Amy Machelle Interviews Elizabeth Bridges

Saving Elizabeth 
by Amy Machelle


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Amy: Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting with us today. Start off by telling us a little about yourself.

Elizabeth: Thanks for inviting me. There’s not much to tell really. My name is Elizabeth Grace Bridges, and I’m just your average seventeen year old girl. I love to read, shop, and spend time with friends. I was born in Santa Barbara, California, and was raised right on the beach. It was pretty awesome. I’m an only child, which means I spent a lot of time entertaining myself. I probably would have hated growing up without brothers or sisters to play with had it not been for the beach in my backyard. Nine times out of ten you could find me there either soaking up the rays or taking a swim in the surf. Dad always said he wouldn’t be surprised if one day I sprouted gills and traded land life for water living. Sometimes, I wish we were still there.

Amy: Speaking of your dad, what was your relationship like with your father?
 
Elizabeth: My dad was the best. I know a lot of kids my age complain about their parents, but looking back, I have absolutely nothing to complain about. I’d give anything for him to be here again with me and mom. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, by any means, but I was a huge daddy’s girl and wanted nothing more than to make him proud. I really miss him.

Amy: Tell us what it was like when you first found out your father had cancer.

Elizabeth: I had just turned sixteen the day he came home from his doctor’s appointment and told me. That was the second worst day of my life. The day he died was the first. I locked myself in my room and cried after he broke the news. I couldn’t understand why in the world this was happening to our family. My dad was a Christian man who had served God for as long as I could remember. I was convinced that if I just prayed, God would remember my dad’s faithfulness to Him and take the cancer away, but every day my dad grew weaker and weaker. It was a pretty terrible time. I don’t like to think about it.

Amy: Your dad was a Christian. Does that mean you believe in God?

Elizabeth: I believed at one time, but I’d rather not talk about it. I was stupid then. Next question, please.

Amy: Umm, okay. How did your mom handle the death of your father?

Elizabeth: My mom and I are very different. I tried to pretend things were fine...to resume life as normal. I’m just like that. I’d rather keep everything inside and mask my feelings than face reality. She shut everyone out entirely and got really depressed. She didn’t want to do anything at all except sleep. I can count on one hand the times she spoke to me during the next year. It was almost as if she died right along with my dad. There for a while, I felt like I was the mother and she was the kid.

Amy: What finally snapped her out of her depression?

Elizabeth: It was a move… a move to Kalispell, Montana. I still don’t know why she chose that place. We traded sand for snow and sun for the freezing cold. I was pretty miserable about it at first, but I tried to hide my feelings for Mom. I think she just needed to get away from that house. There were too many memories there…too many things that reminded her of Dad.

Amy: Since your move, some people say you’ve been spending an awful lot of time with a handsome young man. Do you have a boyfriend?

Elizabeth: Sorry to disappoint all you gossipers out there, but no. Contrary to what many people have been saying, there’s no love interest in my life, and least not right now. I’ve been pretty busy since moving to Kalispell, and I don’t have time for a boyfriend. Another thing is that I get the feeling many people around here aren’t what they seem. There have been some strange things going on since our move…very strange, and I’m not just talking about the flirty, redneck cowboys. I’m talking about spooky, giving you nightmares if you can even go to sleep kind of strange. There is this one guy I’ve been spending some time with. I’m sure he’s the guy you’ve heard about. His name is Riel, but I’m still trying to figure out whether he’s part of all this spookiness or not.

Amy: What do you plan on doing with your life after high school?

Elizabeth: Did my mother put you up to asking that question? lol I seriously think she asks me that at least once a day. I honestly don’t know. I haven’t really given it much thought. To tell you the truth, I’m just taking things a day at a time. High school can be a war zone…literally. I’m lucky just to make it through each day alive.

Amy: You seem pretty tough. Are you a girly girl, or a tomboy? 

Elizabeth: I like to think I fall somewhere in between. My nails are always painted, and I keep up with the latest fashions, but I could definitely fight evil forces if I needed to… umm, that is, if evil forces actually existed, and I’m not saying that they do, or don’t. I’m just sayin’.

Amy: What’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?

Elizabeth: My dad used to tell me to be careful because you never know when you entertain angels unaware. For some reason, I’ve not been able to stop thinking about that lately. He was right. You better be careful because you never really know…

Saving Elizabeth - Release Day!

Saving Elizabeth 
by Amy Machelle


$3.49
PDF eBook Version
Amazon Kindle
ISBN: 9780983755265





 

Saving Elizabeth is officially here, and we've got some exclusive stuff today at Tell-Tale Publishing! Check out The Vault to read the first two chapters of Saving Elizabeth.

