Haunting Miss Trentwood Audiobook

Dear Reader,

I’ve just finished listening to the Haunting Miss Trentwood audiobook, narrated by the fantastic Arielle Lipshaw. I’m pretty excited about this, I’ve never had an audiobook done before and hearing my characters speak as if they were part of a radio play is a lot of fun.

You might wonder how I got into making an audiobook. Well, along the lines of Neil Gaiman, I joined the Audiobook Creation Exchange, henceforth shortened to ACX.

ACX is owned by Amazon, so if you want to have an audiobook you first need to have the book be available on Amazon. There is a mysterious algorithm which will determine whether your book is acceptable audiobook material. For instance, Catching the Rose is not allowed to be an audiobook, but Haunting Miss Trentwood is. I assume this has something to do with ratings (13 on HMT, 1 on CTR), and downloads (lost count on HMT, still somewhere around 150 for CTR).

ACX is is like a marketplace for authors and narrators to pitch one another to help complete their creative works. When you sign up, you search for your books on Amazon that are allowed to be made into audiobook format, and you write a project pitch. In my project pitch, I provided the synopsis, my ranking/rating numbers, and a number of excerpted reviews.

Then I went in search of my narrator. The narrators on the website each have samples of their different styles; I knew I wanted someone who could mimic an Elizabeth Bennet style. I found her in Arielle Lipshaw.

The nice thing about ACX is you can split the cost with your narrator in different ways. The one I chose was to pay Arielle up front once the project was completed to my liking. This means I won’t be sharing royalties with her later. It’s quite a bit of money (around $1500), but luckily my existing royalties are paying for that. And hopefully future royalties from this additional distribution stream will balance out the cost. Arielle has also helped me by pointing out her rate would be cheaper if she did the English accent only when the characters were speaking, rather than for the length of the entire book.

All in all, the project is coming along. I’m looking forward to the finished product and I hope you will enjoy it.

Best,
Belinda

Life as a Writer’s Block

Dear Reader,

Sometimes, we need a break.

After I graduated with my masters in 2010, I was dead-set on having my second book published within the year, which I did.

It took me seven years to write Haunting Miss Trentwood (because I was a full-time student and a part-time writer). I put my hand and head to marketing, and did so for a year… so much time spent interacting on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, etc, meant I wasn’t reading or writing anymore. Just talking about things that I had read and written before Haunting Miss Trentwood was published.

It was draining. Exhausting. It made me despise writing, the thinking and doing of it.

I have felt so guilty lately for not wanting to touch The Rebel’s Touch. I keep printing drafts hoping I will feel that old familiar rush that motivated me to put the Red Pen of Doom to paper. Nothing doing. Instead, I find myself staring out the window, wishing my head didn’t hurt. Or hoping a certain someone calls so we can hang out. Or looking up new recipes because I don’t want to be sitting, I want to be moving around and making something new. Or throwing my dance shoes into my bag because I have a performance or a lesson to teach or a party to enjoy.

Fact is, I have a very particular sort of Writer’s Block: life.

I never had a life before. It’s amazing! In high school, college, and even graduate school, my schedule consisted of…

• School,
• Homework, and then,
• Because I wasn’t allowed to hang out with anyone after dark (in high school anyway which set my pattern for undergrad and grad school), I would read or write or paint or sew.

I love those years, they made me prepared and capable to handle the little fixes around the house.

But the truth of the matter is I have no idea how to balance a full life and my writing.

The first three months of 2012, I tormented myself by thinking I wasn’t being true to my craft. I didn’t want to admit that my “craft,” as it were, was switching. I’m a swing, lindy hop, and balboa dancer. I won’t have this “young” almost-27-year-old body forever. This is my opportunity to make the best of my youth and dance while I can. Writing… well, I hope with all my soul that I will always have my mind available to write one more story.

