Bell Bridge Books

Writer’s Unblock

By Eve Gaddy

I was thinking about what to blog about and nothing was coming to me.  That made me think of something I’ve faced many times in my writing career.  I know some writers who don’t believe there is any such thing as writer’s block.  All I can say is be happy you haven’t experienced it because I’m here to tell you, writer’s block is real.  And it’s not fun.

There are many reasons for writer’s block and I’ve experienced a number of them.  Burnout, death of family or friends, health issues, moving, divorce, family issues, all of the above.  I’m sure there are many more.  Most of the time I wanted to write but just couldn’t for various reasons.  My last bout with it I was convinced I’d retired.  In fact, I didn’t write at all (other than emailJ) for a long time.  I didn’t think I’d ever write again.  When I finally did start again, it was a book that was a departure for me from what I’d been writing for so long.  Maybe I just needed to write something completely different.  A book for me, one that I didn’t worry about selling but just wrote it the way it needed to be written.  A book of the heart.

Many times I think the problem underlying writer’s block is burnout.  Some of us tend to be a bit obsessive (what, me obsessive?).  We might concentrate so much on writing we don’t do much else.  And eventually we burn out.  I felt as if my creativity had absolutely dried up.  So I decided I’d go back to the creative things I used to do before I started writing. 

I took up needlework again.  I used to do a lot of needlepoint but quit soon after I first published.  I stopped with just a small amount left of a very complex project, a landscape of the Seine River.  I’d always wanted to finish it because it was gorgeous.  So I picked it up again and finished.  Since then I have needlepointed numerous Christmas stockings, some of them working from a counted cross stitch pattern translated to needlepoint.  I’ve also made some Christmas ornaments and various other things in the past few years. 

I still couldn’t write.  So I took up another craft I’d given up.  In fact, I hadn’t done it since high school.  My daughter found out she was having twin girls.  What better time to pick up knitting again?  I knitted all sorts of things, including a number of baby blankets.  Since then I’ve knitted many different things, ranging from afghans to socks.  Now I alternate working on needlepoint or knitting and usually have several different projects going.  I could never do that with writing.  I have to totally immerse myself in a book until I finish it.  I don’t have to do that with needlework and it’s fun. 

For me, needlework lets me be creative, but in a different way from writing.  I have to think, but again, in a different way than writing.  But somehow that sort of creativity allows my writer’s brain to start working again.  Sometimes the solutions to problems I’m having with my current manuscript come to me when I’m doing needlework. 

There are a lot of ways to jump start your creativity.  These are just some things that helped me, and that I enjoy a lot.  Have you ever had writer’s block?  If you have, what did you do to help you get started again?  What are your tricks for dealing with it?

YOU GOT IT WHERE?

One of the many groaner questions asked of authors (or at least this author) is the ever present, “Where do you get your ideas?” Many of my author friends have had fun making up comebacks to that question, almost none of which are printable. But a couple that can be printed are, “From that guy from Mars, whenever I put on my foil hat.” Or, “From my dog. He’s got such an imagination.”

But the truth is, we do get our ideas from everywhere. And it’s hard to answer, “Everywhere.”

For example, I received the inspiration for Against His Will from my bud and critique partner, who handed me a newspaper piece about a dog spa. She said, “You’re an animal lover. This is right up your alley.” And she was right. I had a ball writing that book.

My next book out from Bell Bridge is For A Good Time, Call… And once again my inspiration came from a critique partner, who came breezing in holding out a dollar bill and saying, “Look what I got from the gas station!” I took one look at it and said, “Dibs on that for a book!”

Her twenty dollar bill didn’t have a phone number on it, but it had a message to some guy. Apparently the guy wasn’t interested in responding to her message, as he used the money to buy gas. But it most definitely got my mental juices flowing. The true “what if?”

And that’s where For A Good Time, Call… was truly born.

What if a man and woman met through a message on a twenty dollar bill? What if she called him, they met, and during the meeting to exchange money he realizes she’s going to pitch her ad campaign the next day to him? And he can’t wait for that, because she already drives him crazy, and he wants to fire her on the spot? And then she tells him off at the meeting, calling him an idiot?

Disaster, yes? Oh, yes. But she drives him so crazy, he won’t let her go.

So there you have it. A friend walking in with a dollar bill, and it set my synapses on fire. And thus, a book was born.

And that is where I got the idea. And I love my friend for that day.

Look for Trish Jensens’ FOR A GOOD TIME CALL in stores late October 2012!

