Just Discovered a Great Writer: Susan Tarr

May 4, 2014 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

I just finished Susan Tarr’s novel Phenomena: the Lost and Forgotten Children.It isn’t many novels that bring me to tears as this one did. It will stay with me for some time, I imagine.

You hear about the washing girl’s stories of mistreatment as they had their illegitimate babies in Ireland, but Malcolm’s plight, and his story, and the stories about the other inmates in this New Zealand insane asylum were gripping and different. This is indeed a Phenomena that I have never heard of in the world before.

The “in and out” quality of Malcolm’s stories reflects the type of treatment he received that would rob him of his memory. He worked and worked each time to reclaim his memories and recall the stories he heard, reconciling them to stories he heard as he grew older. The past and present intertwined to make a beautiful basket of poignant memories.

I’d like to quote Malcolm at this point so that you can get a taste of Susan Tarr’s beautiful writing:

“Confusion muddled his thoughts with roiling patterns. And the wild sea at the bottom of the cliffs had never looked so inviting.

His mind turned to Julie who existed only in darkness. She told him her parents had disappeared while she was spending a day with her grandmother. Tea was eaten, it was night time, and still they never came for her. Her grandmother continued to care for her. It was years later when blind Julie was found by the neighbors, along with her dead grandmother.

Malcolm knew what happened to people like Julie. They were deposited, confused and bewildered, into the care of the mental hospitals for the unloved and unlovable, the uneducated and the unwanted – soon forgotten, feeding the insatiable appetite of the institution, placating the guilt of the knowing masses. Deposited there to be described, measured, weighed and quantified, labelled, segregated and finally, cattle-ised – as had happened to him.”

This story is a string of stories about the people at the “hospital” and surrounding buildings, some buildings like prisons for the more severe cases and some buildings were pleasant, half-way houses surrounded by gardens. These were reserved for those getting ready to transfer into a more normal life.

The saddest story was how Malcolm came to be at Seacliff Mental Hospital in the first place. Wow! I know horrible things happen but it’s hard to believe a parent would do this to their own child. Despite his bitterly sad history, Malcolm became a kind-hearted, upbeat man with a hope-filled future as a “regular” person.

The Writing Life

How to Write a Great Author Blog AND Avoid Huge Ships

May 1, 2014 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

This is Kristen Lamb’s blog post and it’s great. But to tell you the truth, I fell out of my chair laughing at the banana slicer Amazon reviews. Really, really funny. But you can read it to find that out, too.

How to Write a Great Author Blog AND Avoid Huge Ships.

reviews

A Circle of Five, The Pha-Yul Trilogy by Jan Raymond: A Book Review

April 30, 2014 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

Five students are sent to detention for various reasons. When an electric storm erupts there is a disturbance but they wake the next day with very little remembrance of it but a shared confused. That’s not all they share now. What really happened is that Ryan, Cassie, Sam, Sebastian, and Maya are infused with special power.

I don’t want to spill any spoilers but i do want to emphasize that the author very skillfully transitions the plot from the “every day” high school drama played between these five to an “out-of-this-world” story-line that will keep the reader turning pages.

There are two teachers at the school who noticed the change in these five students. One of them, Mr. Harris, helps the five get control of their very special new powers. I won’t comment on the other teacher, because again, I’m not giving anything away.

The story centers on the five students, their relationship between each other and their growing understanding of a much bigger world than their small town school. And by bigger, I mean outside of the norm where time-travel is believable. There is nothing unusual about their school and their society, with drugs and booze available they must scale their desire to be like everyone else because their destiny is larger than what they know is apparent. Despite their differences and their “normal” dramas about class schedules and girlfriends and boyfriends, they must learn to get along and to help each other out, especially when one of them goes missing.

One central drama centers around the wealth or lack of wealth between the five and how this creates tension, there is also racial tension, the tension created when one of the five lies about another, and the tension between the children and their parents. All very believable and because I used to teach high school, very realistic.

This may be a YA novel but it could be a middle-grade. I recommend for ages 9 to 16.

The Writing Life

I’m passing this on to you

April 20, 2014 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

I’m posting another blog below this short note.

This is a heartfelt expression from another mom. But I know the feelings she expresses as she watches her daughter perform on stage.

There are times I watch my daughter from across the room and my breath catches in my throat. It seems she caught all the good genes. She has my husband’s narrow face and my family’s golden skin.