I’ve also begun exploring religion, something that has always been a part of my life, but never explicitly. I just have so much I’m trying to figure out right now… My psyche is in flux, making it difficult to write about characters whose lives are also in flux. Without knowing myself and what I want to write about, it is almost impossible for me to give my characters minds and thoughts and worries of their own.

Do you have any suggestions for me, to help me balance life and writing?

Anyway, that is my explanation for my radio silence.

All the best,

Belinda

Kentucky Unionist Slaveholders?

Dear Reader,

When you’re in school in the States, it’s really easy to make it seem as though the Civil War was Yankees vs Rebels, North vs South, Unionists vs Confederates, Abolitionists vs Slaveholders. As if Yankee = North = Unionist = Abolitionist and Rebel = South = Confederate = Slaveholder. Without question.

It’s only after doing a (very little) bit of digging that I’ve realized this is not the case at all. You could be a slaveholding Unionist, i.e. supporting the federal Union that made the USA government. You could be a Confederate abolitionist, i.e. someone who supported state rights but disagreed with slavery. And on and on. It’s a fascinating mess.

Anyway, The New York Times is continuing its great series about the Civil War, chronicling the four years on its 150th anniversary. Today it’s a great article about Kentucky during the Civil War, this time about a staunch Unionist family who also happened to be slaveholders.

Though the Underwoods, like Kentucky, stayed loyal, their staunch Unionism made them outsiders at home. Josie’s father campaigned across the state for peace, leading to charges that he was under the sway of “Lovejoy and the abolitionists” and thus not a “consistent Southerner.” Crowds of secessionists shouted “hurrah for Jeff Davis” at trains passing through town on the L and N. “Every man on that train will think Bowling Green is Rebel — when she’s Union,” Josie lamented, “though the Union sentiment is much the greatest in Kentucky, the Rebels have so many rowdies they make the most noise.”

Make sure you read the entire article. It is certainly eye-opening and great material for The Rebel’s Touch, since Tempest is a slaveholding Unionist.

Honestly, the more I read about the Civil War, even though I’m focusing on one year around the Ohio River at Ripley and across the river in Kentucky… I keep learning so much. It is a real struggle to know what to include in the book and what to keep out. Which real people to I add as supporting characters, and why? How does it support the story of a man trying to regain his memory during a tumultuous time in history? My brain hurts just thinking about it. Goodness, why do I have to make everything so difficult…

Best,

Belinda

Old Maps Online

Dear Reader,

I have been beyond busy practicing for a local swing dance/lindy hop team competition, which is exhausting, thrilling, stressful… but we won first place, so all the hard work was worth it! It would have been worth it had we not won, I became close to some really amazing people, but winning… yeah. It was indescribable. I might have almost started crying.

In other news, I just found this awesome website called Old Maps Online, via Flowing Data.

So of course, I had to look up Ripley, OH where The Rebel’s Touch is supposed to be located. They don’t have a specific Ripley map form 1860 – 1865, but they do have a map of Ohio and Indiana linked, which is pretty freaking awesome. And! A map of Kentucky and Tennessee (because Tempest is actually from Kentucky).

Now that the competition preparations are over, I have more time to read and write. I am dipping my toes into The Rebel’s Touch again, trying not to feel like a total loser for not writing for three months and for feeling completely stuck at where I did stop.

Rather than picking up the story right where I left it, last night I let my mind wander and wrote a scene that would happen a couple chapters after the current written point. The scene is internal, Tempest thinking about Daniel and how her feelings might be starting to change but she has no idea how he would react…

Not gonna lie, writing the scene almost made me cry. Sometimes there is nothing worse than the not-knowing, the wondering, the too-scared-to-ask-and-ruin-a-good-thing. Happens all the time in real life, happens in fiction, too. Heartbreak via silence is a tough thing to handle. Not sure if you have experienced it, but believe me, it’s no fun. But boy is it a great thing to draw inspiration from to write about!

