Bell Bridge Books

What Gets Your Creative Engine Running?
Jessica McCann

Sometimes writing inspiration strikes in the oddest places. I recently attended a Barrett-Jackson car auction event with my husband and son. I’m not “into” cars, but the boys were going and I wanted to spend the Sunday afternoon with them. The loose itinerary was to walk around looking at cars that would go on auction later in the week, eat some greasy food and then head home in time to catch the fourth quarter of the Giants/Packers game. Other than a stomach ache, I had no idea what to expect.

I don’t really give a rat’s behind about horse power, reinforced chassis or original miles. I’m nerdy. I like books, and history, and books about history. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover the car show was oozing with history.

I was dazzled by a 1947 Bentley, which has won more than 50 “best of show“ honors in car events through the years (and sold for a cool $2.75 million the following weekend). Then there was the 1948 Tucker “Torpedo,” one of only 51 sedans produced in Chicago that year by American automobile designer and entrepreneur Preston Tucker (it sold for an astounding $2.9 million).

The 1964 Cadillac hearse that had carried President John F. Kennedy’s body from Parkland Memorial Hospital to the airport at Love Field mesmerized me. As I watched the crowd quietly mill around the vehicle reading the signage explaining its historical significance, my mind raced with questions about the lives this vehicle had touched and where it had been the past 48 years.

Suddenly, I was swept up in a wave of ideas — historical and fictional characters appearing in my mind’s eye, story plots taking shape in my day dreams as we walked the aisles of million-dollar cars. Then I saw a 1931 Ford model AA flatbed truck, and I was transported to another time and place altogether.

My current novel-in-progress is set in the 1930s American Dust Bowl, and my main character owns this very truck. It was never intended to be a critical element to the story – just a little historical detail to add authenticity to the work. My research online had uncovered vintage photographs of the Model AA, information about how and when it was made, and what it cost to buy new and used. None of that compared to standing next to the real deal. I was surprised how small it was, so much shorter and lower to the ground than today’s pick-up trucks. It made me wonder how the truck would handle on the rutted hardscrabble roads of the Depression-era Midwest. As I stood next to the vehicle (and fought the urge to ignore the “please do not touch” sign and run my hand along the cool, smooth hood), a scene formed in my mind like a black-and-white John Ford movie. I could see my novel’s heroine climbing in, firing it up and taking off down some dust-blown road.

Prior to that weekend, I had been struggling with my novel-in-progress, had hit a bit of a creative dry spell. That Sunday, I could have taken the opportunity to write in a quiet house while the boys were out, to muscle through my writer’s block. You know, the old “butt-in-seat” approach. Instead, I played hooky, at a car show of all places, and found the inspiration I needed to get my creative engine running again.

What gets your creative engine running?

Links to the cars mentioned:
1947 Bentley
1948 Tucker
1964 Cadillac hearse – JFK
1931 Ford AA truck

Jessica McCann, a professional freelance writer and novelist, lives with her family in Phoenix, Arizona. Her nonfiction work has been published in Business Week, The Writer and Phoenix magazines, among others. All Different Kinds of Free (http://www.AllDifferentKindsOfFree.com) is her award-winning debut novel. She welcomes interaction with readers and writers at her website (http://www.jessicamccann.com) and on Twitter (@JMcCannWriter).

Character development in my books.

By Ken Casper

All fiction is character driven. No matter how sophisticated or complicated the plot, it’s still character-driven. We want to know what’s going to happen, but more important, we want actions to be consistent with the people who perform them.

Of course, there are degrees of characterization. If you’re writing a James Bond thriller, you really don’t have to go very deep into characterization. What you see is what you get. The bad guy always does bad things. The good guy is forever heroic. The mental and emotional life expectancy of such books is about as long as it takes to read them. I’m not disparaging those books. I enjoy reading them.

