Assault On Saint Agnes Update

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In order to follow the “tortured author” script, I’m supposed to proclaim something here about the deep anguish I’ve been experiencing for the last month. Instead, I’m going to update you on the novel, Assault on Saint Agnes, and where we are in our publishing journey.

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Let’s cut to the chase: the book will not be published in 20 days as originally scheduled. Why? That’s a good news, bad news issue in my life, mainly good.

I went to the ACFW conference in September with exactly zero cares in the world. I wasn’t pitching anything except my voice for audio books, and I was bereft of even a single one-sheet. It was lovely. Stress free. Wonderful. The night before it all began I met with my agent for dinner and a marketing meeting on how to launch Assault on Saint Agnes in November.

We schemed, nibbled, chatted, snapped a picture or two, and had a pretty good idea of where it was all going by the time we called it a night. We agreed to have lunch the next day so that I could rescue her if she needed some time without having to think too hard. (Yes, I’m strictly eye-candy, but I can live with that most days.)

The next morning I texted her from my class and set up lunch. Slight change, need to meet with a publisher. Me? Yes. They want to meet you, pitched the book to them this morning.

Eh, I’m dressed like me – you know what that’s like. If not, look at the right side of the blog and the margin picture. Not all that classy most days. But she wants me to show anyway. It worked out fine. The publisher was a delightful person who wanted details on the book, asked questions about how flexible I was in preparing it for other English-speaking markets, and how long until the sequel can be written?

After lunch I see her in the hallway between engagements. Another publisher would like to see the full manuscript. This is a major publisher who would do amazing things. This leaves me, exactly 14 hours after I launched the publicity campaign on this blog for independent publishing, with two possible buyers for the book.

I am not going to whine. I am blessed to have this opportunity. I am blessed to have an agent that keeps pitching for me even when I’m sitting on my backside. I also have a lot of work to do to ready that book for the next level. My agent, whom I love dearly, opened a can of – shall we call it enthusiastic fervor? – on me and let me know there was work to be done to make this a smash.

After a few years of reading, reworking, and thinking about this book almost every day, I wasn’t overjoyed to hear that my little darling needed work. Didn’t she, and everyone else, know it had won prize money! Accolades! Yeah, yeah, but it could be better. And that’s what I’m doing right now.

I am still pursuing the independent publishing line in the event that these two publishers pass on the work. I finished the cover changes/finalizing issues with the artist on Monday. I will have a copy of it to show you this next week. It is spectacular. I will have the book revised shortly. (Turns out that other nations/translations prefer a few different things than American audiences. I can change things so that both will be happy and not lose the story.) And I will forge ahead on other books I am writing.

I delayed spilling the beans until I was more settled on how I viewed the whole situation. But the work is moving forward and I didn’t want anyone to be waiting patiently for the launch date and hear nothing. After all, Christmas is coming and you have books to buy! I’ll continue to write reviews, post pictures of Stormy, and flash fiction. (I got more Twitter followers out of the Santa Ebola story than I could have imagined.)

In the meantime, please pray for me, the book, and my wife who has to listen to the “bam-bam-bam” of my head hitting the desk as I do revision #5,742 on the book. We all can use a little prayer.

Secret Santa: Not For The Kids.

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As many of you know, I spend way too much time thinking about horrible things. That’s what makes me worth reading. Today I wish to share some flash fiction with you. I’m sitting down to write it in one shot of under one hour (including editing.) I hope you enjoy it, but do not read it to your children. Before you accuse me of black helicopter issues, read the news. And be honest with yourself: it could happen, couldn’t it?

Besides, after two weeks of romance novel reviews, I needed this to get my man card back.

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Secret Santa: No elves or happy endings.