Best,

Belinda

When Awesome Happens: To My Old Master

Dear Reader,

I have stumbled upon an amazing discovery where a letter from a former slave to their former master’s request to “return home” has surfaced in blog format.  This is such a great find for me as I continue to do research for The Rebel’s Touch, and I wanted to share the experience with you. Below is the first paragraph. So fantastic.

Dayton, Ohio,

August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance…

Tons of thanks to Shaun Usher of Letters of Note for finding this gem and reproducing the letter in full! Read the entire thing at his website.

Best,

Belinda

Smashwords Gifts and Underground Railroad Stealth

Dear Reader,

I sit here at my desk eating a McDonald’s McGriddle and pondering the odd combination of a sandwich that uses pancakes for bread. The rain is pouring though it is the middle of January in Ohio. The world is an odd place.

Last night, I decided I would redesign the cover for my short story, Mad Maxine. The first cover was, admittedly, thrown together. I thought I needed a photo-realistic cover for whatever reason, and that it needed to match my historical fiction covers.

Fact is, Mad Maxine is a contemporary short story that is so different from my historical fiction, I’m certain I was confusing readers. Maxine is a smoker, she’s just lost her husband and the story location is at his grave site. The original cover showed none of that.

So on Sunday, I pulled out my sketchbook and began drawing.  I scanned it in, did some Photoshop magic, and uploaded it to Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.com.

Should be live on all those sites and propagated across Kobo, Sony, etc, over the coming days.

Smashwords Gifts

While at Smashwords, I noticed they have a beta “gift a book” option. The way it works is when you purchase the book, you submit the recipient’s email and they get an automatic email with instruction to get their copy.

This is a great option not only for readers giving gifts to readers, but also for authors who are holding contests! I hate the fact that when I want to give a free book to a reader, I usually have to send them this email stating “here is a 100% coupon for you to download the book.” Now, it seems Smashwords takes care of it for me. Huzzah!

Underground Railroad Stealth

In terms of my research for The Rebel’s Touch, I hit a gold mine while reading John P. Parker’s autobiography. Parker was an escaped slave who became a very successful businessman in the Cincinnati and Ripley, OH areas. He also happened to be a primary operator for the Underground Railroad. First off, this book reads like you are sitting at an old southern man’s kitchen table, listening to him tell his story. It is FANTASTIC! I often find myself reading a passage out loud, slowing down my natural rhythm, trying to hear how he would have said that particular sentence.

Parker’s attention to detail and storytelling is the kind that gets passed down in storytelling families. I know, I’m in one of them. My father once told me a story about how a crocodile used to eat lying children that sounded so plausible, I really thought he lost a brother who lied to this super smart, Peter Pan-esque crocodile.

Anyway, I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to Ripley, OH during the Civil War years and those leading up to it. He gives names, describes where the houses were, and the terrain he had to cross when leading contraband (what the Union army called escaped slaves) across the Ohio River from Kentucky.

I have at least three more books I want to read about Ripley Ohio and John Parker. Because I live in Ohio, and Ripley is only a couple hours from me, I want to visit the town and get a feel for the landscape. Many of the original houses still stand, sentinels on the river. I need to write to the local historical society to get additional resources, and I plan to visit the Ohio Historical Society to see what else they can tell me.

I want to get The Rebel’s Touch out sooner rather than later. But I also want to do a good job of it; I commonly hear that Haunting Miss Trentwood felt a little rushed, and maybe it was.

So yes, with the new year comes lots of grand plans. I mean to enjoy this research process, though, and I hope to translate it into a great book.

Best,

Belinda

Interviewing Linda McCabe

Dear Reader,

Today I’m interviewing Linda C McCabe, author of Quest of the Warrior Maid. As a bit of housekeeping, don’t forget that I have a giveaway from December 2 – 6 where Haunting Miss Trentwood is 50% off! All right, onto the interview…

 1. Learn more about Linda…

I have been a bookworm since I was a small child. I obsess over small details in drama and I hate continuity errors.  If I spot an historical anachronism I want the author to mention it in an endnote so I understand this was a conscious choice for dramatic purposes and not due to ignorance or laziness.  I am one of those information crazed addicts who reads footnotes, endnotes and listen to the director commentaries on DVDs to get the behind-the-scenes information I wouldn’t know otherwise.

