Giveaway starts Jan 25 for Standing Stones' NEW Audiobook

To celebrate my just released audiobook through Amazon for Standing Stones, here's a giveaway!

Between January 25 and January 31, you can enter to win a free download code for the audiobook version of Standing Stones by completing the form below. 

Winners will be selected by Rafflecopter at random. Once I receive the winning names, I'll send full instructions and that download code so you can receive your audiobook!

Darryl Kurylo, an extraordinary voice actor, did an outstanding job of narrating my story, adopting a variety of voices to bring the characters of 19th Century Scotland to life. 

You can listen to a five minutes sample of the audiobook for Standing Stones, available on Amazon 

Thank YOU for following along my writing journey. I wish you many happy hours of writing, reading, and/or listening!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

POP #3: Of tango and lost poems

Perhaps today's post began when a friend told me of her love of tango, and I remembered a visit to San Telmo, a small neighborhood in Buenos Aires back in 2009, a blissful Sunday afternoon filled with music and tango dancers in the streets.

I had forgotten the poem entirely but remembered the music, the dancing, and the photographs -- and so found this lost poem.

Sunday in San Telmo

She sketches a circle

with the tip of her shoe,
an invitation.
He nods his head,
accepts with a bow.
He presses a button 
on a boom box.

The tinny music of tango
fills the air
to the delight of passersby 
from the neighborhood
and tourists who have come
to San Telmo in Buenos Aires
to see in these dancers
those moments 
we now remember from our youth.

She arches her back;

he twirls her around,

their steps pause

and repeat,

their knees and ankles brush,

an intricate embrace

of precision and passion;

her head thrown back,

the music, the music revolves

a rondo,

and we are lost again

in the moment.

This week’s Poets on the Page prompt, posted on Monday, challenged us to look at a poem that we had abandoned in some way, revise it, and then share it. 

I thought about the poems I had written last year, not remembering even how many or what I might ‘do’ with them. Maybe someday I would put them into a little chapbook, or build them around family history,  a poetry memoir. So I collected them, rewrote some, organized them, and now have a working draft of 46 poems.

This once, this year,
these poems are not lost;
paired with photographs,
organized into a round of seasons,
these little troubadours
shine of this past year’s musings
and sing of light.

Stop by to read what other writers have posted for this week's Poets on the Page.

Or just maybe, watch the tango dancers!

Poets on the Page #2: Into the Woods

Into the woods we go, an April walk
past towering pines along a ridge trail,
peopled by spring grasses and flowering
yellow Arrowleaf Balsamroot,
its leaves, roots, and stems once infused
into a steaming tea to ward off colds or fever
by the Blackfoot, Salish and Cheyenne.

We stroll under late spring sun along this meandering trail;
the woods quiet, these hills innocent of snow,
all memories of winter crunching under our feet,
the sweet smell of pines and mossy,
volcanic boulders around us
unaffected by the round of seasons.
For this moment, we listen
for the chatter of chickadees,
that signal we have negotiated winter
once again.

Dishman Hills, April 2015 (Camp)

Monday’s Poets on the Page poetry prompt: To write a poem that explores walking into senses and memory. Drop by the Poets on the Page blog to read what others have written – and join in! 

It snowed today, reminding me of a walk in nearby Dishman Hills last spring, far from winter snow and today's flurries.

Book Review: Death Goes to the County Fair

How do readers show appreciation to writers -- especially indie writers? One of the best ways is to write a review.  

January begins with cold weather and after tromping around in the snow, I wanted nothing more than to cuddle up next to the fireplace with a nice cozy read.

Annette Drake's novella, Death Goes to the County Fair (An Ogallala Mystery), has been on my to-read pile for a little while.

This cozy mystery begins with a runaway house fire as Joni, a newly hired reporter/photographer for the Ogallala Gazette, is sent out to photo the scene.

Joni, just out of college and not quite sure she fits into this small town, carries out her assignments with enthusiasm, even when misspelling the mayor’s name or taking a picture of the largest pig at the county fair. But she finds herself caught between small town intrigues and her rising curiosity over a murder – discovered right at the biggest income producer for Ogallala – the county fair. 