Carl Baker was one of 74 professional Santa’s who attended the midway dinner at the steakhouse just outside Chicago on December First. He was tickled to be there in civilian clothers and not his Santa suit. The men sat swapping stories with friends and reviewing the “Santa Season” at it’s half-way point. They needed the break on this Sunday night to recharge and face the next three weeks of sitting in that chair snapping photos. Between them, they were the most popular Santas in Chicagoland, controlling the biggest malls and private venues. Carl was a widower, and he missed his wife terribly. More than once during the dinner he drifted off into a world where she sat next to him, holding his hand and smiling at his antics. The final time he was interrupted by a clanging of silverware on water glasses.

Carl stood up and said, “Gentlemen, I can never tell us apart in those group photos. This year I have provided bright masks with a reindeer nose that each of us should wear for the picture. That way, I won’t be the only one who can’t tell who is whom. My lovely assistant, Melkania, will give you one as we enter the lobby to take the picture. Please play along and have fun!”

Each of the men smilingly took the mask from the young girl and put it on as they lined up for the picture. What they didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that Melkania had her cousin Nancy staying at her apartment for the last three weeks. That cousin was supposed to come and take pictures tonight but was too sick to make it to the restaurant. Instead she’d helped assemble the masks for Melkania that afternoon so that she could get the camera gear ready.

The masks were inexpensive, kind of rough, and the bulbous red nose was plenty big enough to put over the wearers own nose. This would be the lynchpin for the explosion of the Ebola virus in Chicago. Each of those noses had been moistened with her saliva so that Nancy could make it fit through the rubber edges of the mask. Nancy had become symptomatic earlier that day but was not yet so sick as to require medical treatment.

Pictures taken, most of the masks were put in coat pockets as keepsakes. Some were given to friends and grand children as a gag gift. All of the Santas carried away a very tiny Shepard’s crook in their nasal cavities.

For the next three weeks the men who’d attended that party grew full of the little virus. Some were concerned when the first few deaths took place in Chicago from Ebola. But the victims were confined to a neighborhood near Northwestern University and they didn’t recognize any of the names. Nancy and Melkania were never mentioned in the press, as the forged documents on them held different names. Both passed away at a small military hospital in Wisconsin where the outbreak was being handled.

Each day thousands of children sat on the laps of Santa all across Chicagoland. On the 22nd of December the first Santa called in sick at an outlying mall. His replacement hadn’t attended the dinner earlier in the month so he wasn’t exposed. But he did notice that the camera girl and some of the elves looked a bit rugged. Santa had taken picture of each of them wearing the reindeer nose the morning following the party. As the day went by, most of them went home sick as well. The next day some of the people in the food court were very ill, from the same rubber nose, and the mall was quarantined. It wasn’t the only mall: the authorities had very quietly put everyone in several major malls on buses for a camp where they could ride out the incubation period. Families, high-school kids, armored car couriers. If you were in the mall you went. Including Santa.

But the damage was done. Thousands of children from all over the area had cuddled with various Santas for that prized annual photo. They brought the virus with them to their daycare centers, schools, families, and to other parts of the country as they flew to grand parents homes for the holiday.

On December 25th, shortly before midnight, Carl Baker died, alone, in his bathtub. He was Patient 3 and the true primary vector. It was his final sleigh ride.

He finally rejoined his wife.

Interview With Brandy Vallance, Author of “The Covered Deep”

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Now and again you get your backside handed to you in a contest. I have learned that you can’t win them all, not even close when the competition is strong. I didn’t even have a chance in Operation First Novel. Why? Because Brandy Vallance entered her book “The Covered Deep” and won the whole enchilada. The truth is I don’t feel bad at all having lost to her.

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Brandy Vallance

Brandy Vallance

The Covered Deep

The Covered Deep

Before we get to the meat of the issue (the interview and review) it’s time to show social media, faces, and book covers.

Brandy can be followed on Twitter.com @BrandyVallance. Her personal website is www.brandyvallance.com, and her Facebook author page is up on this link.

I don’t review books that are less than 4 stars. Brandy would get six if the system would allow it on Amazon.com.