As a child I prayed for blue eyes. Brown was boring. Needless to say I have brown eyes. But as answer, he gave me a child with the clearest blue eyes on the planet. At the time it seemed miraculous given that my husband has dark jade green eyes. But now I see more clearly. Because I can look across the room and catch my daughter’s blue eyes and that’s a better answer to prayer than I could have imagined.

Why I ever thought to write?

Read Tina Basinger’s

5 Reasons Why Moms Should Be Writers.

The Writing Life

A Girl’s Homeschool assignment: Book Reviews

April 13, 2014 Rebecca Nolen 1 Comment

Home school assignment: brutally honest reviews of books

Hannah Roberts was given a choice of assignments one of which was to choose books to write reviews for. Here is what she posted on the Internet: hannAH photo - Copy

YA Authors! If you want the brutally honest opinion of a 14-year-old girl of your new book, send me an ecopy and I will post a review, post a video of my review of your book and share it on my Facebook and Twitter accounts. It’s a home school thing but this is an assignment I think I will really enjoy! Contact me at mobookreviews@gmail.com

So I asked her if she would do a review of my book. You all know that if you don’t ask you can’t expect anything. A rejection is a reflection of your courage.

Here is my review from Hannah.

The Dry

I love stories where the heroes are my age and are fighting for what is good. I love stories with magic and magical creatures, other worlds and mystery! So when I started reading The Dry, I was really excited because it has all of that!

Elliot is a 12-year-old who goes out into the world to search for his father. When he meets Lefty, Eliot discovers another world where dragons live, just under the surface of the world. But there is more to this new world than meets the eye. Water is disappearing and so are several children!

Elliot is determined to find out why it is happening. He learns of his own powers over animals of this world and must find a way to use it to help him solve the mystery of the disappearing water, the disappearing children and the mystery of the dry!

Will he be able to find his father? Or the kids? Nope, I’m not going to tell you! You have to read it yourself! I loved Lefty’s attitude because she was strong and wasn’t willing to give up when things got hard. It was very fun to read! Posted by Hannah Roberts at 3:05 PM

Thank you, Hannah!

Author Blog Tour

Author Blog Hop 2014

April 7, 2014 Rebecca Nolen 1 Comment

woman on stack of books uid 3 — Ready? Set to take off on a new writing adventure? Go!

This is exciting! I’ve been asked if I would participate in an author blog hop. There are four questions I’m to answer and that wasn’t the first one.

I received the invite from Megan LaFollet an editor (She edited my novel The Dry) and a writer. Click on her name to find out more. Her upcoming sci-fi/f novel sounds like something I’d love to read.

Here’s more about my writing:

What are you working on?

Good question, wait…that’s the first one isn’t it? Okay, I’m so prepared. Let’s see, notes? No notes.

To be totally honest I’ve just received my novel Deadly Thyme back from my copy editor, Rhonda Erb. Wow, I’ve got some small rewrites to finish up and then the new improved Deadly Thyme will be available on Amazon …perhaps within a month. Finally! Yes, I know.

Here’s where it gets interesting. I do have a new novel I’m working on. It’s a historical YA. It takes place in Houston in 1970. In the story there are three major conflicts surrounding the main character, one involves a dangerous school environment, one involves abuse in her family, and one involves the Vietnam war because her brother comes home permanently disabled.

How does your work differ from others in the genre?

I have read books about the Vietnam war, I’ve read YA books about family abuse, and I’ve read YA books about conflicts in school. But I haven’t read any historical YA books where the story takes place in 1970, much less in Houston. I think it might be a bit unique.

Why do you write what you do?

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. Oh wait, that’s from a song Bob Dylan sang in 1962.

I’ve finished two novels, one is an adult psychological suspense, Deadly Thyme, set in Britain. I wrote it because I love page-turning suspense and mysteries set in Britain. The Dry is a children’s fantasy book and I wrote it because the story in my brain wouldn’t leave me alone. And I’m fascinated by insects. Thank the Lord they are small.

The present YA I’m writing because this story has been part of my life for forty years. Yes, it is autobiographical, but I’ve created a character who is nothing like me – to make it more readable. You’re welcome.

How does your writing process work?

I clear my work space, and lay out paper and a good pen. To begin with I write scenes long hand. I love the feel of the pen and the quick scribbles and mark-outs. It feels like I’m doing something. When I go to type what I’ve written in Word I tend to add and embellish but the original pen to paper writing is where the real story gets created. If I get stuck in the story I go back to pen and paper and usually the pieces fall back into place there.

