Bits & Pieces of Me

Monthly Archives: February 2012

Legacy Giving: What Should I Do. . .

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. . .when I’m stuck?

  

 

Sometimes all you need is a little distance from the legacy story you’re working on. Try one orall three of these exercises to get your writing back on track:.

  1. Walk away from the story for a day or so. If thoughts pop up while you’re on this brief writing hiatis, jot them down, but allow yourself to stand back from the story.
  2. Write the story in the 3rd person as if you were writing about someone  else.
  3. Pretend you’re Diane Sawyer or Jay Leno and interview you. Ask yourself the questions they would ask – the ones you might be resisting. Jot your answers down without judgement or worry about what someone else might thing. Be honest.

If none of these work, write what you can and put the story away for awhile longer. Pushing it onto the page will be felt by your readers.

Here’s an important point to consider: sometimes the pushing is essential to the story. Go ahead and let your Legacy Receivers see your struggle.

Until next time,

Joy

If you haven’t read Your Life, a Legacy yet, you can order the ebook HERE. The print book will be ready in a couple of weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graphic purchased from fotolia.com  © Air0ne – Fotolia.com

To See the Sun – A Review & PRIZES

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Although author, Peg Phifer and I have never met face to face, our friendship is the heart to heart kind. We “met” on an online writer’s group years ago and have walked our way to publishing together. I had the privilege of reading Peg’s new book, To See the Sun, through-out the writing. What an amazing journey. Here’s my review of the book and then. . .you have an option to win all kinds of FREE PRIZES from Peg and I.

 

My Review:

As most of you know, I take reviewing books seriously to heart. I have to connect with the characters and/or story. In To See the Sun I did both.

As the story opens, Erin is pregnant and recently widowed. The last thing she needs is an old beau in a cowboy hat. And worse than that, she is being watched. Her unwanted cowboy wants to protect her from certain danger, but can she let him?

Erin has more than one protector though; a sister, her father-in-law, and friends. All the way through the mystery part of the story – even as we brainstormed, I wondered who in the world was the killer and why. I refuse to give it away, but I will tell you – the author surprised me.

To See the Sun has the right balance of suspense and romance. I’m looking forward to book two in the Desert Faith Series.  You can purchase it HERE.

Now – the moment you’ve all been waiting for!

To enter our Backward Scavenger hunt, do this:

  1. Go Here: http://bit.ly/zi4ple Towards the bottom of that post is a word you need to unscramble. Do that, then . . .
  2. Go Here: http://bit.ly/wslCE6 and find a single, dangling letter. In the comments section, all you will enter there is “I found the letter” but don’t say what it was, but be sure to enter your name & contact information.
  3. Next, add that letter to your unscrambled word to form a new word, and . . .
  4. Go back to the #1 link above and enter your new word in the comments section, along with your name & contact information. Then . . .
  5. Go Here: http://bit.ly/yqMSdp and select a sentence from Peg’s article and rewrite it to include your new word and post it in the comments section below that post, again, with your name and contact information. Finally . . .
  6. In the comments section of this post, enter your name and contact information and indicate you completed all the steps outlined above. Each blog post you commented on gives you one entry PER BLOG. If you’ve overlooked any of them, you may go back and complete it.
  7. Confirmed followers of Joy’s blog get an extra entry. The same for confirmed followers of Peg’s blog.

Now you know why we decided to call it a Backward Scavenger Hunt.

Winner will be drawn using Random.org one week from today, March 1, 2012.

Prizes:

  • A copy of Peg’s debut novel: To See the Sun.  
  • A free print copy of Joy’s eBook, Your Life: A Legacy.
  • A sterling silver 18” necklace with heart and diamond.
  • A set of Joy’s Jot Books
  • A copy of Joy’s novel Rain Dance.

Because of the rising costs of postage, this prize package is available to residents of the 48 contiguous United States only.

DUE TO A LACK OF PARTICIPATION, THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED WITH NO WINNER.

The Metamorphosis of a Novel

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Hi Friends! I am so excited to share this blog post with you. It’s from my friend Peg and I think you’re going to enjoy it. Plus. . .there are some potential gifts in it for you! Read on. . .

The Metamorphosis of a Novel

by Peggy Blann Phifer

 

It started out in Milwaukee. The title: Totally Tori. Victoria (Tori) Summers, a graduate of a highly-respected music school (think Julliard), is married to the heir of a Milwaukee banker with a number of branches throughout the county. Her in-laws don’t like her. A big blow-up with her husband, Justin, ends with him demanding a legal separation. With nowhere to go (no family left), Tori’s best friend, Maggie, gives her the keys to a summer retreat in northern Wisconsin, so Tori and Kaz, her Siamese cat, go north where she meets the local forest ranger, Clay Buchanan. But then Tori learns that Justin has died as a result of a brain tumor and that he sent her away, not because he didn’t love her, he didn’t want her to suffer through his illness.

I had trouble bringing everything together at that point. I’d gotten myself in way over my head. But I stubbornly stuck with part of the premise and changed the title to A Time to Heal based on Ecclesiastes 3. I dropped the separation and brain tumor and changed it into unwanted divorce because it had happened to me. But it had been too many years since I lived in either Milwaukee or northern Wisconsin and I couldn’t make it work.

So, time for a change of scenery. Realizing I could not make this book realistic, I moved the story location to Vegas. Tori became Roni (Veronica) and the title was now A New Sunrise. And Clay was hired by Roni’s mother-in-law to try to dig up some dirt in her life so Roni’s husband, Justin, would put her out of his life. That didn’t work for me because, in my heart, I knew these two had a past and I really had trouble writing them as strangers. Weird, but true.