Let’s start with her own book blurb:

Bianca Marshal is holding out for the perfect husband. Finding a man that meets the requirements of her “must-have” list in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains has proven impossible. Bianca’s mama insists that there’s no such thing as a perfect true love, and that Bianca’s ideal man is pure fiction. On the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, Bianca discovers a devastating statistic: her chance of marrying is now only eighteen percent. Unwilling to accept spinsterhood, Bianca enters an essay contest that propels her into a whirlwind search for her soulmate. Via the opulence of London and the mysteries of the Holy Land, Bianca’s true love will be revealed, but not without a heavy price.

In general that does not sound like a book I would read. But having met Brandy, and become friends, I knew it would rock the house. I was right. Here’s the review I put up on Amazon:

If you were expecting another semi-boring, safe, syrupy Christian fiction romance of a historical nature in The Covered Deep, you are in for a big let-down. What you get instead is a well researched, tightly written, delightful piece of period fiction written from a Christian world view.

Brandy Vallance is on the cutting edge of the new wave of Christian fiction writers. She writes great stories from the heart of a good woman with Christian beliefs. There is nothing formulaic in this book. There is nothing syrupy in this book. There is a lot of good plotting, splendid dialogue, and believable characters.

I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a solid reading experience that is friendly to Christian audiences. I would also recommend it to anyone who likes a darned good story. You don’t have to be a fan of Christian books to fall in love with Brandy’s style and skill.

I am looking forward to her next book more than you can possibly imagine. She is in a class all by herself, and since she’s leading the way for the next generation of writers in her genre, I have nothing but great expectations.

I received an ARC of this book for review purposes. I also was a finalist in the competition and couldn’t have lost to a more worthy winner.

On to the interview:

You don’t have a dog. But if you did, why would you name it Beacon?

Well, I do have a dog. And she’s named after the Loch Ness Monster. However, if I had another dog and named it Beacon, it would be because this creature had recently saved me from a deep dark forest where I wandered alone, void of all hope. The moonlight would slant, just so, and then . . .

You write Historical fiction at this point in your career. Have you considered another genre? If so, what would it be?

You know, I think I’ll be a historical romance girl all my life. But, that’s not to say I won’t dabble at some point. When I was in the seventh grade I played around with writing a fantasy. I’m pretty drawn to speculative fiction, because I love the supernatural element.

Like a lot of kids who grow up to be authors, you’ve “left the pack.” What’s the best part of having voices in your head?

Ha. You’ve got that right. I love that our characters are so real to us. I think the best thing about this for writers is that we’re never bored. Sometimes my flashes of inspiration are so real that I can almost see them.

The characters in your books are unique personalities. Where do you draw these writing skills from? How can readers who yearn to write pick up this ability to create people out of thin air?

Thank you! I think as far as characterization goes, the first thing you have to do is give your characters real emotions. If you can get to the real, raw, and the deep, you are going to have a powerful character. Pour lots of heart into them, no matter if they are the villain or the protagonist. Make the stakes high. Longing is a big one for me. I think when your reader can identify with the longing that a character has, you have won. What you want is for your reader to be able to see themselves in your characters. While they may not agree with a character’s certain course of action, they understand how or why the character made that choice. And that makes for a powerful story.

Being from the South, do you find a cultural influence that you have to fight in your writing? Or can you ignore that and step into another culture with ease?

This is funny because I’m sort of half north and half south. I spent most all of my summers in the Southern Ohio/ Kentucky area but I grew up in Northern Ohio. Maybe that gave me a rounded perspective, I don’t know. I think as writers we need to be able to step into any place and time with ease. That’s not easy, but I find that music really helps me. When I wrote the Holy Land scenes in The Covered Deep, I most always listened to Hebrew/ Arabic / eastern inspired music. You have to make yourself feel before you can get it on the page. This is one of the best parts of being a writer, I think. We get to experience so many things/places/lives. [Ed: I do the same thing with theme music when writing.]

Writing is your full-time job. What careers did you have before moving to writing?

I worked as a bank teller, believe it or not. I can hardly believe it myself. I’m definitely not a cubicle kind of a girl.

