Summer Sun

Remember the song in "Grease" about summer sun, summer lover etc. As a kid that wasn't me, not that I wouldn't have killed to be Tammy, Gidget or any of the Bikini Beach girls. Nope, not me.

I was the one that walked up to the bookmobile or took the bus to the library to check out as many books as I could get away with. I'd bring them home, take them outside with Koolaid, a sandwitch, and a blanket and spend the day reading while my friends went to the pool with their bikinis. I was busy reading Oz books, Anne of Green Gables, Frank Yerby, Angelique and Peyton Place, Gone With the Wind twice. I lived in my head and in the worlds writers created for me.

The scent of honeysuckle in the heat will forever mean summer and books, strange new worlds of Asimov, Bradbury and Heinlein. All the Nancy Drew mysteries, Agatha Christie and Daphne DuMaurier. Not that I didn't have my moments of slathering my body with baby oil and iodine, burning in the sun and listening to the Everly Bros. on the radio, but even then I'd be reading.

My world was books, still is...without the unlimited time to read without interruption and lack of responsibilities. What worlds did you travel to in the summer as a kid?

4 star review-Museums are Murder

I'm a writer. Writers Brag about ****Star reviews.

AUTHOR:­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Carol Shenold

They say every myth is based on reality, and Tali Cates has found out just how true that saying is. Her Mother, fondly called “Mumsie”, is constantly babbling on about spirits and the supernatural. Tali only halfheartedly takes in Mumsies warnings. After secretly investigating a murder at the museum, Tali is in for a fight for her own preservation. It isn’t until Aiden, the sexy vampire, teaches her to draw on her own special powers to protect herself from demons and werewolves that Mumsie’s prophecy comes to light.

What a little gem! This book proves you don’t need a lot of words to make a great story with equally great imagery. Many of us have a busy lifestyle with little time to read, but Carol Shenold has solved that problem. This short book is packed with action, passion and the creatures of our nightmares, making it the perfect read for the subway ride, the waiting room, or that quick read before drifting into dreamland.

REVIEWER: Little Wing

Genre: Paranormal Mystery

ISBN: 978-1-926640-57-0

Publisher: Eternal Press

Fido

If you have a truly dark sense of humor, get nostalgic for the fifties or Lassie movies and enjoy zombies, you must rent FIDO. I don't know when it came out. I never saw it in the past and found it hysterical on many levels.

I cracked up when Fido went home to get Mom and lead her to where Timmy was tied up by the bad guys. Absolutely priceless. A must see for Zombie lover everywhere.

Also, back from OWFI conference. Tess Garritson was a great speaker, enjoyed her so much. I found a great alliteration exercise. How about a contest? I'll put one of my exercises on this post. In comments, post yours. If ten different readers post one, I'll draw a winner for a print copy of either "Museums are Murder" or "Fairy Dust."

Here's mine.

Marshmellow

mushy marshmellow

messy mushy marshmellow

messy mushy marshmellow melting

messy mushy marshmellow melting messily

OK Tag you're it. It's your turn....

Themes

Has anyone asked you what your theme is when you write, someone besides and English teacher? I see this stressed at writer's workshops and was not clear what was meant.

Then I looked at my cozy paranormal mysteries. I seem to have two basic themes. One, Family loyalty, even if the family includes more friends than blood relatives. Placing ordinary people into extraordinary circumstances and play around with their vision of their world. The boogy monster is real and the one under the bed might really eat you.

Now place that in a small, Bible belt town in Texas with born again preachers and small town politics. Mix in murder, magic and mayhem and you have Tali Cates' world. All Tali wants is life without her cheating ex-the one with the live-in boyfriend, raise her kids and survive living at home with her mother.

Tali is a mixture of me, who I'd like to be, my grown daughters and Sandra Bullock. Mumsie is all the strong older women I admire. I fun writing and living in that world vicariously.

Getting Started

I've been asked a lot how I got started writing. I'm never sure what to answer because it's such an accumulative thing.

I've loved reading since about the third grade and I realized I could read anything in the library whether I understood it or not. Mother never restricted my reading choices so I read anything I got my hands on.

I actually enjoyed writing essays in school, other kids hated me of course. But it wasn't until I saw some romance writers on a talk show in the early eighties that it occurred to me that I could write, get published even though I didn't live in NY.

Even then, everything else took precedence. I wrote short articles and stories, got some published, wrote a couple of text books but had yet to buckle down to writing fiction. My fifties loomed on the horizon and I decided I'd better get off my ass, or rather sit on it, and get the writing done or I'd be 80 without a book out there. Then I had to decide what kind of fiction I really wanted to write.

Once I discovered urban fantasy, mixed in mystery and paranormal elements, It all fell into place, plus setting word counts, actually finishing books, submitting and being published.

On another post, I'll talk about how I decided where to submit the book and what I'm doing now and talk more about the characters in my mysteries and Urban Fantasy.

I have a book basket at the Romantic Times Convention so feel like I'm almost really there. At least Tali and Mumsie are there, and other writers I know.

Twit and Tweet on Twitter

Sorry, couldn't resist. Twitter is addicting. See to the right. Several followers already. Following some. It's fun and easy and faster than blogging or even email. Mini blogging, like that idea.

Back to Changling. I'm Working on the darker aspect since it's urban fantasy and not a cozy paranormal, the tone needs to be a bit different, more menacing. Worked on character and plotting a bit more. Now have to work hard. Have new names to try and query when I'm done.

Now the trick is to keep it dark and keep the humor at the same time, always a tight rope but I don't think I can write without a little humor in the thing, just my quirk. Come follow me on twitter or just read twitter on the blog.

Don't forget, print books are on Amazon.

Tweet Tweet

Come follow me on Twitter when you can. It should be fun. Of course even twitter gets too full of Tweets, or would that be twits. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how it works. Never tried it before but I'm not always the first one on a band wagon, then I get busy writing and etc. and don't follow-up like I should, even with my blog.

I haven't been keeping up with blogging or anything like marketing since I hurt my hand, much less writing and that must change or else. See how I talk to myself. Like I have any business trying to Twitter too.