Heartfelt characters combined with a realistic small town feel and a neatly twisted plot lead to an entertaining 4.5 star read.

Annette Drake, a former Spokane writer now relocated to the west coast, has long been active in supporting other writers. 

This story, her fifth book but first mystery, was inspired by her own experience as a journalist just out of college -- and embarking on her first job.

She writes engagingly of the mix between fiction and personal experience that led her to write Death Goes to the County Fair on her website HERE.  

Why not check out Annette's books? Available on Amazon and at your favorite bookstore, on request.

IWSG, a Snippet of a WIPpet, and Doubt

Last week, my quilting buddies and I were headed down to lunch in an elevator, when one asked, "Beth, when will that book you're working on be done?" Another chimed in and said, "And will it have a happy ending this time?"

I guess I'm well past that visceral flash of self-doubt that seems to emerge from time to time:  How-do-I-say-I'm-a-writer. But new doubts seem to flicker awake without me even trying. These last several months, my recurring doubt has been:  Will-I-ever-finish-this-story!

I'm a pantser with plodder tendancies who writes historical fiction. What that means is I have a germ of an idea, begin reading research, write every day but in no order, build outlines as I go, and continue research and writing until I reach that happy point where I have enough words. Then begins the editing -- mostly a 2-3 year stretch of digging into the story to make it stronger.

Right now, I'm rereading scenes for continuity and transitions and to catch doubled words (common in my first drafts), the usual work on editing that surfaces when my overall strategy is rather like that of a flea, not always good when writing historical fiction. But past the surface, I'm asking what kinds of story structure issues affect this section? What are the deepest concerns Cat (my heroine disguised as a boy who's traveling across Canada in 1840)  has at this point in this story?  

For example at the editing level, I could have known when they switched from York boats to canoes. But who wants to worry about which conveyance when Cat gets lost in the woods? It would be silly NOT to worry about it now. Thank goodness for search & replace, the intuitive writer’s friend. 

Which brings me back to the elevator and my friends. For I had no real answer for them, no exact date. I only know this: One day, this story will be finished and another will beckon. That is part of my identity as a writer, my promise to myself -- and to my readers. 

WIPpet Wednesday: Some of you may know that every Wednesday (or most Wednesdays), some writers post a snippet from their work-in-progress (WIP). Here's mine, based on the date this way: 12 sentences for the two sixes in the 6th of January and 2016.

I'm celebrating a new character that emerged this week. Finally, a Métis wife. I had missed her and she's a bit shadowy in the story, but suddenly, the brigade had just started paddling upstream, and there she was, Mary, mixing bear grease up to repel mosquitos. 

----------

"Take some of this," called Thurston. He held out a handful of thick salve.

“What is it?”

“Bear grease from Mary. It will keep the mosquitos off. Rub it everywhere you can.”

Cat took a handful. The salve stunk to high heaven. "Thanks, I guess."

Thurston smeared his face, beard, neck, and hairy arms liberally. "By St. Anne, you don't want the mosquitoes biting your ass all day."

“Maybe the smell will scare them off,” said Cat. 

----------

And so the writing goes, sometimes slowly, with uncertain starts and stops, and sometimes many words on the page. The process of writing is unique to each of us, and we each will face doubt as we write. 

May 2016 be the year your writing sings!

Check out what other WIPpet Wednesday writers have posted HERE.

Read what other writers in the Insecure Writers Support Group are thinking about this month HERE.

 

2016: First poem . . . "Open"

This year, let me open
like a flower, petals uncurling,
like a dream of the sea, endless water,
like an unfolding of days,
each complete to itself,
infinite in the rising and setting
of the same sun,
the same me,
the same you
through these days of winter
into the promise of spring. 

Horsetail Falls,
Columbia Gorge in Winter
by Doug Beghtel 

Poets on the Page: 2016 begins with a new online writing community for poets. Poets on the Page offers a weekly poetry prompt each Monday. Why not read what others have written and jump right in with a poem of your own?

This week's prompt: Write for ten minutes asking yourself this question - What if you stop trying to be who you aren't, let everything that isn't you drop away, and embrace the real you? Word Prompts: direct, frank, candid, open.

Visit Poets on the Page blog for more information!