Click the banner below to see Amy's tour schedule.

Watch the official Book Trailer for Saving Elizabeth!

Amy Machelle - Book Tour!

Amy's tour officially starts tomorrow, but we've got some exclusive stuff here at Tell-Tale Publishing! Check out The Vault to read the first two chapters of Saving Elizabeth.

Click the banner below to see Amy's tour schedule.

Watch the official Book Trailer for Saving Elizabeth!

Whodunit?

by Dan Anderson

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ISBN 978-0-9837552-3-4






 
At book signings and conferences, readers approach me and ask “Where did you come up with Chauncey McFadden? He is one of the most unusual and therefore interesting detectives found in fiction.” You’d think I’d have a pat response ready, but Chauncey isn’t a protagonist that leaped forth from a sudden rush of imagination. Rather he gradually grew on me over time, like a polyp in your colon.

I had been a reader of detective suspense fiction since being exposed to the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew at an early age. As I grew into a more mature reader, I progressed to the older masters of mystery like Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Earl Stanley Gardner, Rex Stout, and Ellery Queen. Each of them offered a novel concept of a PI and staked new territory in the burgeoning field of detective suspense fiction. Chauncey is my contribution to this genre and is another step in the pyramid of crime-solvers crafted and honed by writers or whodunits.

Our detective is a shrewd observer of the human condition and uses humor to disarm and disengage from peril. He is an everyman who lives a marginal existence in a profession that offers little in the way of financial success if you’re honest. An ex-high school teacher and museum guard, he stumbled into the PI profession because of its freedom of action and escape from the stultifying oppression of corporate bureaucracy. He has little in the way of homicide experience, but in each installment of The McFadden Chronicles he manages to apprehend the villains and do right by his clients.

“Where do you get the ideas for your plots?” is another common question. Killing Me Softly With Your Love” was my effort to make “mystery history.” Since the beginning of time, people have been murdered in every way imaginable—guns, knives, poison, hanging¸ run over by cars, pushed over cliffs, thrown overboard from boats ... well, you get it. My first mystery, however, is the first in which female victims were dispatched by vibrators. (Not all the benefits of our technological age have been employed as intended by the inventor.) Although this modus operandi connotes a gory, sexually-charged plotline, nothing of the sort appears in Killing Me Softly With Your Love.

The inspiration for Black Magic Woman, the second installment in the series (to be published), came from a two-week cruise of the Caribbean that my wife and I took some years ago. Passenger activities on the cruise vessel and different geography and culture in the ports of call begged for mystery development.

Eye of the Tiger, the third installment (to be published), addresses contemporary murders that revenge an atrocity that occurred in Vietnam during its war. As a member of the Americal Infantry Division, it was quite easy for me to take observations and folklore grounded in military experience and fictionalize them for reader entertainment.

Take This Job and Shove It, the fourth installment (to be published), involves the mysterious murders of former employees of a large financial corporation. Having worked for such an organization for three decades, the development of the plotline was for me as natural and easy as breathing.

All mysteries to date, except one, take place in Los Angeles, a veritable mother lode of outré people and crucible of cultural phenomena. Since I now live in Henderson, NV, in future adventures I may relocate Chauncey to Las Vegas, the undisputed realm of habitués and other behavioral eccentrics.

A Message from Rayne Blackwood

Born of Blood
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Citizens of the World,
 

We come before you not as monsters or angels, but as equals. We hope that in this glorious age of tolerance you are able to accept us, to coexist with us, and to welcome the knowledge of our existence.

For centuries we have walked among you. There have been whispers, stories, and endless conjecture regarding our kind. Yet we remained in the shadows. The whispers faded and we fell into the realm of myths. Never have you discovered our existence, nor would you had we not chosen to come forward. The simple truth, my friends, is that we wish to step out of the darkness and though we may first blink or even squint, we wish to walk freely in the light. We do not wish to hide any longer. As citizens of this magnificent planet, we wish to take our place in it.

There are misconceptions about our kind and I would like to put your mind to rest about them. First and most importantly is our need for blood. This is true. However, we have strict laws in place (and have for hundreds of years) that dictates where that blood comes from. It is true that we cannot consume animal blood to sustain ourselves any more than a human might receive animal blood in a transplant. We are simply incompatible. But all Conclave vampires are required to maintain a diet of donated blood. Yes, we own many blood banks and use these to sustain ourselves. According to our laws, any vampire found in violation of that requirement is executed. We have the utmost respect for the sanctity of life.