But the stories that stay with me are rich with “characters.” How much of the plot(s) of Gone with the Wind do you clearly remember? You probably have to think about that. But I bet you don’t have to think very hard to remember the characters. All I have to do is say Scarlet or Rhett and you have a complete picture of them. The same with Mammy and Missy.

My writing almost always starts with plot, but somewhere in the writing the focus shifts from events to people, from being plot-driven to character-driven. I rarely know when it will happen until after it has, then the writing becomes both a new challenge and a really fun adventure. Sometimes too a secondary character takes over a book and changes everything—because he or she has a stronger personality than the main character. I can either abandon that character or rewrite the book. I’ve done both. I can also use that character for a spin-off. Done that too.

Here’s an example of how things change. In one of my books, the heroine is returning home to her father’s house. I had given her a relatively unconventional profession, but she didn’t take on a real personality until I had her go to her car. In my outline it had been a Ford Escort, but then something happened at the keyboard. My fingers typed Chevy Corvette.

I don’t suppose I have to tell you that the type of person who drives an Escort and one who drives a Corvette are very different. I had to completely rethink many of the things she did and said, how she acted and reacted, because her actions had to match her “character.” Have a character do something “out of character,” and the reader will either stop reading (or at least be tempted to), or conclude it’s a ruse of some sort. If James Bond asks for his martini to be gently stirred so as not to bruise the gin, you know something is amiss. Have my heroine dangle furry purple and green dice from the rearview mirror, and the reader will know she isn’t the character she thought she was.

I love it when that happens.

The Romance of Jesse James
by Cindi Myers

The bad boy hero is a staple of romance novels. The rough-around-the-edges man just waiting for the right woman to tame him appeals to the idea that we, as women, can have sway over a powerful man simply by the force of our love. It’s a romantic notion that doesn’t always hold true in real life.

The outlaw Jesse James may be the ultimate bad boy hero. He was handsome – with thick, sandy hair and piercing blue eyes. He was brave, having made a name for himself as a fearless guerilla raider during the Civil War, while he was still a teenager. He was intelligent and well-spoken, as proved by the letters he wrote to newspapers defending his reputation, and the press releases he sent out publicizing his crimes. He was charming – the men and women he robbed often mentioned his gentlemanly behavior. After the robbery of an omnibus in Lexington, Missouri, the Lexington Caucasian reported: ” Prof. Allen doubtless expresses the sentiments of the victims when he tells us that he is exceedingly glad, as he had to be robbed, that it was done by first class artists, by men of national reputation. ”

Jesse James may have been a hero to some, but he was also a killer responsible for the deaths of as many as 16 men. He stole tens of thousands of dollars from banks, railroads and ordinary citizens who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet even these crimes get softened by the romance and maybe the force of Jesse’s own personality. Even while he was perpetrating the worst of his crimes, some members of the press and public painted him as a kind of western Robin Hood, standing up for the little man against the corrupt and greedy banks, railroads and big corporations. Jesse would have been a hero of the Occupy Wall Street Camp of today, a champion of the 99 percent.

Jesse lived a wild and violent life. From the time he was fifteen or sixteen he was on the run from the law, with a price on his head. And yet, he was a family man, too. Even the folk songs celebrate this: “Jesse had a wife, who loved him all her life; two children, they were brave.”

What kind of woman loves a man like Jesse James? More importantly, what kind of woman has the power to tame a man like Jesse – to win his love? This was the question I set out to answer when I began researching the life of Zee Mimms – the woman Jesse loved and married. Zee was Jesse’s first cousin. The idea seems a little icky to us now, but in that day and age, marrying your first cousin was perfectly acceptable. Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Darwin, Vice President John Calhoun and Albert Einstein all married first cousins.

Zee nursed Jesse back to health when he was seriously injured in a guerilla raid. She was twenty, he was two years younger. They became engaged, but it would be nine years before they were married. Almost immediately, she joined him on the run. They honeymooned as Mr. and Mrs. Howard in Texas. She took the name of Josie Howard, and called him Dave.

