Cool graphic designed by J. Q. and posted on her websiteWhen my fellow BWL author J. Q. Rose invited me to guest blog in her Summer Readers Circle, I leapt at the opportunity. She scheduled me for today, June 16th. I suggested we swap blog posts on the same day and write on the same topic. J. Q. proposed we both blog about what inspired us to write our books.
My blog today features J. Q.’s post titled My Inspiration for the Romantic Suspense Novel, Dangerous Sanctuary. In the post, she also talks about her non-fiction book written to empower and inspire girls called Girls Succeed: The Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women.
If you read and comment on J. Q.’s post through one of the simple methods outlined, you’ll automatically be entered in a draw to win a free ebook of Dangerous Sanctuary. Deadline is Tuesday, June 20, 10:00 pm EDST.
And then you can go to J. Q. Rose’s website, read my post and make a comment for a chance to win a free ebook of Ten Days in Summer.
Thank you, Susan, for swapping blogs this week. I hope your readers will hop on over to the J.Q. Rose blog to read your post about what inspired you to write your new novel, Ten Days in Summer, a sequel to your first murder mystery, Deadly Fall. A lucky commenter will win a copy of Susan’s e-book.
My Inspiration for the Romantic Suspense Novel, Dangerous Sanctuary by J.Q. Rose
Win this novel by J.Q. Rose
The main character in Dangerous Sanctuary is a female pastor, Pastor Christine Hobbs. People often ask what inspired me to write a book featuring a woman pastor.
Actually the spark of the story was ignited after I interviewed a female pastor for my non-fiction book for middle-grade girls, Girls Succeed: The Stories Behind the Careers of Successful Women. I was intrigued with the pastor’s story about her entry into the ministry at a time when it was typically a man’s career. When she discovered women were making breakthroughs into becoming ordained ministers in a few denominations, she worked hard to achieve her dream of becoming an ordained minister. She succeeded in earning her Master of Divinity Degree at Yale University Divinity School and was ordained by the General Conference of the Mennonite Church in Pennsylvania.
To empower and inspire girls
At the time I interviewed her she was the District Superintendent of the West Michigan United Methodist Church Conference. She was responsible for sixty-nine United Methodist churches and their pastors. Her devotion to God, her determination, and her great experiences inspired me. I was honored to share her journey to success with young girls. Today, Pastor Laurie is a bishop in the United Methodist Church.
That same year, a woman pastor was assigned to our local church. I learned even more about being a woman pastor from her e.g. no one tells a male pastor he’s wearing cute shoes! With these two exceptional role models, I created the character of Pastor Christine Hobbs.
Since I’m a mystery writer, Pastor Christine had to be one of the murder suspects. What a juxtaposition to have the good pastor accused of such a horrendous crime. Having a female pastor as the main character in a cozy mystery would offer interesting situations for readers to keep them turning the pages. I also wanted to explore the controversy over allowing women this leadership position in a church.
Pastor Christine is a strong, smart woman, the kind of main character I like to read and write about in my stories. Having a pastor as a main character is not unique, but a female pastor does put a different twist to the story.
Tagline for Dangerous Sanctuary by J. Q. Rose: Pastor Christine Hobbs never imagined she would be caring for a flock that includes a pig, a kangaroo, and a murderer.
Back of the Book: Pastor Christine Hobbs has been in the pulpit business for over five years. She never imagined herself caring for a flock that includes a pig, a kangaroo, and a murderer.
Detective Cole Stephens doesn’t want the pretty pastor to get away with murdering the church music director. His investigative methods infuriate Christine as much as his deep brown eyes attract her
Can they find the real killer and build a loving relationship based on trust?
ABOUT JQ: After writing feature articles in magazines, newspapers, and online magazines for over fifteen years, J.Q. Rose entered the world of fiction. Her published mysteries are Deadly Undertaking and Dangerous Sanctuary released by Books We Love Publishing. With her non-fiction book for girls, Girls Succeed! she returns to her first love, writing about real people. Blogging, photography, Pegs and Jokers board games, and travel are the things that keep her out of trouble. She spends winters in Florida and summers up north camping and hunting toads, frogs, and salamanders with her four grandsons and granddaughter.
During this Scrivener Trial period, every time I log into Scrivener the software program reminds me of how many non-consecutive days I have left in my 30 day free trial. Now it’s 15 days remaining.
What do I have for my 15 days?
1. Not as many overlapping files as in this image, but a few I can easily switch back and forth between.
2. Ten chapters of a novel-in-progress. Very rough chapters. Extremely rough. With lots of comments on the side bar for changes and things to follow through in later chapters.
I’m still not confident this novel will work to the end. But I want to continue, probably on Scrivener. If I do make it, I’d write the second draft on Scrivener because I’ll really need to process all these notes I’ve made in the various files. I see myself transferring it all to WORD for draft 3, mainly because I’m concerned about the transfer process. Will it really work? Also, a friend told me certain things come out strangely in WORD as a result of the transfer. I’ll want to fix those up before I get too far along.