As for the rumors regarding things like sunlight, running water, and garlic, these are pure fabrications. While we do have our vulnerabilities, those are not among them. We do not age physically, though we are far from immortal. I assure that there is no such thing as true immortality. Everything that lives can and will somehow, at some time, die.

The vampires are governed by the sovereign laws of Conclave, an ancient ruling body that acts as both protectors and enforcers to the vampire community. As human laws are not, as yet, equipped to deal with vampires, we retain this sovereignty with the understanding that we will also be responsible for obeying the laws of the land in which we live, just as humans do.

It is only natural to fear the unknown and we realize that Hollywood has perpetuated stereotypes that have only reinforced these fears, but we offer you this solemn pledge; we come in peace. We hope you will join us in moving forward, joined in the bonds of humanity and basic liberties, into a new era where vampires and humans coexist in peace. Please put aside old grudges und unfounded fears and take the time to discover our true nature. This wish, we lay at your feet.

Yours in Good Faith,

Rayne Blackwood

What I Learned About Launching A Book

An all-important event in my life happened on Friday, September 9, 2011. I’d been waiting for it with my heart in my throat, but as the date grew closer, I seriously questioned my sanity. What had I done?

My book, ALL THAT MATTERS, was about to be released for the entire digital world to read – and review. Not only that, but it was the launch book for a brand-new company, Tell-Tale Publishing Group. I fretted and stewed. What if no one wanted to buy the book? What if those who did buy it, didn’t like it? What if...? What if...? There were a lot of what if’s riding on the success of my book and the success of the company. No stress there, right? I was about to find out.

Blog tours, reader reviews, a new PC and printer that didn’t want to play nice with my laptop, everyday chores reminding me that I had family to take care of, fear of being invaded by dust-bunnies....Suddenly, reality hit me—hard. Launching a book ain’t for sissies, folks. It didn’t take me long to learn I couldn’t do it alone. Seriously. Thank goodness for my wonderfully supportive publisher. Help was on the way!

To begin with, my totally awesome cover, designed by the magic of talented artist, Patricia Lazarus, was the best lead-in promo I could’ve asked for. Yowzah! Without the untiring work of Tell-Tale’s editorial staff, along with amazing technical help from My Girl Friday VA, who kept our online presence in the public eye, we never would’ve had the wonderful response that greeted us on Launch Day. Their belief in me was the rock that supported me.

I quickly learned the truth about the importance of social networking. Numerous comments on Facebook and Twitter proved that point many times over. The unsolicited praise from Award-winning authors Nancy Gideon, Susan Mallery, Eileen Dreyer and Katharine Ashe, to name a few, quickly spread word of Tell-Tale Publishing and ALL THAT MATTERS across the country. The kindness and generosity of these wonderful authors, along with the whole-hearted support of my family, friends and fans, made my heart smile so big, it ached with happiness. I am humbled and forever grateful. I thank you all.

The First Day

by Elizabeth Fortin

Everyone has experienced a memorable first day. Many young mothers on my Facebook page have been commenting on various feelings as their children are going off to their first day of school, including nostalgic memories of their own first days. Others have commented on the first day of a newborn's life, on a new job, a first date, or the first time they visited a special location or participated in a new activity.

I have had so many personal firsts this year, I don't have time to list them all here. However, the birth of our publishing company is a first none of us will forget. The entire staff is oscillating from confident pride, anticipation and excitement to humble trepidation and insecurity.

We are fairly confident in our own skills and decision making abilities, but rising anxiety revolves around our use of technology. Should the doctor or the midwife birth our new baby? Which program? Which company? Which formats? How much will it cost? Technology is a miraculous, ever-changing tool. However, it is also only as good as the programmers and users involved in the execution of any singular task.

When you're an electronic-first publishing company, you depend exclusively on the electronic interaction of dozens of people, programs and machines. Though you try to coordinate every detail to the precise moment the baby is "launched", it is a harrowing task--or should I say hundreds of harrowing tasks performed by a dozen people over the past nine months?

It is less than three days until the launch of Tell-Tale Publishing. All the employees are involved in the process on some level. In fact, we've hired extra help. Everything that should be done, has been done. All the little twinges are being tweaked. When all is said and done, it is a nonstop learning process that however perfected is still subject to the often fickle reaction of technology and someone else's employees and programs. I think come Thursday night we will all tip a glass of wine and toast our months of hard work and prepare for the further success of our talented authors. Wish us luck!