Zee apparently did love Jesse all her life. She wore widow’s weeds and mourned him in the years after his death, and the family stories hold she eventually died of a broken heart. Zee never completely tamed her bad boy, but maybe she didn’t want to. Maybe being with Jesse – loving Jesse – was worth all the hardship and subterfuge.

The Woman Who Loved Jesse James, by Cindi Myers is a novel based on the love story of Zee and Jesse James. It’s available from Bell Bridge books now. 

Sparkle Abbey is hosting a book signing this Saturday, January 28, 2012 from 1-3 pm at The Bookstore in Creston, Iowa. The Bookstore is donating a dollar for every copy of Desperate Housedogs purchased during the book signing.

The Idea Store

by Jill Marie Landis

One of the oddest questions working writers are asked by nonwriters—at least to me it seems odd—is “Where do you get your ideas?”

As if there’s an “Idea Store” out there somewhere and only published writers know where it is. And we are keeping the location a secret. Personally, I’d like to find out where ideas don’t come from and then go there on vacation.

How do I turn my head off? That’s the question that keeps me up at night.

A couple of weeks ago I was on a rental car bus headed for a flight out of LAX. The bus filled up with all kinds of people and a young man in his late twenties sat down beside me. He was dark, handsome, well dressed and of East Indian extraction. He had an expensive brief case and matching luggage. Obviously a businessman, he took a call the minute his phone rang. Being a hard working writer, I naturally listened to his conversation while I stared straight ahead and pretended not to.

The gist of it—spoken in lyrical, East Indian accented, very proper English—was something about an impending forty million dollar deal that was obviously very important to the young man and the company he worked for. I didn’t understand all the details but “should such and such happen,” then, he said, everything would be “hunky dory.”

I bit back a smile. I mean, he was young, hip, on a smart phone, talking about forty million dollar deals and he actually said “hunky dory.” Suddenly my mind was spinning out a costume drama set in an English colony, something worthy of a PBS series, and this young guy was my hero. It wasn’t just his jet black eyes, his curly hair or his GQ look. It was his use of “hunky dory” that stole my heart.

What kind of a hero would this guy make? Would it be too wide a stretch to cast him in the role of hero? I was enthralled thinking it couldn’t get any better when he went on to say, “If this deal doesn’t go, then it could be a real ‘sticky wicket.’”

Sticky wicket! Uttered in that accent! Breathless, I so wanted to turn and stare, but we were shoulder to shoulder and I didn’t want him to think I was into some high end business espionage. (Do you see my idea problem here?)

What a guy, I was thinking. What a story. Who was he? I mean, he could even be a time traveler. Surely no one actually uses those phrases anymore, but this guy was! I knew that sticky wicket has to do with the condition of the field during a game of cricket, but in the right sentence it could mean anything. “I’m so sorry darling. I hope I didn’t ruin your gown. I don’t usually have such a sticky wicket.”

Unfortunately, my hunky dory hero exited at the first terminal we came to. I rode on oblivious to just about everything but pinning down a time period for the story humming in my brain.

Already mired in a work-in-progress, I haven’t had time to pursue my Colonial England gem of an idea yet, but it would certainly be something to rival The Far Pavilions. I did get as far as researching the origins of the term hunky dory.

Turns out there are lots of opinions on line (naturally) as to the origins of the phrase. As far back as 1862 it appeared in a song about “Old”Kentucky; “’Tis then I’m hunkey dorey.”

‘Hunkey’ was in use in the USAby 1861, when it was included in the title of the Civil War song A Hunkey Boy Is Yankee Doodle.  Either Little Yankee Doodle was overweight or a hunk. The jury is still out.

Another explanation is that there is a Japanese term, honcho-dori, which means something like ‘main street.’ US sailors could have added ‘hunky’ to the Japanese word for road, dori, when they referred to streets of easy virtue inTokyo andYokohama back in the 1860’s. It’s a pretty good bet sailors referred to streets of ‘easy virtue’ a lot.