AN INDECENT AMOUNT OF FUN…

BY JEAN BRASHEAR

“Eudora Welty meets Sue Monk Kidd and they lunch with Fannie Flagg“…yes, indeedy, folks, a reviewer with serious college-professor-level expertise in Southern lit actually wrote those words about The Goddess of Fried Okra—totally swoon-worthy sentiments, and don’t you think I didn’t see nice little dots swirling before my eyes just before my body hit the fainting couch. 😉

Given that this book is truly The Book of My Heart, being on the receiving end of such a review was (still is!) just Too. Much. Fun.

But then, the writing of this book was an adventure all in itself. After having been under continuous deadlines for several years, I carved out three weeks to just let myself play with a story, simply to see if I could remember what it was like to write for the sheer joy of writing, with no thought to commercial appeal or my career or anything but just…you got it: Fun. I ditched my computer and sat on my deck in the cool morning shade with a glass of murderously strong Mexican iced coffee at my side, no idea at all what I’d write, and just let the words come.

Next thing I knew, here arrived this woman who had lost her job, her boyfriend and her place to live, all in the same day…and what does she do? She throws everything she owns (which ain’t much, I’m tellin’ you) into her beat-up car and sets off to find the sister who raised her.

Except, well, her sister’s, um…dead. But Eudora “Pea” O’Brien had consulted her sister’s psychic and was on the trail of the new body her sister now inhabited. Wherever that might be.

I’m sure we’d all make the same choice.

Along the way, Pea stops to read various roadside historical markers, looking for the hand of Fate to lead her (Here’s a Girl Power marker about WWII female pilots) and picks up an odd band of companions—a starving kitten, a pregnant Goth teenager and a sexy con man trying to go straight. They encounter a gun shop owner named Glory (shop name: Guns ‘N’ Glory—natch) who is obsessed with warrior goddesses and is a big fan of Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian. Glory is fond of wearing pearls with her combat boots and is a master of swordplay, something Pea decides she desperately needs to learn as she seeks to find her own strengths and make her way in the world.

When her car breaks down, Pea also meets the ultimate grandmother, a café owner named Lorena who is Glory’s polar opposite and who teaches Pea the art of perfect fried okra, something any Southerner would agree is both a necessity and manna from heaven.

So okay…this probably sounds like one weird book, huh? And how on earth did Conan the Barbarian ever come into play in my brain?

Beats me.;) Seriously, he’s not exactly my natural cup of tea, but let’s just say that on a road trip,  my husband and I encountered the legacy of Robert E. Howard (who was one weird and possibly seriously disturbed dude) on the back roads of Texas in connection with—yep, the Conan the Barbarian Festival (here’s the sign we encountered) which appears in the book. Ditto the Robert E. Howard homeplace, which we visited.

Sadly, there is no swordplay contest…but there should be.;) Maybe they’d let me organize the next festival?

Ditto, a road trip fleshed out Glory’s gun shop—in a portable building, of all things. Here’s a photo of me at Farley’s Firearms.

At the end of the three weeks I had to get back to work on my paying gig. I continued to write this book off and on over the next couple of years when I could take breaks from my deadlines. I wish I could say the whole process was a Ton O’Fun…but that didn’t happen until I finally ignored my agent’s urgings and the opinions in New York about how to make this woman seem logical (not her strong suit, but we Southerners are proud of our eccentric relatives) and took my book to the place I always felt would be its best home: the wonderful and amazing Belle Books.

The day my personal idol author, Deborah Smith, told me she loved it and wanted to buy it…well, pull out the smelling salts, is all I can say. Working with her and Debra Dixon (who created this FABULOUS cover!) in the early days of the Bell Bridge Books imprint? Folks, that much fun oughta be illegal.

That the book has gotten so many wonderful reviews and letters from readers since it was first published, and that readers keep asking for a sequel (tell me I’m not intimidated by THAT prospect!)…yep, definitely Too. Much. Fun.

A thoroughly indecent amount of fun. For which I am now and forever grateful. Vive les Belles!

The Goddess of Fried Okra by Jean Brashear is today’s Amazon Kindle Daily Deal for only $1.99!

AND SO I DID  by Katherine Scott Crawford

Actress. Army Airborne Ranger. Rock star. Writer.

These were the career paths I debated as a 10 year-old tomboy growing up     in the South Carolina Upcountry.  And though it took me until age 16 to shake the acting bug, it was really at 10—after one summer gulping down the entire Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery, and then precociously plowing through Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides—that I knew, beyond all else: I wanted to write.

There was no clap of thunder, no voice from above. The realization was a warmth in the pit of my belly, spreading out through my appendages—scraped knees and gangly arms, even into the white-blonde ends of my pig-tails. I think I’d known it all along.