Training My Dragon

I’ll be the first to admit that I'm a Luddite, one of those people who drags her feet at progress, especially in the area of technology. However, in the past few months I have surprised myself. I was at a writers’ retreat back in April and got into a discussion about Dragon Naturally Speaking, the dictation software that allows a person to “speak” her writing into a computer and have the words magically appear in a document the writer has set up. Because I anticipated lots of writing coming up and was finding it difficult to sit for long periods of time in front of the computer, I decided to purchase the program.

When the software and headset arrived, I managed to attach everything and download the program myself. However, being a cheapskate at heart, I didn’t buy the training DVD, which would have cost another forty dollars or so. I immediately started dictating e-mails, editorial comments, and my own personal writing. But, just like any other new-fangled thing, getting used to how to use it took some doing.

My dictation software actually reminds me of the first time I used the editing function on my word processor. It's a very cool function, but until I got used to using it, all of the red marks and boxes in the right-hand margin were incredibly distracting, particularly because my ADD liked to go into "Oh, shiny!" mode every time I had the idea that I might need to use one of those functions.

As for my new toy/business purchase, without the dictation training software for constant reference, I had to rely on trial and error, and the “tips” which appear when the program boots up. Since they come at the beginning of my writing sessions and I didn’t really know how to access them during it, though, they’re not totally helpful. I sort of stumbled onto how to add vocabulary words, etc., and I’m getting better at using the features, but I’m wondering if I should have sprung for the training DVD right when I got the program. Because, although I do love to talk, apparently I mumble when I dictate.

On the up-side, this habit of mumbling has resulted in some rather humorous responses from my dragon and provided me with a blog topic.

So as a cautionary tale, here are some of the sought for responses and some of the actual results I’ve gotten from my dictation software:

In my current work in progress—a Regency-set romance—mischief became “Ms. Jeff,” yarn stockings became “ER and stockings,” and still a humbug became “Stella Humbug.” My heroine’s name is Elyse, and although the computer usually catches the correct spelling because I programmed it to, I was dictating dialogue and “to see that Elyse” became “to see the police.” Not at all what I had in mind. Later in that dictation, simpering miss became “simple ring this.” I should figure out how to go back and see if I trained my dragon to recognize “simpering” when it hears it.

There are more examples, of course, and maybe these have to do with the fact that my WIP is historical. I was dictating research from a book about London in the 16th and 17th centuries into a document I’d created for reference notes, and Dr. Rock’s Antivenereal Electuary—and, yes, this is a real “medicine” sold in London years and years back—became “and have an ariel elect to wary.” I can only guess at what an antivenereal electuary is, but I suspect it was used by men who elected not to have venereal diseases. And although this cure sounds amazingly silly, my dragon’s translation is even more so since it’s just a string of words the poor machine “heard” me speak. If I’d thought about it, I’d have done an “add vocabulary” function and hopefully taken care of the problem right then and there. Of course, then I wouldn't have any material to laugh about for this blog.

And of course I could be all wrong about the Dragon's inability to understand historical types of references. It could just come down to the fact that I mumble. In a newsletter article I wrote about Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Hotel, the phrase acerbic critic became “a cervix critic.” Of all the things Ms Parker was alleged to criticize, I’d never heard that a cervix was one of them.

So, perhaps my Dragon isn't sarcastic enough on its own to understand the word acerbic. Right after the cervix fiasco, I trained it to understand the difference between the two words when spoken.

Most of my problems have been in dictating regular documents, although it has taken me a while to figure out how to get the correct spelling of my name into e-mail. (I suppose if I had been trained correctly, I would have known enough to add my spelling to the list of names. But…). Here is an interesting one from an e-mail: what should have been the second week in October became "the second. We cannot Tober.”

However, operator error still has to be considered. I must have really mumbled on this next one, because what was supposed to be inspired my students became “inspired mice, dude. It’s the…”

Obviously, there is more training to do. I should note that about half of this blog was done using my dictation software—which I have learned must be proofread very carefully—and half was done with my own ten little fingers on the keyboard because I already know that my Dragon still needs training.

Either that, or I need diction and elocution lessons.

--Laurie C. Kuna

There's No Expiration on Dreams By Loralee Lillibridge

Ask me to write a blog and my brain freezes immediately. Why is that? When my editor at Tell-Tale asked me to write one for their site, my solution was to do the grocery shopping I’d been putting off. I know that doesn’t make sense, but believe it or not, that’s where I found the topic for this blog…right there among the packaged produce. I hope you find something worthwhile here.