Okay, so my hero starts out during the Civil War, jumps on a ship headed forTokyoand winds up inEast Indiawhere he meets the daughter of a cricket playing rajah. Just when he thought everything was hunky dory he found himself in a sticky wicket.

Alas, for now I must relegate my latest “idea” to a scrap of paper that I’ll toss into my IDEAS folder. There are scraps in there that are yellow with age. With each of them comes a memory of where the idea came to me. How and when they might spin out into book form remains a mystery.

And no. The folder is not for sale.

Carolyn McSparren will be hosting a
book signing at the Booksellers of Laurelwood:

Thursday, February 2, 2012  at 6 pm

http://www.thebooksellersatlaurelwood.com/
event/carolyn-mcsparren-signs-one-hoof-grave

Something Extra Special That I Do

from Jane Singer

Do you know what a social therapy dog is? I didn’t until I read about an organization called Lend A Paw and a no-kill shelter called New Leash On Life that rescued dogs from the pound, picked the ones with great dispositions and trained them. A social therapy dog is a comfort animal, not a service dog. They don’t guide the blind, or detect seizures but they are very special kinds of helpers. I saw little Caspy’s picture on the New Leash on Life website. He’d been rescued from a pound, fostered, given obedience training and was up for adoption as a social therapy dog- a calm presence who could bring all kinds of love and attention to people who need it most like the elderly, hospital patients, the developmentally disabled, etc. It was a perfect fit! I applied to the program immediately. Here is in part, why: My amazing daughter Jess, a high-functioning learning disabled adult and I work as self-defense instructors at the Kayne-Eras Center in Culver City California. Our students have many challenges: autism, learning differences, behavior issues, and have benefited from our program called Blocking the Punches. Jess and I have had a lot of training in the martial art called JuJitsu and while we don’t try to make ninjas of our students, we know we really help them recognize danger, prevent assaults, verbal abuse, and learn basic self-defense moves. And when we brought in a stuffed dog to use as a communication tool one day, some of the non-verbal autistic students started talking to the dog!

So our journey with little Caspy— a poodle/havanese mix—began. Jess and I had to get trained to work in the program, have approved supervised hours at various sites until finally we earned our credentials. (Caspy already had his. We just had to catch up.) We visit all kinds of facilities with him and other therapy dog teams. He’s a good listener, never judges, keeps secrets and is also a great family pet. Turns out theses four-legged angels make a huge difference in the lives of the people we visit. Aren’t we lucky?

Visit this website for more information.

http://laptherapydogs.blogspot.com/2010/09/jane-jessica-and-caspy-lend-paw.html

WHEN YOU WRITE WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW

There’s an age-old adage among writers, that even readers have heard ad-nauseum: “Write what you know.”

I’ve heard it all my writing life, it’s been drilled in me from day one. And for some reason, it never sticks. For some reason, when I come up with plots, they involve everything I DO NOT KNOW.

I have two theories on why this is. Either I’ve lived past lives in which I’ve known or experienced these things (Shirley McClain would probably vote for that one), or I’m a masochist (I’m positive my editor and critique partners would vote for this one).

For some reason, I’m always drawn to a Southern setting, even though my sum total of “Southern living” involves four years in Puerto Rico and seven years living in the DC/Northern Virginia area. Technically below the Mason-Dixon, both, but no true Southerner would consider either true South.

But I can’t seem to help it. In Stuck With You, my book out with Bell Bridge this month, my characters had to be Southerners. They also had to be, in order of appearance, lawyer, lawyer, doctor, architect. I’ve never been a lawyer, a doctor, or an architect. But the characters in my head demanded to be such, and so that’s what they became.

Write what I know? Right out the window.