I completed my first novel in a spiral notebook beneath my desk in 9^th grade Biology. As an undergraduate English major at Clemson University, I started, but never finished, several others, and God bless my roommates for reading them. Before graduating, I’d tacked on a double major (Speech & Communications Studies), and come close to a third in History. These very different academic pursuits satisfied the distinct aspects of my personality—the introverted writer, and the extroverted girl who knew how to have a really, really good time.

So many things have shaped who I am as a writer, but none quite so much as the place where I grew up. The South Carolina Upcountry is a land of rolling foothills and blue mountains, of giant man-made lakes and wildwater rivers. The further you venture west, toward the Blue Ridge, the easier it is to look out over forest and mountain and think on just how close you are to the wild.

This was my playground. My family owns a lake house in Oconee County, South Carolina, situated on a lake that bumps right up to the Sumter National Forest. Every nearby mountain top, stream and road has a Cherokee Indian name. I grew up camping, hiking and river paddling throughout the ancient boundaries of the Cherokee nation, completely entranced by its beauty and seemingly lost history. I knew, one day, I’d write about it.

After stints as a camp counselor, outdoor/ experiential educator, backpacking guide, and newspaper reporter, I headed to the coast to earn a Master’s degree in English from a joint program between the College of Charleston and The Citadel. I lived on a sea island, studied in Italy, and raised a black lab puppy who’s still one of the great loves of my life. But something in the mountains called me back.

I was a college English instructor on a newlywed budget when the spark of my novel, Keowee Valley, came to me. I’d just forked over money my husband and I didn’t really have to attend a writers’ conference, and was debating over which of my many unfinished novel excerpts I’d send in to be critiqued. Sitting at my desk with the conference packet in hand, I couldn’t shake from my mind the image of a young woman in 18^th century dress, looking out over the land where my family’s lake house sits now. Only there was no lake, just an untouched river valley, with mountains ringing it like a great blue crown. Her story, the land’s story: That was what I really wanted to write about, had always wanted to write about.

And so I did.

Music—Does It Inspire You?
By Lindi Peterson

Music has always been a huge part of my life. Just like I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been reading a book, I can’t remember a time when I haven’t had a favorite song. Over the years I’ve listened to a wide variety of music. There are so many talented artists in every genre.

Music evokes a lot of emotion. A certain song can bring back memories, good or bad. There are certain songs I relate to certain events. When I hear the song, I Will Survive, I think of my step-daughter  Lisa’s wedding. All the ladies were in a circle and we would take turns dancing in the middle. My son, who was about 13 at the time, snuck in and had us all clapping and laughing.  Good memories.

Whenever I hear the song Babe, by Styx, I always remember crying in my family room and explaining to my grandma, who was just visiting from out of state, about how my boyfriend and I had broken up and hearing that song reminded me of him.

I wonder what Grandma was thinking?

Speaking of those angsty teenage years, my favorite band was The Rolling Stones.

Born in 1961, I’ve been listening to them since I was in elementary school. I never saw them in concert until the 90’s when my husband bought tickets to their show. I love me some Mick Jagger. (No comments on that statement please!! I know he’s not for everybody, but there’s something about him that makes me smile! And I know you have a favorite, too!)

Fast  forward  a lot of years. I am now a mom, grandma, (Gigi) and a novelist. And I still love my music.

When I start writing a novel I usually have a ‘novel’ song. A song that either inspires me, or has the words that encompasses  what my novel is about. I print the words out to the song and tack them to my bulletin board above my computer along with the visual images of my characters that I’ve found in magazines.

Here is a link to the song that inspired my June release, Summer’s Song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuAGfImZAq0

There is also a song in my book Summer’s Song, which I wrote.  A friend of mine put music to it and we sing it in church sometimes.  We made a video, but it’s not uploaded to You Tube yet. I can’t wait to see it.

Does music inspire you? If so, what’s your favorite now?

THAT GUY IN THE NEW BOOK IS ME
Kathleen Eagle

My standard answer—it’s usually to one of my brothers-in-law—is if you say so.  And very often they do say so, which means I’ve succeeded.  I’ve created a character readers not only can but willingly do identify with, a character that is both universal in his humanity and as individual as any of my brothers-in-law.  And, believe me, my dear brothers are individuals.  I’m so glad we have a huge Eagle family because they are some of my most loyal readers.  And, yes, I do put them in my books.  Not the whole person, of course, but bits and pieces.  A quip here, a trait there.  The more books I write, the more likely it becomes that anyone I’ve ever known can find a bit of himself somewhere on those pages.

