How Leaving Home Made me Fall in Love With Writing again.

I’ve been having a bit of a jaded time recently; you know the sort of thing when you just can’t work

up any enthusiasm for anything…several books almost done but I guess my Muse had taken off on vacation, because she certainly wasn’t doing much to help me get inspired.

So, what to do? A couple of days away from home, work, keyboard, from my life, usually shakes me out of it. Not that we actually live a gadabout life, but a couple of days here and there are within budget and refreshing. Any longer than a couple of days and we return to three felines who turn their backs on us and refuse to be tempted to cuddles without some major grovelling by their humans.

This time it was off to Toronto, an overnight hotel stay curtesy of a special TravelZoo offer. Toronto

is such a modern, clean, friendly city that it’s hard to get bored there, although I wouldn’t trade my country lifestyle for a return to city dwelling.

We visited China Town, which is an outing in itself. The area is so colorful, with stores full of fascinating herbs, veggies that aren’t in our local market,  jewelry, clothing, drinks…and streets full of colorful, interesting, friendly people of all ethnic varieties.

A visit there is a tonic in itself. Totally revitalising.

Our target was the Art Gallery of Ontario. There was a special exhibit of the work of Alex Colville,

the Maritimes artist whose wonderful work has received great acclaim. I’d never seen original Colville works before, and it was mind blowing. Many of his paintings are ‘everyday’ scenes but there is a disturbing element in them…you get the feeling from some of them that everything is not quite as it seems…
I have to admit that I’m fascinated by artistic people; Indeed, from time to time I've dabbled myself. And no, there won't be any of my attempts at acrylics on display ion this blog! However, the heroine of my very first novel, Judgement By Fire, is a wildlife artist who is prepared to take on a huge corporation to save the woodland artists’ colony where she lives. She finds herself falling in love with the CEO of the international corporation, putting her life in danger, and having to unravel a mystery involving a tangled web of hatred decades in the making..

How’s that for writing a teaser without giving the plot away? You can read the first chapter at my website, www.glenysoconnell.com

Seriously, though, if you get a chance to visit a Colville exhibition, do go. Everyone needs refresh their creative soul now and again. And leaving home is a great way to do it. :-) And now I'm signing off, because I'm totally wired and can't wait to get back to writing!

Let's Hear it for Motivation

I'm writing again. 

For most of you, that may not sound like a statement worthy of announcement, but for me it is. By now, I'm sure everyone knows about the upheaval in my life during the past several months and my recent cross-country move. I feel like I've been busy every second--busy with everything except writing. Some of my activity has been writing-business related. I've designed my first three book covers, which was a wonderful creative experience and a great start to the design aspect of my new career. But I also have 3-4 writing projects growling for attention.

For the first time in my career, I have unfinished projects in several stages of completion. I know many writers keep several WIP's going at at time, but I've always been more linear. Start a manuscript. Finish that manuscript. Get glimmer of idea for next manuscript. Develop that idea while first manuscript is in editing. Write second manuscript. Ditto, ditto, ditto. I don't know if I've become more scatterbrained as a result of stress or more freely creative, but suddenly, I find myself with a completed manuscript I'm reworking, two partials, and an urgent idea. Not my usual style at all.

Time for triage. I've decided my completed manuscript should come first. It's a fun, snappy contemporary romance entitled Unwritten Rules about the proprietor of an all-female bodyguard agency who signs on to protect a former-CIA agent-turned-author on a national book tour. I got some great suggestions from a couple of beta readers (my sisters) I want to incorporate before I self-publish it. As both my first contemporary and my first venture into indie publishing, this book will be a major departure for me. I also plan to design my own cover. I'm nervous on all counts but pretty stoked, too.

Next on the timeline will probably be If Wishes Were Fishes, an expanded version of the short story I wrote for the Roses of Prose 2012 holiday anthology. I fell completely in love with the characters and setting and would love to have a longer version ready for the holidays this year. 