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I want to thank Brandy for her time in doing this interview. I encourage all of my readers to hit the link and buy this book to see what I’ve been babbling about for the last 6 months to all of my friends.

How Do You Shred A Man Card?

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I need to know pretty soon, because the howling for me to turn mine in will reach a crescendo very soon. Possibly today, more likely once the book review I plan on publishing Thursday hits. The problem is, the darned thing is laminated and won’t go through the shredder I have here at home. With fear of loss in my heart, and great joy in talking about a good book, I now launch into A Cliche Christmas.

Please follow me on Twitter, and “Like” the Facebook author page. Don’t forget to subscribe (the box is on the right side of the page) to be eligible for free e-books and other benefits!

Let’s start with the pictures and social media:

Nicole’s website is www.nicoledeese.com and her twitter account is @NicoleDeese. You can visit her author page at Facebook by hitting this link. Last, but not least, she’s up on Goodreads as well. Good? Thought so. Go buy the book, A Cliche Christmas while you’re clicking.

Nicole Deese

Nicole Deese

A Cliche Christmas

A Cliche Christmas

On to the review I posted at Amazon.com:

This is the first Nicole Deese book that I’ve read. I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last. It’s a story about Christmas. In many ways it’s a story about telling stories about Christmas. No matter what you call it, you must call A Cliche Christmas enjoyable and well written.

Nicole touches a part of the heart in this work that crosses age and gender lines. While it is clearly written for the romance market, it’s so well done that even grizzled misanthropes (me) can find a great deal of pleasure in the work. I won’t give away the ending, or the middle for that matter, but it did cause the pollen count in my office to go up enough that my eyes were kind of moist. I wasn’t crying, let me make that clear – but it was a near run thing.

This book is ideal for later teens through the golden years. It’s not a kid story by any means. It’s not sappy. It’s got good characters and great scenes. Well worth the price of admission. I now understand why she sells so many books – she’s a great writer.

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Nicole is a high tech kind of author: she’s even added a book trailer. (I won’t have one for Assault on Saint Agnes, it would be rated R for some reason…)

Here’s the book blurb from her publisher:

2014 American Christian Fiction Writers’ Genesis Award Finalist
Writing happy endings is easy. Living one is the hard part.
Georgia Cole—known in Hollywood as the “Holiday Goddess”—has made a name for herself writing heartwarming screenplays chock-full of Christmas clichés, but she has yet to experience the true magic of the season. So, when her eccentric grandmother volunteers her to direct a pageant at Georgia’s hometown community theater, she is less than thrilled. To make matters worse, she’ll be working alongside Weston James, her childhood crush and the one man she has tried desperately to forget.

Now, facing memories of a lonely childhood and the humiliation of her last onstage performance, seven years earlier, Georgia is on the verge of a complete mistletoe meltdown. As Weston attempts to thaw the frozen walls around her heart, Georgia endeavors to let go of her fears and give love a second chance. If she does, will she finally believe that Christmas can be more than a cliché?

On to the interview!

You write romances at this point in your career. Have you considered another genre? If so, what would it be?

I honestly couldn’t imagine writing a fiction story that doesn’t have at least a smidge of romance woven into it. I do love to read a fairly wide variety of genres. (My favorites being: Dystopian, YA, Women’s Fiction, Fantasy.) But truth be told, a book doesn’t feel complete to me without a love story.
I know. I’m a sap.

Like a lot of kids who grow up to be authors, you’ve “left the pack.” What’s the best part of having voices in your head?

Two words: Yoga pants.
Okay fine, even though I really do love my everyday writing attire, my favorite part of the writing process is actually brainstorming for my next project. There’s nothing like the magic of new ideas, characters, twists, and plot lines. I’ve been known to talk on the phone for hours with my author buddies and never stray from Nicole’s Fiction Land. It really is that fun to me!

The characters in your books are unique personalities. Where do you draw these writing skills from? How can readers who yearn to write pick up this ability to create people out of thin air?