That’s where good characters come from.  They don’t come third-hand from Hollywood.  They don’t come floating through the office ready to be plucked out of thin air and plugged into a plot.  They come from a writer’s life, from people we’ve known.  We chop them up and make fiction salad.  Maybe not by design—probably more by instinct—but that’s how it works.  When a character is fully fleshed out, when the book is finished and I’m working on some stage of edits, that’s when I’ll fully realize where details of character might have come from.

YOU NEVER CAN TELL is about an American Indian activist and a journalist who wants to tell his story.  Having lived on the reservation and worked as a teacher during the heyday of the American Indian Movement, I’ve known lots of AIM members.  Hero Kole Kills Crow’s back story was inspired by a couple of people—one idealistic, another reckless—while his personality grew from the seeds planted by his fictitious but reality-based back story and fertilized by those bits and pieces I was talking about, bits that come from time well spent with interesting people.  The idea for the situation Kole finds himself in—he’s hiding out while his former rebel sidekick has made himself a career in Hollywood—has roots in reality, “ripped from the headlines,” as they say.  That’s a lot of juicy stuff to be mixed into the story pot, and that’s only one character.

Now I add the heroine, the successful journalist who’s a fish out of water when she barges into Kole’s territory.  She’s the idealist who’s just as reckless as Kole used to be.  She’s an outsider and a true believer and she serves as a catalyst.  I know her pretty well.  I like her, and I can identify with her.  Details of her character come from a variety of women I’ve known along with one I’ve seen in the mirror.  Not that any of them ever found herself in Heather’s situation, but a part of each of them could have and might still.  And really, it wouldn’t matter whether was a lady’s maid or a mermaid, Heather Reardon is a woman with whom readers willingly travel.  She’s a lot like us and then some.  We’re apt to say, “That woman could be me.”  And she’ll take us on an exhilarating journey.

Could our characters be related to real people?  You never can tell.

“My name is Cheryl, and I am a writer.”
I sometimes wonder how that happened. I always knew I wanted to write—when I was a junior in high school, I ditched the physics class, which everyone seemed to think I should take, for the Typing I class, which everyone seemed to think I should not take. But I knew even then that I’d need the typing thing for the writing thing, and so I was determined to get it.

One of the things I didn’t know I needed was a “well.”  I had a well, of course—all writers do. It’s the place where the good, the bad, the ugly and the interesting things we experience and observe and learn during our lifetime are tucked away for later use. I consciously started mine when I was eleven—after a school field trip to the site of the Confederate Prison in Salisbury. I stood looking at the unmarked graves and I knew two things:  a) I wanted to write about this and b) I didn’t know how. Or what. Or when.  So I began collecting tidbits of information and shoving them down the well. I didn’t make notes; I absorbed them, kept them, remembered them from time to time, until the day finally came when I needed them. A lot of those tidbits became THE PRISONER and THE BRIDE FAIR.

The same is true of PROMISE ME A RAINBOW. Much of the “texture” (as I like to think of it) came directly from “the well,” things like cedar Christmas trees, and hot chocolate topped with vanilla ice cream, and Blue Willow mugs and the Blue Willow legend, and what it’s like to ride a city bus when you’re a little kid, and what it’s like to work with pregnant teenagers, and what a joy it is to be able to tell a woman who believed she couldn’t conceive that she’s finally, finally pregnant.

Things from the “well” are what make a story live and breathe. There are all kinds of things floating around down there. Some I shouldn’t use. Some, I’ll never use. Some, I only think I’ll never use. One thing I’ve learned over lo, these many writing years, is that you never know when something you’ve saved is going to take hold.

In case you might be wondering what other kinds of things are in the well, here are a few:

My family’s claim to fame:

My Uncle Joe once punched Gene Autry in the nose, and no, it wasn’t in a movie.

My family’s claim to shame:

My great aunt (who shall be nameless) was excommunicated from her church because TPTB ordered her to quit smoking forthwith, and she said no. (I imagine she said a lot more than that, but I wasn’t allowed to know that part.)

My claim to fame:

The late actor, Sidney Blackmer (ROSEMARY’S BABY), was my patient several times, both when I was a student nurse and later when I worked for a medical practice. He would sweep into the doctors’ office wearing what looked like an opera cape, and a fedora with a turned down brim. He always carried a cane, and he was escorted by his off-leash Dobermans—and believe me, those Dobies went anywhere they wanted to.

My first crush:

Roy Rogers. I’m still not over him.

My first job:

A candy-striper at the local hospital. I was paid with credit at the hospital sandwich shop, enough for a grilled cheese sandwich and a Coke. And I was happy to get it. (What? I like grilled cheese sandwiches and Coke.)