Last, (and by that, I mean probably next year) I'll move on to my two partials. One is a western novella about a woman who has reluctantly inherited a saloon but would rather bake pies, and the other is the first in a contemporary series about three artist sisters living in the Carmel/Big Sur area of California.

My muse has never been so active. Now all I have to do is harness my concentration and actually GET THESE THINGS DONE. Wish me luck!

Alison
www.alisonhenderson.com
http://alisonhenderson.blogspot.com

JERRI'S LITTLE MUSE!

ANOTHER NIGHT FALLS
COMING OCTOBER, 2012

Jerri's Little Muse

I write what I feel. It’s probably the reason I usually have more than one book going at a time. At the moment, I’m revising Whispers of a Legend, Time of the Nuxvenom, but at the same time I’m about half way through on a regency romance, Broken Legacy, and in the back of my mind, I have Winds of Betrayal stirring within me. Most authors don’t write like this.

It’s just how I write. The story lives inside of me. It’s almost like I have someone whispering over my shoulder telling me what to write. My muse perhaps? Has to be because sometimes I wonder where I come up with my ideas.

I’ll give you an example. When I wrote Patriot Secrets, it was titled Before the Sun Sets and was way too long. When I sent it to my publisher, she told me to cut it into two books. Last year, I picked up the second part to revise for Winds of Betrayal. I hit the second chapter and I had to stop. Something just didn’t feel right. There was something missing.

The whispers began again. I went back and read over Patriot Secrets. There it was. Rebekah who was barely mentioned in Patriot Secrets now because the heroine in Ruse of Love. My bridge book between Patriot Secrets and Winds of Betrayal emerged.

Ah…then I have Sumner Meador. When I began the Tides of Charleston series he was nothing more than the half-brother of Cathryn Blankenship. Now Sumner is the hero in my next release with Whiskey Creek Press. If you have an affinity for alpha male heroes, you’ll gonna love Sumner. The epitome of an American hero! A cowboy before there was cowboys. Pays to listen to my little voice…Another Night Falls is due out October 1^st!

So what kind of stories does my little muse give me. You can get a chance to find out. Since we’re giving away freebies this month, here’s your chance for a copy of Ruse of Love!  

Let me know if you think I should continue to listen to my little muse! Leave a comment and win a copy. 

Have a good one! Keep reading!

RUSE OF LOVE

The tides of war have shifted. When all eyes turn south, Doctor Jonathan Corbett finds himself once more thrust into the war’s turmoil. On assignment from General Washington, the dashing doctor discovers his mission has taken him straight into a conflict where the British are not the only ones to be feared.

Rebekah Morse has no time to contemplate the exploding war around her. Caught up as a pawn in a deadly conspiracy, she finds her only hope lies with her old friend, but things have changed since they last saw each other.Yet destiny has not intervened in their lives without cause. Rebekah’s strength, courage, and breathtaking sensuality sets within Jonathan a desire he swore never to feel again. When Rebekah’s life is threatened, Jonathan is determined to save the stubborn woman whether she wants to be saved or not. Now Jonathan and Rebekah must face the perilous threat together—only to discover a passion they never imagined...

My Very Special Muse Is Gone

 by Glenys O'Connell

We've been talking a lot about the women who've inspired us, motivated us, given us an example to follow or stood up for our rights to fulfill our dreams.

This might sound a bit hokey but I believe that sometimes we can draw our greatest strengths and inspirations from sources that aren't, shall we say, human. I know many people who quietly proclaim that their pet – whether that creature is a dog, a duck, a pot-bellied pig, a horse, goat or cat (I've heard them all) - have brought comfort, friendship, and motivation at times when loneliness, grief, health problems or some other bump in life's road has brought them to the point of giving up their hopes and dreams.

One such was my very special Muse, Miss Martha the Cat. You can see from her pic that she's special – one look in those deep eyes when I saw her Ontario Humane Society Shelter photograph had me hooked. A visit to the shelter in Kingston and I knew that Martha and I were meant to be together. We were soul mates.