I listen to music while I’m writing. At present, as you may have guessed, I’m listening to songs from the 60’s and 70’s. Good stuff. If that doesn’t make the story flow I listen to wordless music, usually Vivaldi. Classical guitar music makes my heart soar and ideas to pop into place. If you want music, it’s important to use music with the Adagio tempo, as the rhythm falls in with the human heartbeat.

For my first two novels I did not use any sort of charts or outlines. Each first draft took about a year to write. I started rewrites. Yes, I worked on both at the same time. Ten years later and I was still thrashing about with the muddle at the middle of each. I had written out the original story on a few pages and that became my fall-back outline. Otherwise, I’d still be working on them.

My first drafts tend to be too visual, so I have to wedge in the taste, touch, feel, and the smelly bits into later drafts.

With each of these novels I sought out advice and help from my writing instructor Chris Rogers, and from my good friend Kimberly Morris who has over sixty-five published books.

So, for my new YA I have an outline, and a timeline stretched across the wall of my studio.

It has already helped. I’ve been interrupted more times than I can count, and I don’t mean just because the dog wants to go out and bark at the garbage truck again, or because dinner needs cooking. Life interruptions can last days, or weeks, or months. Fortunately, because I’m more organized, when I come back I know where I was and can start again.

Now I’m going to recommend that you check out what these authors are up to and how their writing process works.

See Susan Klopfer’s books and blog at http://ebooksfromsusan.com/

And look what Lilia Fabry is up to at http://www.lfabry.com/blog/?wref=bif

Here’s Regina Puckett’s blog http://reginapuckettsbooks.weebly.com/blog.html

reviews

Welcome to Hell by Demelza Carlton: a review

April 6, 2014 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

Though the writing is well done, the dialogue is not boring, and the story line is humorous I gave Welcome to Hell three stars because it is not a complete story, or book. When a book or story is offered on Amazon for review the author should expect to get fewer stars if only has a beginning but no end. The only reason it got three stars is because this snippet is well done, the dialogue is not boring, and the story line is humorous.The premise reminded me of Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. Only in -Welcome to Hell – Satan (Lucifer) is alive and well on planet earth and running a giant corporation instead of in Hell sending missives to his demonic minions. That a corporation is slowly taking over the world is enough to make a person want to read this story, even a better read when Satan is at large and in charge. From reading the other reviews it seems that there will be more coming. I hope so. This is a fun start and may be a great novel, some day.

I love the character of Mel. She’s funny and sharp and the writing suggests she has a good back story with the turmoil in Iran and Russia, certainly places that need angelic intervention.

I would love to re-review this when the story is complete.

The Writing Life

The Value of Thick Skin

March 30, 2014 Rebecca Nolen 4 Comments

A long time ago I decided that I would make my dreams come true and get a book or two published. That was about twenty years ago. I’ve worked hard since on reaching that goal, but you have to admit twenty years is a long time. Along the long and winding road to publication I discovered a very valuable tool to always have in my tool drawer. Every once in a while I must, must, must pull it out and slip it over my head to wear. Yes, that’s right, a writer must have a thick skin to be able to withstand the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and/or snark.

This odd skin development starts at home. The act of writing is a private thing in the beginning. Unless you are having the words of your novel tattooed on all forty of your friends, or you are twittering the novel in increments of 140 characters or less over the course of however long it takes to do that. Or, like Neil Gaimon you tweet all your twitter followers a question a month, and write-illustate-sing a complete story from each favorite answer. Me? I write alone – with the dog, an impatient-for-a-walk companion. I then take the bit I’ve written and share it with a family member for an opinion. This can be tough. Family members aren’t necessarily your best and most encouraging critics. Here is where the skin begins to thicken.

Next, you take your revised work to your critique group. They give you constructive (we can only hope) criticism that you can use because you trust them. Then, there’s always the one – you know what I mean if you’re in a critique group – there’s always the one person who slams your effort. Here is where the writer’s skin becomes cow hide.

Last but not the least in this process is presenting your masterpiece to editors and agents. Oh, the mortification! Oh, the anguish! Oh, the *let’s not get too melodramatic!* Let’s just say the skin begins forming layers upon old, crusty layers to become inches thick.

Having thick skin doesn’t mean there aren’t hurt feelings, it means that you quickly dry your tears and pick yourself up and go forth to write another day!!