Do you check expiration dates on products when you’re shopping? I do. I think those dates are important to the buyer. Who wants a bag of salad greens that only has one day of freshness left and you need a salad three days from now? Bananas are another matter. There’s no expiration date printed on them, but you know the green ones will last the longest. You want your money’s worth on your purchase. With the price of gas, you can’t run to the store every day. Makes sense to me, but what about the products that have no expiration date? When do they become out-of-date? A month? A year? Never? As I accumulated more birthdays, I resisted buying those green bananas, but never considered giving up my dream. Most things we purchase eventually wear out – clothes, furniture, cars, but I have found something that never expires unless you let it. Something I’m sure everyone has, and that’s a dream.

Trust me, there’s NO EXPIRATION DATE ON DREAMS. If there were, I would have stopped writing a long time ago. But I’m a true dreamer. My very first book sale came just weeks before my fiftieth wedding anniversary. Yes, FIFTY. I had been pursuing publication for twenty years. The love of telling stories was part of my life. When I dreamed, I dreamed BIG. Why not?

That first book did well and I thought, “Great, I’m on my way.” In my dream, I sold book after book, but that didn’t happen. This spring, six years later, I was still pursuing sale number two. Sometimes the dream lost a little of its luster, but it never expired. I wrote, I submitted, I re-wrote, submitted again. I kept learning my craft every chance I got.Opportunitydoors opened. Those same doors closed. Rejections came on a regular basis for awhile. I briefly thought about quitting, but every time I tried, the dream pushed and prodded me to continue. My supportive critique group kept me on track with words of encouragement. When life got in the way, I paused, then took a detour with their help. The persistent dream was always there.

I could talk a long time about those in-between years when health, family issues and everyday problems interfered, but that’s all in the past. The important thing I want to say now is this – my dream has never expired. It still accompanies me every day. I delight in bringing the characters of my imagination to life. I become connected to their lives, their problems, their community. With the help of technology, I can go anywhere in the world I want. It brings me joy to share my stories with others. My family now shares in that joy and that makes the dream even more important. Hopefully, my dream will inspire others to share their dreams through writing.

In April of this year, that persistent dream became a reality with the sale of ALL THAT MATTERS to Tell-Tale Publishing. I was over-the-moon happy when that happened and I can’t wait to share that book with you in September.

The story of Buddy Lee Walker and Faith Morgan is the emotional tale of love between the boy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and the daughter of the town banker who refused to believe their differences were important. I hope you’ll read the book when it’s released September 9, 2011.

I am forever grateful to the staff at Tell-Tale for believing in my dream. I like to think I’ve been part of their dream, too. I have many more stories to tell, so I’ve started buying green bananas again. I plan to be around to enjoy them, too.

I’ve learned my dreams have no expiration date. How about yours? I’d love to hear about them.

How Do You Paranormal? By Sherry D. Ficklin

Have you even noticed that subgenre ‘paranormal’ only seems to exist in YA and Romance books? When you’re looking for a good vampire/shifter/ghost book in the book store you have to scour the horror and fantasy sections. Why is that? Paranormal has been around since long before Twilight made it a common genre. Some of my favorites over the years have been authors like Anne Rice, Clive Barker, and Jennifer Rardin. Yet all these are billed under the broad label of Horror. I suppose the biggest difference, for me at least, is that there’s always the off chance that someone might get their face eaten off.

There’s not enough of that in YA and Romance. (Joking, well…sort of.) Because, let’s be honest, real vampires bite. It’s that edge of danger that makes us both enthralled by them and determined to save them. I was always the girl who rooted for Darth Vader. What can I say? I like my characters best when they are redeemably evil.

And these are what I’ve been reading since I could read. Oh, I’ve had my flights of fancy here and there, not to mention my twelve year affair with a little series called Harry Potter, but at the end of the day I always go back to my first love.

Horror.

And by horror I mean, of course, vampire novels. For me, the love isn’t necessarily with the vampires themselves, but with the humans who surround them. I mean, Angel was cool, but wasn’t Buffy so much better? I love seeing humans, the ‘normals’ of a story interact with the paranormals.

Which brings me to my new book series, Palmetto Moon. Book One is Born of Blood. It’s not a book about vampires. My heroine Sophie exists in a world where vampires are out of the coffin, so to speak. They are an everyday part of her life (to her great annoyance) and what makes her a really great character is the way she deals with that aspect of her life. Don’t get me wrong, the vampires are very cool too. Sexy and dangerous, just the way a vampire should be. But then, even vampires have their issues.