When I first met Miss Martha (her Shelter name was Skittles – nowhere near dignified enough!) I was grieving deeply at the loss of my beloved LucyFur, a cat I’d adopted while in Ireland and brought back with me when I returned to Canada. I thought my heart would never recover from his loss, but Miss Martha seemed to sense the way I felt – she would curl up on my lap, purring loudly, and look into my eyes as if to say" "It will be all right – you'll see!"

It was a look I was to see many times from her in the five years or so I was privileged to know her. As every writer – indeed, every living human being – knows, life can deal some awful curve balls. Contracts you are sure of suddenly fail to materialize; jobs you'd set your heart on don't come; people let you down. But Miss Martha knew that there is one truth in life – you lie in a sunbeam for a while thinking, then you pick yourself up, dust yourself down and go on.

An independent minded lady, Miss Martha seemed able to look into your very soul. She'd known some hardship in her day. Her first owner had obviously loved her, despite having her declawed. But one day she had packed up her possessions in boxes and moved away, leaving Miss. Martha with a friend. Poor Martha had eventually settled in and, five years later, her new owner pulled out boxes and began packing. Martha found herself in a cage at the Humane Society. In her feline mind, two humans had betrayed her trust, and when we adopted her at the age of ten, she seemed to hold herself back as if afraid to trust us totally.

Then disaster happened.

Off wandering her domain, Miss Martha got lost. Maybe she was chasing a butterfly, maybe hiding from that nasty old tom cat who lived three houses away, I don’t know. But Miss Martha got lost. But we advertised, drove many, many miles to areas where people phoned to say they thought she'd been sighted, and shed many tears at each disappointment.

Then a notice appeared in our village post office: Male Cat Found. Grey & White. Desperate, I took a chance and called the number. The teen who answered said the cat was a neutered male (Oh, how Miss Martha would have railed at that indignity!) but when I asked if she was wearing a neon pink collar, it became obvious this lady was no tom cat! We drove over to the next township to claim her, paid a humingous vet's bill, and brought her home.
She was found five weeks after disappearing by some kind souls spending a summer weekend at a cottage on a nearby lake. She was in awful shape – skin and bones, her paw caught in her collar and her neck and shoulder seriously cut and painfully infected. We'll never know what she lived on in those weeks.

And from the moment she came home, Miss Martha found her trust again. She loved us – after all, hadn't we come and found her when she was lost? She would sit on my desk watching as I wrote, adding her own comments by walking across the keyboard, and she'd sense when the story wasn't going well and come and sit on my lap to make sure I didn't give up and walk away. Or she'd curl up on my office chair with her friend, O.J. (Orange Juice)- see below.. Her presence was an inspiration.

Sadly, when Miss Martha was almost 16 years old, she developed problems with her innards. Discreetly, she was seriously constipated. She lost weight, although she still caught mice which she presented on the door step as if a gift. But the day came we knew she had to go to the vet.

That's when we learned about Feline Megacolon. Apparently cats – usually older ones but not necessarily so – can suffer from a weakening of the bowel muscles. That's why it's important to ensure they get a diet that has some fibre, although not too much as that can actually cause constipation.

Miss Martha was kept at the vet's overnight for an enema. For some reason, and we still don’t know exactly why, the procedure led to her bowel being perforated.

Miss Martha died in my arms, peacefully, in the small hours of the next morning.

We buried her by the cedar tree close to her favorite napping spot in the long grass.. She left behind a family who still grieve, and a writer who wonders if she'll ever find a Muse like Miss Martha.

If you have a cat, do look out for bowel problems. There's lots of info on the Internet, but I also found a group of terrific people online who share information and support about Feline Megacolon – you'll find them here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Feline_Megacolon/  I found them too late for Miss Martha, but I'm writing this in hopes of helping someone else with a furfriend in need of help.

Cat lover Glenys O'Connell writes romantic suspense and cosy mysteries, and her work can be viewed on http://www.glenysoconnell.com/ She also writes non-fiction books such as Depression: The Essential Guide and PTSD: The Essential Guide, and when not writing enjoys poking about in other people's minds as a counselor.