a book to help beginners learn to entertain. They were interested in developing it into an e-book. This eventually evolved into the printed books.

I was considering starting a business of my own at that time. In addition to my catering background, I served as a Coordinator of a Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) community program for several years and also as a Director of Women’s Ministries for 8 years. During that time, I discovered that I was able to relate with and encourage younger women. So the idea intrigued me and I thought the timing was right and writing the book might be a good fit consistent with my experience and gifts. Not to mention that my biggest fan (ok, well my only one) my husband Augie, had been encouraging me to write a book for years. He saw potential in my writing abilities and was enthusiastically on board as soon as I told him I was considering writing an entertaining book for beginners. I started writing Easy Entertaining for Beginners in December 2006 and completed it in August 2007. Since my book is a non-fiction/cookbook category, there was lots of time in the kitchen as well as at the computer.

From the very beginning, I wanted to help beginners gain confidence and enjoy their first entertaining experiences. I have made plenty of mistakes and goof-ups during the many years of entertaining in my home and I know the pitfalls involved. That was precisely why I thought I could relate to my audience. I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of the extremes of thinking you have to be a gourmet chef to pull off entertaining. Or the temptation of being such a nervous wreck that everyone enjoys the event but the host. This is what I would love to help beginners avoid. Successful casual entertaining adds such enjoyment and wealth to life! It is a great way to connect with friends and family and to meet new people and get to know acquaintances better. Entertaining family and friends can be extremely fun and satisfying. So I set about putting together easy recipes and complete menus for occasions that I thought new nesters would most likely desire to host in the first few years in their homes. I encourage a novice host that a bit of organization goes a long way towards successful entertaining and to NOT take his/her mistakes too seriously. I want my readers to know that I am in their corner and have complete confidence in their ability to express their creativity in offering hospitality to family and friends.

Patricia Mendez is the author of the cooking and entertaining book, EASY ENTERTAINING FOR BEGINNERS.  You can visit her website at www.ezentertaining.net.

COLD ROCK RIVER by J.L. Miles: “…everything that Tempe experiences was lifted from the lives of actual people who wore the chains and bore the scars of slavery.”

Cold Rock River was inspired by an incident in my own life. Like Adie’s sister Annie, my baby sister Vick choked on a jellybean when she was twenty months old. It was the week following Easter and we three older girls had our little baskets squirreled away. Our mother insisted we weren’t to drag them around the house, but she was gone for the evening and our daddy let us roam about, baskets in hand, to our hearts’ content. I don’t recall that any of us actually gave Vicki a jelly bean. More likely she picked on up off the floor. I do remember I panicked when I saw her put one in her mouth, and I tried to grab her. She started giggling and running as fast as her little legs would allow. The next thing I knew, she was choking and her face was blue. She survived, but as I grew older I was very much aware of how our lives would have changed had she not. One evening, lying in bed, something made me think of it; how fifty years had passed and yet the memory of that night was still as raw as fresh-skinned knees. I closed my eyes, ready to drift off, when I “heard” the opening lone of what became Cold Rock River. I got up to write it down, so I wouldn’t forget a single word. I was still at it the next morning. I had forty, maybe fifty pages. I realized then that this young, beautiful, delightful creature, who I chose to call Adie, might have something to tell me worth hearing. And if I was quiet and listened closely, maybe her ghosts would help me purge mine.

Cold Rock River was also a five year journey without a paycheck! Initially, it was to be the story of Adie Jenkins, seventeen and pregnant and unmarried during the early 1960’s. I know today if you’re in her condition, they throw you a shower. In those days they threw you out. I decided Adie would do some chicken farming to feed them when it became apparent Buck wasn’t going to be one she could count on. I went to the library to research Georgia chicken farming and stumbled onto the Slave Narratives. The complete collection— which contains more than two thousand first-person accounts—is housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. They were commissioned by President Roosevelt during the depression years, in order to record the journey of those freed slaves still alive. Writers were sent across the nation to search for them. Their accounts are as fascinating as they are poignant. Over the years, there’s been a good deal of controversy as to their accuracy, based on the fact that some of the freed slaves were fearful or perhaps suspicious of the government—brings to mind “forty acres and a mule”—and hesitant to speak candidly regarding the treatment they may or may not have received at the hands of their sometimes still powerful former masters. The collective consensus is that somewhere amidst the vast amount of material lies the truth. After months of reading, reviewing, and re-examining all of the narratives I could locate, Tempe’s portion of Cold Rock River emerged. Her story, based on what I found, is remarkable. Everything that Tempe experiences was lifted from the lives of actual people who wore the chains and bore the scars of slavery. I won’t ever forget her; nor am I able to forget those I ‘met” through the narratives, who bravely shared their life stories so that Tempe could tell me hers.