And this is just one book. I’m also not a small-town sheriff, an FBI agent, a high-powered CEO, an animal psychologist, a florist, and any number of characters in my books.

Writing what I know just doesn’t do it for me. I want to be everything I’ve never been, through my characters. Not to mention, everything I’ve ever been isn’t all that interesting (unless you count beer-chugging champion in college, about which we will never speak again).

So in Stuck With You I went for the not knowing a dang thing about any of it. Oh, did I have to consult with experts to make sure I got details right, but for the most part, I just forged ahead and made it all up.

That’s the beauty of being a writer. You get to live the lives of people you’d like to be if you had time to be them all. And you can make up all kinds of things (like the virus that might or might not have infected the two main character in Stuck…trust me, I wish it actually existed). And you can stick to facts as often as you need to.

But I have a friend, a true Southern gentleman, who I asked to vet a book (Send Me No Flowers, coming out sometime next year from Bell Bridge) I wrote without asking a single person for help. I just wrote it, drawing on I don’t know what to make it Southern reality in a fictional town. His comment? “Darlin’, you HAD to be a Southerner in another life. Ya Yankee.”

So I’m left to wonder, do I do it because I’m a masochist, who prefers to torture herself by writing what she doesn’t know, or past lives, where she’s been all of those things my characters are, that I definitely am not in this life?

I’m pretty much siding with masochist, who doesn’t want to write what I know. I already know it. What’s so fun about that? But I’m not totally discounting Shirley McClain’s vote, either.

Trish Jensen

A new play in New York by a new BelleBooks Author, Lia Romeo

Tickets are on sale for Lovesick or Things That Don’t Happen at Project Y Theatre.
https://www.ticketcentral.com/
Online/searchResults.asp

For more information about the play, visit:

http://www.projectytheatre.org/
2012/01/lovesick-happen-cast-staff/

On Friendship and Community

While writing is a solitary endeavor, writers can’t and don’t live in a vacuum.  As writers, we spend a lot of time alone with our characters.  We hang out with imaginary people, not real ones.  But I know that I wouldn’t have ever published a book, let alone sixteen, without a community of very real people in my life.

I’m lucky to be part of a community of writers who have been together for many years.  Although we see each other in person at writers conferences occasionally, most of our interaction is through the internet and online communities.  I talk to these people daily online and really miss them when I can’t get online for some reason.  We support each other through the ups and downs of writing and publishing as well as whatever life throws at us.  I have a research question, I ask them.  A business question, one or more of these people will know the answer.  A personal issue, good or bad, they’re there for me as well.

I also have a very small group of writer buddies who I see more often and talk to on the phone as well as online.  I depend on them for support, help, and friendship.  These ladies critique with me, brainstorm with me, listen to my woes and joys and I reciprocate.

I’ve thought a lot about my process of writing and for me friends are essential.  Because although the writing itself is solitary, I need someone to bounce ideas off of, plot with, and generally whine to when things aren’t going well.  (Okay, I confess, whining is a large part of my process.)  My family has to endure some of it, but they much prefer when I can convince my friends to listen to me.

Writer friends are fun.  Who else will plot a bomb book with you on an airplane going to a conference?  Of course we couldn’t mention the B word so we had to refer to it as ‘that thing that happened’.  That rated some strange looks from the person seated next to us.  Plotting a murder is even more fun.  Sometimes we don’t tell them we’re writers.  We like to mess with them.:)

Writer friends are essential.  They don’t think you’re weird when you speak of your characters as if they’re real.  They don’t think you’re weird if you tell them you’re merely a vessel for your characters and that the most fun you have is when you simply channel your characters and the words fly from your fingertips.  (Yes, I made the mistake of telling my kids that once and they have never forgotten it, or forgotten to tease me about it.)  Writers don’t think you’re weird if you hear voices in your head, because the odds are, they hear voices too.

So to my community, my friends, thanks for all the years of love and support.  Priceless!

Eve Gaddy