When I began writing, Twilight had just hit the market and no one would look at anything without a vampire or shifter in it-which my first books did not. I don’t write to the trend, I never have. And though I always knew I’d do a vampire book eventually, I hadn’t yet.

When the idea for Born of Blood came to me, I was so excited. Finally, I’d had the burst of creativity to do that vampire story I’d always wanted to. And then I realized something. Most publishers now consider vampire a four letter word. I’d almost given up on what is by far the best thing I’d ever written when the great folks at Tell-Tale found me. Lucky for me, they love the paranormals just as much as I do. Hopefully, you will too.

So if you’re a paranormal junkie or horror lover, join me on June 29th over on ParaYourNormal on BlogTalk radio where I’ll be talking about the new book and all things paranormal. Log on and tune in at 4:30. You can call in or message the show with questions and comments. Here’s the link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/parayournormal

Find out what I did with a book that’s funny, but not a comedy. A book that’s flirty, but not a romance. Since there are vampires, it’s perfect! I love a book with bite!

Can There Be Peace After a Disaster Like The One In Joplin? By Anita Harrison

Middle America was struck by a tornado that damaged 30% of Joplin, Missouri. The media was filled with horrific sounds and images that resonated memories deep within me. Remembered images flooded my mind about a tornado that struck my own Mid-Michigan community years ago. Last week this appeared in a mid-Michigan newspaper The Flint Journal…

“As storm clouds gathered above Beecher on June 8, 1953, on Coldwater Road in Beecher, an F5 tornado leveled nearly 350 homes and killed 116 people. For 58 years, the Beecher tornado held the official record for the country’s single deadliest tornado. Tuesday, the weekend tornado that demolished most of Joplin, Mo., surpassed the Beecher record as the confirmed death toll continued to climb. As of Wednesday, there were 122 dead, with 750 people injured and many still missing after the F5 tornado with winds higher than 200 mph hit the southwest Missouri city of 50,000.”

The Joplin, Missouri disaster pushes me to a heightened sense of the damage caused by a powerful F5 tornado. I turn on CNN and watch the paths of the devastating tornado and hear the testimonials of stunned survivors. I see tear-filled eyes reflect the loss of friends and relatives. I know that sadness and loss from natural disasters are not easily forgotten and the memories are forever.

Even though I was a 4 year old child at the time, I remember the Beecher tornado with vivid clarity. My family lived several miles from the disastrous Beecher tornado that claimed 116 lives. Black and white photographs show the dreadful effects of nature’s fury and as yet are the pictures burned into my mind.

I was in the hospital at the time of the Beecher Tornado. The hospital was short on space so I went to sleep in a large empty sunroom. The sunroom was used only when necessary. I fell asleep to quiet, but I woke in the morning to a room full of unidentifiable sounds and images of people in shock. The physical damage made it difficult to recognize the new arrivals as male or female. Their eyes were either vacant or terror filled. Dirt seemed pitted in their skin, bandages wrapped around arms, legs extended in the air, and heads with only a lock of hair. Are these images a young child’s nightmare or remnants of truth from the tornado’s aftermath?

At the hospital’s request, a short time later my mother came to pick me up . I held my mother’s hand as we walked down the long halls of old St. Joseph Hospital. On each side of the hall were cots and gurneys with whimpering sounds or silent stares. After the long walk down the hall my memories disappear, but the terrible images of the worst tornado in this community have not.

We were a family of 7 who lived in a ranch. We always delighted in the cool basement used on hot, muggy summer days. It was not only a place for relief from the heat but it was also a place of safety. After the Beecher tornado my sleep would be broken by my dad’s commands to go to the basement a tornado was coming. All seven of us would scramble downstairs and the five kids would huddle under the wooden bench for safety. Dad, with his flashlight and radio, would stand guard. When he felt the danger was over he would go upstairs and try to scan the dark skies. We would then go back to bed to sleep in peace.

Even after 58 years, the Beecher tornado continues to be a part of this community’s history. With time people buried the dead, healed from their physical wounds, and rebuilt the devastated buildings. The images are in the back of my mind and, therefore, only surface when stirred by F5 winds, like the disaster in Joplin. Joplin’s buildings will take years to rebuild and repair. Emotional trauma and physical trauma may never completely go away, but with time memories fade and lessen. As several residents have demonstrated with their good neighbor actions, it’s a small town, but they have big hearts and they love their community. Eventually the Joplin residents will, as did the Beecher area, make peace with the tragedy and heal.

The Importance of Mothers and Belly Buttons

We take it for granted that most fictional characters have belly buttons. They are, after all, supposed to be human. Stories are about people and even supernatural heroes exhibit human emotion and characteristics. Personification aside, only cartoon characters act out their scenes with no viewer or reader concern for family origin or influence.