Cold Rock River is the parallel journey of two women born a century apart. In 1963 rural Georgia, with the Vietnam War cranking up, seventeen-year-old and pregnant Adie Jenkins discovers the diary of pregnant, seventeen-year-old Tempe Jordan, a slave girl ~ circa 1863 ~ with the Civil War winding down. Adie is haunted by the death of her baby sister Annie. Tempe is grieving the sale of her three children sired by her white master. What’s buried in the diary could destroy them both.

I hope you’ll pick up a copy! It’s available now in Trade Paperback on amazon.com and at fine booksellers everywhere.

J.L. Miles is the author of the historical fiction COLD ROCK RIVER.  You can visit her website at www.jlmiles.com.  If you would like to pick up a copy of COLD ROCK RIVER at Amazon, the net’s largest online bookstore, click on the book cover above.

KILL 4 ME by Joel M. Andre: “…what if someone were haunted, or stalked though text messaging.”

One night I was sitting bored at work. I think to a point we all have those nights. Well, most people I suppose would have those during the day. At that time I was working the graveyard shift at a gas station. It paid the bills, but left me emotionally and mentally unfulfilled.

Most of the night I was left with just my mind, and the sounds of coyotes howling in the distance. I guess I should mention this little gas station was about 15 miles outside of Phoenix and rested basically in the middle of no where, out in Cave Creek.

While I was scrubbing down the lot, I received a text message from someone, although I don’t recall who it was at this time. But it struck me, what if someone were haunted, or stalked though text messaging.

The hamster in my mind probably was rolling its eyes, as it stretched and began running on its wheel as I thought of different scenarios I could use for this. But most of all, I needed to figure out a way to make it work. The rest of the night was spent debating in my mind what direction I wanted to go.
As the sun rose, I had a title and a basic story in my head. Of course that story wasn’t where the finished product went. At that moment, it was about a serial killer, and was so full of cliché’s I don’t think I would have enjoyed writing it.

Instead when I finally sat down to write ‘Kill 4 Me’, I began the opening scene in the car, and started to let the story tell itself. It in turn decided to become a technological ghost story. Which I am pretty happy with.

On a little back story, I wrote a novel which will never see the light of day, but I have it here where Casey Dwyer actually appeared in. I decided to pull her from that story, and have the book focus on her. She didn’t let me down at all.

She survived quite a bit of torment in the other book, and I had to bring her back to a normal character for this book. I had to imagine what she would be had nothing in the past ever happened to her. It was pretty mentally stimulating, my only concern is that I wouldn’t make her vivid enough for the reader based on my previous encounter with her. Based on the feedback of strangers, it looks like I did alright. I am nervous whenever I put anything out there on the market.

The ending was the hardest part for me, the original ending I had was very violent and very graphic. It also drug on for quite a bit. I had several people read it, and let me know they just didn’t like how I ended it. Apparently it was too predicable. So the surprise ending I came up with is the second ending. The original ending is sitting in the bottom of a drawer somewhere in the event I can use a similar idea sometime.

My goal when I write is the keep the reader entertained in a story that is straight to the point and focused on a person’s busy life. I love Stephen King and Anne Rice, but their books require lengthy dedication to a book. I write for the busy person, the one who wants to pick up a book, spend a few hours on the weekend reading, and know they received something entertaining and that can keep them motivated to read at a fast pace.

Most importantly, I write for people to have something to read. Reading entertains a part of the mind that visual entertainment cannot. I hope everyone will encourage others to read and to grow their minds. If someone loves Dragons, grab a book about dragons for them. Encourage our youth to read, and write.

Joel M. Andre is the author of the horror novel, KILL 4 ME.  You can visit his website at www.joelmandre.com.