Yup, I am a nerd and proud of it.

My debut novel Quest of the Warrior Maid is due to my involvement with the online debates in the Harry Potter fandom.  No really.  I spent far too much time and energy engaged in online debates about where the series was headed during the time before and after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was published.  There were wildly inventive theories spun about possible plot twists and underlying meanings buried in the text.  Some fandomers argued that hippogriffs were a symbol of love and that Harry and Hermione riding on the back of a hippogriff indicated a later romantic relationship between the two characters.  In following that lead, I read the epic poem Orlando furioso since it was the first time in literature a hippogriff was used as a character.

While reading Orlando furioso, I discovered an amazing love story between the kick-ass heroine Bradamante and the virtuous warrior Ruggiero.  I felt that this literary couple deserved to be as well known as Tristan and Isolde or Arthur and Guinevere.  Later I disengaged from the HP fandom and set about adapting this classic work for modern audiences.  That was the genesis for Quest of the Warrior Maid.

 2. How do you transform your passion into focused research?

After deciding to adapt these poems, I sat down and looked carefully at the source material to decide what to keep and what to ruthlessly prune. I began studying maps of France to determine where the events took place.  That was when I discovered how terrible the poets were with geography. I had to give myself the freedom to alter the settings to fit my dramatic necessities and forgo strict adherence or fidelity to what Boiardo and Ariosto wrote.

Once I had a broad understanding of where I was going with my story, I knew the questions I had about this time period and what I needed to learn.  I began reading extensively on the Middle Ages checking out over a dozen books from the library at a time. The books that were extraordinarily helpful, I purchased for my personal bookshelf so I can use them as a handy reference tool.

Documentaries are also a good source of information as well.  Travel DVDs and travel guides often give historical summaries of towns and regions. To further my research, I traveled to France in 2007 to see the settings of my story and discovered real life magic in the Midi Pyrenees region. I scoured many museums while on my trip and saw artifacts with my own eyes and was open to discovery of items I had not read or heard about before. My novel became infused with detail that I could only learn from being there in person.

 3.  How do you transform your research into an entertaining narrative?

I avoid data dumps as much as possible. I recognize early drafts will be rife with clunky dialogue and paragraphs of detail that will cause pacing to come to a grinding halt.  It is important that I allow myself to turn off my inner editor, and get my story down in tangible form so that a first draft is created.

Once the editing phase begins, I edit for pacing and readability.  I think it is important to add historical detail on the fly as much as possible.  This is similar to revealing character by demonstrating through action or dialogue and not in boring narrative summary paragraphs.

I also balance adherence to historical accuracy with its impact on the drama of the storyline.  If those two principles came into conflict, I will side with drama every time.  I have extensive author’s notes explaining my historical anachronisms and my rationale for them. I would rather entertain someone with a story including some historical inaccuracies over boring someone with a lame dramatic structure but containing historically correct details.  After all, my story features a holy war that never occurred, starring fictional characters who never lived, and includes magic that doesn’t exist.  My goal is to retell these classic legends for a new generation, hope they are entertained and may be inspired to learn more about Charlemagne, the Medieval period as well as Renaissance Italy, the famed poets and the classic poems.

4. How do you sneak underlying messages into your narrative?

I smuggle deeper meaning by using symbolism and archetypes.

I admire the writing of Katherine Neville in her novel The Eight and the symbolism she used throughout.  I also adore the symbolism used in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.  The more I scratched the surface of either author’s work, the more I understood the underlying meaning of their narrative.