My experience with happenstance:

When I was three, the head of the children’s department in the Belk-Harry department store gave me a little red piano, a prop from one of the display cases—because she could see I loved it, and she was that kind of person. When I was twenty-three and a night nurse, I was taking care of a violent stroke patient, a woman no one else wanted to take care of.  I saw a man standing just outside the doorway. I asked if he was family. He said no, but he’d known her a long time, and he could hardly bear to see her like that. She was, he said, the head of the children’s department at Belk-Harry’s for many years, and she was one of the kindest women he’d ever known. Me, too, I suddenly realized.

And with that, I’m going to stop. I’m sure I intended to make a seriously profound point of some kind when I started this blog, only now I don’t know what it was—which of course, is something else I’ll just have to put in the well—in the forgetful section.

‘Til next time…

Cheryl Reavis

Jill Marie Landis

Author of Mai Tai One On

Writing is never an easy occupation no matter how far up the ladder you climb. It’s still true that as a working writer you can take time to stare out the window and call it brainstorming, wear pajamas to work, spend hours and hours in solitude in front of a computer screen and use that long dreamed of vacation to Scotland as a tax write off. But in the past few years the writing life has certainly gotten far more complicated than one might imagine or desire.

The Good Old Days

Back when I started (we were using quills and ink then) it was much simpler. We were expected to write, meet a deadline, turn in a book, start another one, await the editorial process, make some changes, turn it in again and sit back and wait for the book to come out. In the meantime we started another book and the whole cycle began again.

If we were lucky we occasionally met with other writers, did a few book signings around our home towns, got some press in the local paper, and considered ourselves famous among our relatives, friends and neighbors.

But now, with the advent of gorilla marketing, the internet, and social networking, times have changed. Oh, my. How they have changed.

Too Many Hats

Now we are our own promoters, our own editors, our own cheerleaders. We have to know how to write press releases, act as our own secretaries, spend our non-writing hours (of which there are far fewer) surfing the internet, keep up postings on Facebook, visiting bookselling sites’ (like Amazon’s Author pages), blogging on our own website (websites many of us have had to learn to create), guest visiting each other’s blogs, overseeing cover designs, passing out trading cards, managing contests and putting up hard earned cash for our give-aways. Even choosing the right hat becomes a problem; we are our own image consultants for all of those dreaded photos we have to post. (Oh, did I forget to mention tweeting? I guess that’s because so far I’ve drawn the line at tweeting.)

Too Few Heads

Once an author hits the big time she can afford to hire a staff to wear a lot of those hats for her. I’ve been there. Once upon a time I was lucky enough to unload a couple of tasks like housekeeping, cooking, errand running, and promotion on others. But times change and now I, as well as other men and women writers (some who even hold down day jobs), are trying to accomplish the Herculean tasks required to make a dent in this new world order of the internet marketplace.

It takes not only a real gift but hours and hours of work to make your book stand out from the crowd, to make it sound like the best of the best, the book worthy of becoming the latest “cocktail party” focus of conversation or the next big book club choice. It takes stamina to come up with the charm and wit and effervescence that gets “friends” and readers to “like” you or your page week after week. It takes…well, it takes a good fiction writer to make ourselves look so wonderfully glamorous.

Be True to You

Despite the bombardment of everything that it takes to “make it” in the writing world today, my biggest struggle is to remain true to myself.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been in the game a long time, or maybe wisdom does come with age, or maybe it’s just that I’m getting to be like the cartoon character Maxine the curmudgeon—I’ve decided there aren’t enough hours in the day to try to jump higher or run faster or sound oh-so-clever on facebook or anywhere else.  I do what I can and devote the rest of my time to reading, staring off into space, and writing. I’ve gone back to sitting on the beach with lined paper to make notes if I’m inspired, and I’ve been walking away from the computer when inspiration is just not there instead of surfing the net trying to find out if my book has sold two more copies than an hour ago.  I’ve decided to devote time to writing the kind of books I’d like to read, the kind of books that make me laugh or make me cry. I’m focusing on what led me to become a writer in the first place; the writing itself.  I’m writing stories that strike a chord within me and hopefully there are a few people out there who will enjoy them and resonate to that chord too.  I have to believe that the books will somehow find those readers even if I don’t constantly facebook, tweet, or twitter. I choose to believe that stories that are meant to be read will be read. The hat I’m wearing the most these days is my writing hat. It’s the hat that fits the best.

 Any Thoughts?

I guess since I have on my “promotional blogging hat” right now I’d love to hear what you think. Am I the only one who feels as if we writers are juggling too many hats? Or are you comfortable wearing all of yours?