Then things settled into place—sort of—and Roni became Erin, the working title was Sunrise tomorrow, and this time her husband, Justin, dies in a tragic boating accident intended to kill her, too. Here we meet Larke, Erin’s sister, and John, later to become Doug, Erin’s father-in-law, and Maggie, from Totally Tori, returns to the story with a new spelling of her name, Magie. (You’ll have to read the book to find out about that.) J And, of course, Kaz, the cat.

Now things are taking shape. But I still had problems with the boat accident/murder. I couldn’t figure out how to make it happen believably, and there would have been a huge investigation into it and I had no idea what that would involve. I didn’t have the research knowledge or resources I have now that would have helped me through that part.

Anyway, that, too, was abandoned. The “sun” part of the title stuck with me. I still needed Justin to die and leave Erin pregnant. And I needed to bring Clay “back” into her life after Justin’s death with a ‘past’ between them to reckon with. I came up with To See the Sun after some intense brainstorming, both on my own just rattling off stuff on an open Word document, and with a few friends who believed in me and the evolving final story.

All three books in the Desert Faith series consist of one of the senses and one of the elements: See, sun; Hear, wind; Taste, rain.

You can read the back cover blurb and the first chapter of To See the Sun at: http://peggyblannphifer.com/my_books.htm

Thanks, Joy, for giving me the opportunity to share this long, arduous, frustrating, but rewarding journey.

And now, for the fun part! Follow the steps in the exact order as outlined below:

  1. 1.      Go to my interview of Joy’s book Your Life, a Legacy on the Whispers in Purple blog at http://www.whispersinpurple.com/2012/02/your-life-legacy-by-joy-dekok-and-fun.html
  2. 2.      Follow the directions at the bottom of that post. (There are two steps to that.)
  3. 3.      Keeping what you’ve discovered and created, come back here and choose one sentence from this article where your newly created word will fit, rewrite it and put it in the comments section below.
  4. 4.      Be sure to include your name and email information (i.e. yourname [at] yourdomain/server [dot] com/net/org) in order to qualify. Confirmed followers of Joy’s blog get one extra entry. Confirmed followers of my blog (www.whispersinpurple.com) will get an additional entry. That’s three chances to win.

OKAY, win what?

  • A free copy, either paperback or download, of my new release To See the Sun.
  • A free copy of Joy’s new eBook, Your Life, A Legacy.
  • A sterling silver necklace with heart and diamond.
  • A set of Joy’s Jot Books
  • A copy of Joy’s novel, Rain Dance

There will be at least one more blog to check for another part of the word game and an additional prize.

So, when will the winner be announced?

Good question. When this scavenger hunt is over. Probably before the month’s end. Keep in mind: Each of the blog sites outlines above, if you’ve left a comment and played the game, add entries to your total tally. Only one entry per blog unless otherwise stated.

Physical items available only to the lower 48 contiguous United States. E-book/s open to anyone.

Peg

 DUE TO A LACK OF PARTICIPATION, THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED WITH NO WINNER.

New Wheels – A Legacy Story

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This was a big day for me. Although I don’t remember where my turquoise tricycle was purchased, it was on a dress-up kind of day. It was rare that I rode in a dress and my fancy shoes.

I’d loved my stroller, sled, and wagon, but a tricycle was different. It meant a new kind of freedom. I loved the way my strong little legs could make that thing move. I crashed more than once trying to see how fast I could go before losing control. Pushing the limit was worth the pain of skinned knees.

Not long after I was given my new wheels, my dad came home for lunch between jobs. He worked two, and we didn’t get a lot of time together. When it was time for him to leave, we said good-by, but I was not done seeing him.

A few blocks from home, for some reason, he can’t remember; he looked in his rearview mirror. He was surprised to see me in the  middle of the road, pedaling my trike as fast as I could. He says he was afraid for me – it was a normally busy road, and that he was also surprised by my determination. He took me and my tricycle home. After being sternly admonished for my actions, I’m told I was a very good girl the rest of the day. Well of course I was. Admonishment aside, I’d gotten a few more minutes with my daddy. That had been the whole point.

When I look at this picture of me and my  new wheels, I always think of the circus – a small one that came to town, and I wore this dress and these shoes. I remember the smell of the elephants and popcorn. Under the big tent, it was hot, and I felt itchy. In those days, little girls dressed up for almost every public event, and many of my memories involve outfits and hair styles. We weren’t rich, and we didn’t go often, but we always looked nice when we did. But, not when playing outside. Getting a big present like this when it wasn’t my birthday (which is in December), was an “event” in my life and those often happened after Sunday school and dinner. (Although she’s not certain, Mom thinks this might have also been the day we went to the circus. If that’s true, it was a big day in my life for sure.)

After a few years, I wore my pretty tricycle out. When one of the back wheels fell off, and Daddy couldn’t fix it because it had rusted off, we had to get rid of it. I already had a two-wheeler by then, but my Chatty Cathy “rode” my tricycle strapped on with one of Dad’s old belts (we didn’t have seat belts in cars yet) while I pushed us along with one foot on the ground and the other on the ”back step” of the trike. My girl and I went a lot of places in the neighborhood together.

Giving up this set of wheels was like letting a part of me go. I’ve felt that way about most of the bikes and cars in my life. They aren’t a live, but they sure make living easier and more fun.

Joy

YOUR LIFE, A LEGACY if FREE for KINDLE READERS through Feb 5th. You can get it HERE.