I deliberately include hidden meaning by the naming of characters.  One character is the hermit who treated Bradamante’s wounds.  He appeared in the original poem, but was unnamed.  In researching online I found a treasure trove online of over 500 names of hermit saints and their mini-biographies.  I discovered Saint Namphaise, who according to legend was a soldier of Charlemagne. I hope to rescue this saint from obscurity with my story.

I want to extend an offer to join your readers who are in book clubs to join their discussions either by speakerphone or Skype.  My website is www.LindaCMcCabe.com where you can find my copious author endnotes, a sample set of reader questions, and more information about the legends of Charlemagne.  You can also visit my blog at lcmccabe.blogspot.com to see pictures from my trips to France and a recent trip to Italy.

Quest of the Warrior Maid is available as a trade paperback and an ebook on many online retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and Sony. It is globally distributed, so those outside the U.S. should be able to get an electronic or physical copy.

Bleeding on the page

Dear Reader,

Life has been rather rough on me lately, testing my character in ways I never expected. I have been terrified, startled, shocked, ashamed, depressed, angry, despairing, hopeful, and ultimately, numb. I have struggled with facing adversity and prejudice when it slapped me in the face, and trembled when tempted with something I wanted so badly but couldn’t have because it didn’t belong to me. When it came down to it, I lost my grip on reality and retreated into my mind, seeming somber to others while fighting my way out of the battle with my demons.

In the end, my writing is what made me victorious. I channeled my emotions into Tempest, my character from The Rebel’s Hero (hereafter named The Rebel’s Touch). When she felt confused and conflicted, I dove into my mind and pulled out the core of my own confusion and conflict. When she was angry, I referenced my fears that made me angry.

Writing is so much more than a job to me. I need it to cope with my life events. This past week, one of the worst I’ve had to deal with in years, was a startling wake-up call. My best writing comes from moments of despair and frustration, which kind of scares me a little.

Do I have to be unhappy to write well? I hope not. That doesn’t lend to a healthy emotional life. Nor does it lend to a sustainable writing career. But these intense moments of emotion which run roughshod over my lens of the world seems to open the very vein I need to bleed words onto the page. That raw emotion which tugs at heartstrings and makes people think of their own heartbreak. Anyway, after not writing for a little over a week, I poured almost two thousand words yesterday in a sort of daze.

It is an understatement to say the activity was cathartic. I wasn’t writing or talking or thinking about me anymore and how I was feeling. I was talking about Tempest, her issues, her emotions, her conflict. These weren’t my problems, they were hers. I was just the objective observer, feeling sorry for her plight and not being able to help in any way other than to be a friendly ear.

Am I the only one who approaches writing fiction like this? Is it unhealthy for me to write like this, or is it healthy because I get the emotions out without hurting anyone else in the process?

The Rebel’s Touch

As mentioned earlier in the post, buried somewhere in a paragraph I mentioned that The Rebel’s Hero will now be The Rebel’s Touch from now on. Why? The more I worked on it, the more I realized none of the characters are saving each other, no one is anyone’s “hero” per se. There is touching involved, though; it’s the primary plot point.Therefore, The Rebel’s Hero is henceforth The Rebel’s Touch.

Daniel needs to touch Tempest to regain memories. But he’s such a gentleman, and so shy, and so afraid of the headaches that come from recovering another memory that he’s afraid to touch her at all, even something as simple as a finger brushing the back of her hand. And Tempest has her own issues and history with not wanting to be touched… but she wants to help this man who, despite their less-than-stellar beginning, is everything she thought the ideal, impossible man should be.

Conflict. We has it.

All the best,

Belinda

* Painting by Dean McDowell, found via Tumblr

The Big Question

Dear Reader,

As of writing this post, I’m 17k words into The Rebel’s Hero, which is about 24% toward my word count goal. Without fail, when I get to this percentage mark, I get cold feet. I don’t know why. It’s very frustrating. I start to doubt my ability to write, to craft characters, to weave details, to drive the plot forward. I think this is because the beginning is complete. Now the meat of the story takes over, the plot thickens, and more questions are thrown to the reader.