Then, years and years and a lot of tears later, you see your baby book birthed. Oh, isn’t it precious? Isn’t it adorable? Doesn’t it look just like Mommy? (Okay…that’s too far) But yes, you have a novel. And in order for that novel to grow up and make it in this world it has to have reviews.

The reviews begin to trickle in. Oh! How excellent! Look, isn’t that lovely? And

what’s this?

GAK!

Two stars????!!!!

I received my first bad review last week. Before you, my friends, storm the Bastille to take down the infidel – stop. Don’t do it. Don’t do a thing. This is important. Why? Because I have thick skin. I can take it. There are two good reasons to have bad reviews. First reason, it teaches me something that perhaps I was unaware of and in this instance I did not stress enough on storycartel.com that The Dry is a children’s book. Secondly, a bad review proves that this is a real book read by real people.

Yes, please read the bad review. Please do not press the “no” button that this review was not helpful, and do not reply with a comment to the review. Do read the five-star reviews and press the “yes” button if any were helpful to you. The best defense is always a good offense and in this case if you have read the book – give me an honest review. Or if you haven’t read the book, get it and read it and give me an honest review. This is especially true if you have youngsters in your house that you can read it to or who would like to read it. I really need reviews from some kids.

Here’s a review that is not posted on Amazon about The Dry. This is from a junior high girl writing to her school librarian.

Mrs. Martin,

I finished the book you asked me to preview! It was wonderful! I will bring it back to school tomorrow.

It is totally appropriate for middle school students, I would put it lower middle school. 6th – 7th grade age. As a girl, I liked it. The girls would enjoy it if they like science fantasy, like Chronicles of Narnia…

In very general terms, it is a good vs. evil battle. It is like a mix of Narnia and Lord of the Rings set in the 1800s using insects, lol. It is the Wet (water, animals, good) forces against the Dry (arid, insects, bad) forces. There is a boy trying to save his father and a girl who is trying to save her brother as the main characters. It gets a little convoluted toward the end trying to keep up with everything but I really enjoyed it. Of course, the good wins out in the end and the queen of the Wet (good) shows forgiveness to those that betrayed her.

Moral of the story – it is never to late to ask or receive forgiveness, keep your promises, working together can bring triumph.

It is a very interesting book. It didn’t explain everything that I wanted to know, but it moved fast enough that I wasn’t bored.

Thanks,

Lisa

Author Blog Tour

Author Spotlight: Meet Betty A. Stevens

March 27, 2014 Rebecca Nolen 15 Comments

As an Indie Author it’s not difficult to meet other author’s on twitter and Facebook. I’m in a huge community. But what is a community without a commitment to helping others? It’s just a group of people.

I don’t want to be in just a group of people. I want dynamic involvement in my community. One way I can do that is by introducing you, my delightful readers, to other writers.

Author Bette A. Stevens has a new book she’d like to share with you. Here are more details and what she has to say about her book.

Author Spotlight Bette A. Stevens

reviews

The Beggar of Beliefs by Martin Adil-Smith: A Review

March 25, 2014 Rebecca Nolen Leave a comment

The story is framed by a conversation between a writer and his editor. He is explaining his story to the editor who is skeptical.

Never since Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code have I read such a page turning mind-bender as The Beggar of Beliefs. My feet were moving I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.

Freeman, the writer in the story, explains that there are actually parallel universes, ours and Hers. The “Her” is a she-god bent on destroying our world. He knows that there are documents or “writings” that will explain how to defeat the she-god. She is slowly consuming our universe, distorting time, and causing mass death.

His first example of what is happening he shares from documents detailing the poisoning of an entire village in France in 1951. The story is gripping and realistic. There are hints at what is to come for the reader of the book. Freeman’s stories jump from past to 2018 to 2030 and back to 1980.

Time is an invention of man and does not exist as a straight line but instead has not boundary. The future affects the past so the future can change the past. This is how Freeman explains it “…we haven’t really happened. Her (the destructive god) time is overwriting ours…”

Some of the characters in the book are attached to real characters in history, such as Jim Jones and the Guyana mass suicide. One character named Celus Tuther, I never could figure out if he was good or bad. The lady he hung out with, Irene, was definitely one of the bad characters.

The novel’s wrap up left me gasping. This is such a great read. What I really liked was the story within a story within a story. I’m still thinking about it. That is a difficult thing for an author to master well and Mr. Martin Adil-Smith does it.