Would you want to read a story, let alone a book-length work, in which you have to assume the main character hopped from under a rock one day and began living a tumultuous life, using multiple coping skills reflected by deeply revealing internal dialogue at the tender age of no way would you believe this? Don’t expect any reader to believe characters have no past. Their past is often the impetus of suspense.

If readers are to suspend disbelief, to enter the world the writer has created so intentionally, the writer must people their fictional world with three dimensional characters. This includes emotional or psychological character profiles that reflect either circumstance of birth or the separation from or defeat of inherited morality or perhaps some revealed dysfunction.

As “real” people, heroes and heroines are not perfect. They sometimes fight with their parents and/or siblings. They sometimes make mistakes. They sometimes feel regret, or anger, or pain, or happiness, or anxiety, or hope, or defeat. Whatever they feel, or think, or choose, they are products of their existential past. If they don’t bring emotional baggage with them, they have unloaded it before they arrived at the here and now. Readers need to know that, too. Readers get to know characters through their actions and interactions with other characters. Internal dialogue can be as important as dialogue. It often helps the reader understand the character’s motivation. Serial killers have reasons for what they do. Their reasons are sometimes crazy and dysfunctional, even diabolical, but they are still reasons. And even serial killers have mothers.

Ask Dexter Morgan. He has a plentitude of separation anxiety associated with his mother. Okay, yes, he had post traumatic stress disorder as a toddler. Thank goodness he had such a guilt-ridden father, who was happy to explain morality to him, and give him the survival skills he needed to succeed and thrive at both his job and “vigilante hobby”. Let’s don’t forget that sibling rivalry with his brother, either—which leads us to his often dysfunctional relationship with his sister.

Your characters, too, have families. They certainly have or had mothers. Perhaps they miss the umbilical cord, or perhaps they feel it’s wrapped around their necks and tightening fast. Either way, when thinking about your character’s description, don’t forget about their belly buttons!

You're Just One Small Adjustment Away From Making Your Life Work

No matter what your personal beliefs or traditions are about Easter, most people recognize that it symbolizes resurrection. It may be a holy resurrection or the regeneration of nature after the death of winter, but renewal is in the air.

The first thing I saw on this Easter morning was a baby bunny rabbit. He had survived the coyotes and hawks, so far, huddled under a flowering shrub in a domesticated zone of the Arizona desert. It was, in fact, that precise moment that I remembered it even was Easter Sunday. I had been reflecting the past week on the delicacy and unpredictability of life. Ever an optimist, however, I had a trio of related but uniquely different experiences that reminded me of regeneration this past weekend.

First, I saw a man dragging a cross up Catalina Hwy, trudging up the side of Mt. Lemmon in Tucson, AZ. This wasn’t just a small, fake, or Styrofoam cross, or the one carried by a fleet of believers in an annual ceremony where they plant and observe it on Easter Sunday. This was a substantial 4 x 4 constructed wooden cross, and he carried it alone. He was near the 6,000 ft. elevation marker, though I don’t know where he began (I looked for and saw no nearby car parked). He was followed by a lone woman, dressed in similar camouflage fatigues. The cross had a small wheel attached to its base, so he was technically pulling it, one of the short branches slung over his shoulder. He wore no sign. No cameras were rolling. I could only speculate as to his purpose. Was he planning to go past 10,000 feet to the summit? Had he begun at 2500 ft, the base? I admired him, whatever his reason. He was having his own transformation, whatever it may have been, physical, spiritual, emotional, or all three.

Another very inspiring event was a wonderful author whose never say quit spirit made her choose to resurrect a set-aside manuscript for a second look, another chance to find it the perfect home where it would be appreciated and cared for with the respect and love of story it deserved. [Writers always inspire me. It’s not an easy job. It can be one of the loneliest and most insecure jobs, too. The value or goodness ranking of a story is subjective. Good writing is more uniformly appreciated, but all the ingredients of a novel combined leave it open to opinions on all manner of things by all manner of people. Backlists are underappreciated too, says I.]

My third Easter experience came in the midst of a three planes, three liftoffs and touchdowns, and two layovers Easter Sunday trip home. A mere 14 hours later, when I finally arrived home, I was still thinking about it. I absentmindedly (on this amount of sleep there is very little mind left at all), stuck my earplugs into the plane’s movie sound as I flipped open my laptop to edit a manuscript. The movie was the same one we’d seen on the flight out, so I didn’t plan to watch it. It muffled the crying baby and loud talk across the aisle. The only thing that made me pause and look up was one great line in a fairly bad movie. This may not be exact, but it’s close: “We’re all just one small adjustment away from making our lives work.” How true is that? Life is as amazing as you want it to be.