I’m standing in place, deer in the headlights, frightened by this monstrous train called The Rebel’s Hero steaming full blast down the tracks because even though I’ve set up a good story with a multitude of questions I need to answer throughout the plot…

I still don’t know what The Question is. What am I trying to answer with this work? What is my big question that I’m struggling to explore and engage?

Peeking over shoulders

Do other authors do this? I feel like they do. I think MJ Rose explores the question of “what if the paranormal were real?” Her form of paranormal is more of the mundane… reincarnation, hypnotism, etc. Her fiction is fascinating, deep, driven. Joan Reeves, highlighted at The Book Designer last week, asked the question “Why would a woman marry a man for money?” and was surprised when her book was labeled a romance.

Sometimes crafting fiction feels backwards. I know I write romances, sweet though they may be. But maybe I should stop worrying about the genre, since I already know that’s what I gravitate to. Instead, I should worry, what is my question?

Exploring the space

I write this blog to be transparent about the writing process. It isn’t easy, and sometimes, it isn’t fun. I look to my previous fiction to remind myself that I’ve done this before, and I can do it again. Catching the Rose asks the question “what would you do to find your first love?” Haunting Miss Trentwood asks “what do you do after your parents have died?” Mad Maxine, my short story, asks “what happens when you don’t let go?”

I’ve blogged about The Big Question before in terms of individual characters, but for the plot? Here is a list of questions The Rebel’s Hero could be about…

• Why do bad things happen to good people?
• Why would a woman marry a man with no memory?
• What would you do to escape an arranged marriage?
• What would you do to help a man in need?
• What would you do to regain your memory?

I think the last one might be a winner. Throw the question into the Civil War, add the Underground Railroad, and I just might be able to pull this off. After all, it always feels impossible until it is done.

Best,

Belinda

Eep! NaNoWriMo Around the Corner?

Dear Reader,

I’m in a pickle because I can’t decide if I want to do NaNoWriMo this year. NaNoWrimo is the National Novel Writing Month, and depending who you talk to, it’s the best or worst thing to hit the writing community, ever. The entire point of NaNoWriMo is to write 50k words in 30 days. That’s it. They don’t have to be good, make sense, anything. Just write. Write for your life.

There are authors who contend that NaNoWriMo makes anyone feel they can write and publish a book… the self-publishing explosion hasn’t helped matters because it seems people often publish what they wrote during NaNoWriMo without vetting it with an editor. There are authors who encourage and support NaNoWriMo because it is a wonderful way to connect and network with other writers, either locally or online.

Why am I hesitating?

My dilemma is that I’m still figuring things out for The Rebel’s Hero. I didn’t tell you this because I was afraid you would get upset, but I restarted it (again!) a couple of weeks ago for the fourth time. Never fear! I’m already past the word count from the third attempt… I’m around 17k words with an estimated goal of 70k. I’m doing my best to learn from the critiques I’ve received, which means I’m focusing on tightening the plot (no wild chases or random characters popping in at critical moments for no reason), and exploring relationships (why is it people are doing these things, and why do we care?).

My writing schedule has dropped from attempting something every day, to writing once a week. That is, the act of writing happens once a week… I spend a lot of my down time thinking, reading philosophy and historical texts, and having deep discussions with people, much like my characters. When I do sit down to write, I bust out a couple thousand words. At least I’m making progress!

Writing Vacation

I’ve been considering, quite seriously, taking a weekend trip somewhere. Just holing myself up in a charming little bed and breakfast and seeing how much I can write without distractions. I think the money spent might be worth it. Exercise helps, for sure, but my schedule has been so hectic lately I haven’t had a chance to really beat myself up and free those toxins creating the writer’s block.

Heh it feels like I’m saying I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo this year, due to schedules, etc. I might just be making excuses. Or I might feel confident in my new writing schedule. Whatever the case, I’m curious… are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? What are your thoughts about it?