I usually envision a single character first. And while looking into his/her past, I ask these questions: What has wounded this character? What life experiences have shaped them and made them who they are at the beginning of my story? Once I have a good feel for that hero/heroine, I can then figure out who their love interest needs to be—usually with the “opposites attract rule” in mind.

Do you tend to limit settings to places you’ve lived or visited?

Thank goodness for GOOGLE! There’s A LOT I don’t know about the world, but what I don’t know is usually pretty easy to research online. I’ve watched many a YouTube video. I’m currently writing a story about estranged twin sisters that takes place in rural Montana (which most of Montana is rural—haha!) But thanks to videos and research sites, I feel pretty confident in my descriptions so far.

And of course when all else fails? I just make stuff up. Like Lenox, Oregon. The small-town setting in A Cliché Christmas. Though I grew up in Oregon, there wasn’t an exact fit I could think of that would work for this particular story. So I created Lenox, which is a cross between two of my favorite real-life Oregon cities.

Writing is your full-time job. What careers did you have before moving to writing?

I was fully submersed into the Domestic Arts prior to authorhood. That is to say, my husband supported me in every possible way so that I could stay at home and raise my babies. And now those babies are nine and six. And in full-time school.

Those years at home changing diapers and watching Barney ’til I wanted to ban the color purple from my life FOREVER were all kinds of crazy, but those years were also what inspired me to keep dreaming. To keep hoping for tomorrow. To keep reaching for the future. Because those years were the perfect catalyst to launch me into this season as a full-time writer.
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Thank you, Nicole. A Cliche Christmas is riding high on the charts at Amazon and Walmart. Best of sales to you!

Like all good authors in the modern era, Nicole included her own paragraph of propaganda. I’m always tickled to get that along with questions I didn’t ask in the interview. It makes me look good!

Nicole Deese Bio: Nicole Deese is a lover of fiction. When she isn’t writing, she can be found fantasizing about “reading escapes,” which look a lot like kid-free, laundry-free, and cooking-free vacations.
Her debut novel, an inspirational contemporary romance, All for Anna, has hit multiple milestones since its release in January 2013, including a 4.8 star rating on Amazon and more than 150,000 downloads on Kindle. She has since completed the Letting Go Series and over-the-moon excited about her new release, A Cliché Christmas, published by Waterfall Press, an Amazon Publishing imprint. A Cliché Christmas is available at Wal-Mart stores nationwide, and on Amazon.com.
Nicole lives in Frisco, Texas, with her husband, Tim, and her two rowdy boys, Preston and Lincoln.

Check, Please.

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I found these videos while trolling a veterans group on Facebook. Watch them and we’ll resume.

Video 2

Video 3

Video 4

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I get choked up when I see this kind of thing in the media. I’m no hero, but I’ve served with them. I’m not wounded but I’m damaged. I’m proud of my experience and marvel at that of others. Most of all, I’m part of the family that put on the uniform.

For years I’ve tried to get the tab when I know it’s a fellow vet or active duty member. I’ve also handed out dozens of business cards with my personal cellular number. I tell them, “If you need to talk, this thing’s on 24×7. Especially in the dead of night.”

Just knowing that you can talk to someone helps immensely. Knowing that you’re not alone is such a huge part of being a good battle-buddy (a term that evolved long after my time, but I like it in this context.) We all need that connection. It’s vital to all of us.

I recently made a new friend. Another vet. Another squid (naval type) with a lot in common with me. We sat up in a bar until 0200 talking that first night. And repeated it the next. We’d not served together. We didn’t even serve during the same era. But in a twinkling we knew so much about each other. Instantaneous link formed. I talk to them a couple of times a week. Sometimes twice in a day. I marvel at that shared bond.

Today, when you go out and about, keep an eye peeled for veterans. Don’t just see us on November 11th each year. You don’t have to pick up the tab, or even say a word. Just a smile. A tip of the hat. Or a business card with your number if you’re already a member of the tribe.

You are not alone. We are all here to support each other if we’ll just let it happen.