I have spoken with several people lately who have written or are in the process of writing a book they always said they could, they should, or they might. Whatever your bliss…follow it! Let this season of rebirth and regeneration serve as a resurrection of your childhood belief that the world is filled with endless possibilities. Then do something about it. Change is movement, not stasis. Have a blessed Easter.

Palms Ruffled by Balmy Breezes

Palm Sunday has come and gone and most moms are happily struggling to keep colorful dye on eggs rather than kids clothes or other perma-stain surfaces. The same can be said for the mom authors here at Tell-Tale Publishing, except that they are also busy with rewrites, blog posts, networking, marketing, cover questionnaires and blurb-ability of excerpts.

That said, the staff here at TT are equally busy, sending revision requests, reviewing final drafts, requesting line edits, creating cover art, organizing format and medium, finalizing marketing programs, sifting through a continuous stream of submissions and back and forth questions, suggestions and revisions.

I still managed to attend a fabulous weekend conference in Phoenix, where I heard presentations on editing, marketing, e-booking, print book forms and methods, distribution and backlist resurrection. All this was done with no direct or dedicated Internet connection, but rather a “free” WiFi found subject to whim and wind direction with now on and now off consistency. I’d say it’s been a good week.

Stay tuned to this batty station for more on our progress toward launch…exact date is forthcoming sooner than you think!

Peeps Can Be Sweet, Sugary and Still Calorie Free

We have been blessed with a warm reception by the authors in our fast-growing community. Thanks to each and every one of you for thinking of us. Rest assured that we are sorting through submissions and sending out replies as quickly as humanly possible—at this point we are striving for a 2-3 day turnaround, but we can see that it is bogging down a bit as we determine which submissions will make our initial launch lineup. After all, reading and ranking entire manuscripts takes longer than reading queries, and takes precedence over those at times.

Slots are filling fast, so get your queries in quickly. Horror, Mystery, Historical Romance, Urban Fantasy and Steampunk lines are still actively seeking additional queries. This does not mean we won’t consider other genres—once we launch we will have continuous releases–but debut authors are still undetermined for these lines. And does anyone have a great How-To? Wise Words Publishing, our affiliate company is looking to fill a few slots too!

As successful as our submission acceptance debut has been, we would also like to take a moment to offer a heartfelt thank you to our friends, those who are peers and those completely uninvolved in the publishing industry. Your ongoing support and encouragement are appreciated more than you know. Our peeps have been downright mushy, and as always, colorful and calorie free, which means we can have as many as we want. How sweet is that?

Message From Elizabeth Fortin

Tell-Tale Publishing Group and its affiliate company, Wise Words Publishing Group, begin taking submissions April 1st—no fooling! So, tomorrow is the big day. Like Easter morning, we have been looking forward to this day for months. It symbolizes Spring and new beginnings, a very special time of year. So we’ve been arranging a beautiful bouquet filled with Dahlia, Nightshade, Stargazer Lilies, Thistle, Cosmos and even some Ivy. We have cleaned the place up, getting organized, sending out invitations for the big hunt. We can’t wait to begin collecting all those brightly colored Easter eggs. Each egg has been carefully decorated and delivered by someone hoping to have it turned into a magical golden egg. Unlike the golden egg on “The Biggest Loser,” the winner here won’t get the only vote or even the only golden egg, but they will be placed on the top of our Easter basket. It might be yours!

For me, mixed with the excitement are the anxieties of all new beginnings. These include the letting go of past careers and weekly if not daily associations with colleagues who have become friends. It even means some very drastic lifestyle changes. Long hours and hard work will still be a part of my life, but I move forward with the certain knowledge that I will finally be doing what I love the most, all day, every day. I will be reading wonderful stories and guiding writers through the critical stages of final revisions to the ultimate reward–the successful publication and marketing of a fantastic story. Who wouldn’t be excited about that?

For anyone who has never taken a chance, for those stuck in ruts or ready to make a change for whatever reasons, I highly recommend willfully choosing to do something you love. It is the most liberating, exhilarating feeling. There will be those who are ready to knock you down or hope to see you fail, but there will be many more that will lift you up and wish you well. My grandma used to tell me a quote from Henry Ford, which was, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right.” No matter what, believe in yourself and always follow your bliss—which is within you. As Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”