I estimate that I’m a little over 1/4 of the first draft. My goal is to finish it by mid-October–unless I hit a wall. Already, I’ve cut one character and replaced her with someone I had intended to be off-stage. The first character couldn’t move the story much and she wasn’t a realistic suspect, which felt like a waste of my limited number of new characters.
And I still don’t know whodunit. The story seems to be leaning toward one person, but I’m not convinced. For books one and two, I had a strong feeling at this point about who was guilty.
It’s unsettling, but I expect unsettled is one thing first drafts are largely about.
Nowadays, it seems to be a given that de-cluttering is good and its opposite–hoarding or excessive collecting–is all bad. Last week I wrote about a positive I gained from my mother’s hoard of newspapers. Today I’ll talk about a couple more.
The first comes from a book about hoarding I read as research for my novel, Ten Days in Summer, which involves the death of a hoarder. The book noted that hoarders are more imaginative about stuff than other people. You and I look at a used egg carton and see garbage or recycling; a hoarder sees a hundred potential uses for the dozen sculpted cups.
One of my mother’s hobbies was creating dollhouse miniatures. The craft is all about seeing something new in small, usually discarded objects. One year, she asked me to collect the plastic pieces they put on take-out pizza to keep it from sticking to the box top. I don’t even know the name for this coin-shaped plastic on three little stilts, but she could see they would make perfect café tables for her miniatures.
My second positive is from my experience of the one that got away. When we sold our house in Montreal, we had a garage sale to get rid of stuff that we’d no longer need in our new home in Calgary. Among the outgrown children’s toys and kitchen items we rarely used, I included an umbrella stand that my father had given me some years earlier as a birthday present. The stand was pretty, made of brass-colour material with punched out images. But I only use folding umbrellas, so the stand was never practical and mainly took up space in our entranceway. It would be even more useless in Calgary’s dry climate, where I expected to use my folding umbrellas rarely. At our garage sale, my neighbour bought the umbrella stand for $1.00. My heart tugged as he carried it away.
I was right. There’s no place for my umbrella stand in my Calgary home. The main thing it would do is clutter my house entrance or mudroom.
Yet, over the past twenty years, I’ve thought of this umbrella stand and wish I hadn’t parted with the thing. It was pretty and a present from dad. With a little imagination, I could have found a use for it somewhere in my Calgary home.
So is it worth hanging onto hundreds of pieces of junk so you don’t wind up throwing away the one that you’ll miss some day in the future?
Possibly.
My umbrella stand was much prettier than this oneWhat useless bits of stuff would you repurpose to create these miniatures?
An excerpt from my short story “Adjusting the Ashes” appears in this week’s Calgary Through the Eyes of Writers. “Adjusting the Ashes” won the 20o3 Alberta Views Short Story Contest and you can read the full story in the Alberta Views archives. Of all my short stories, this one most inspired my mystery novel sleuth Paula Savard.
I updated “Adjusting the Ashes” in response to a call for submission for a Writing Menopause anthology edited by Jane Cawthorne and E.D. Morin and was thrilled when they accepted it.
This month Inanna Publications released Writing Menopause: An Anthology of Fiction, Poetry and Creative Non-Fiction. The Calgary Book Launch takes place on May 25th. Unfortunately, I’ll have to miss it, but I cheer on my fellow contributors, who will be reading that night: Rea Tarvydas, Lori D. Roadhouse, Roberta Rees, Steve Passey, JoAnn McCaig, Shaun Hunter, Rona Altrows, Jane Cawthorne & E.D. Morin.
Here are the launch details:
DATE & TIME: Thursday, May 25, 2017 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm
Tuesday night was my first taste of Calgary’s A Taste of Local Authors reading series, organized three times a year by author and When Words Collide organizer Randy McCharles. My publisher Jude Pittman attended and took these pictures of me reading from the Stampede parade scene in my novel Ten Days in Summer. The audience chimed in on cue with Yahoo’s and Yeehaw’s.
The next Taste of Local Authors will take place at Owl’s Nest Bookstore in December.
Tomorrow, May 16, I’ll be reading with 8 other writers with new books at A Taste of Local Authors. In addition to the readings, there will music, food, drink and mingling. Everyone is welcome at this free event.
Tuesday, May 16 at 7 PM – 9 PM, Owl’s Nest Bookstore, 815-49 Ave SW, Calgary
Since Stampede is less than two months away, I think it’s time to read from my Stampede parade scene.
On my publisher’s website today, you can read my blog post about how hoarding inspired my mystery novel. As research for Ten Days in Summer, I watched a couple of episodes of the TV show Hoarders. It baffles me that people can enjoy such programs. Perhaps, for me, the show is too close to home.
My mother was far from a hoarder, but she had that inclination. I have it too, but less than she did–touch wood, if you can find a spot of wood floor in this picture (it’s not my home, although the old globe and fan look familiar).
For more research, I read a book about hoarding and wasn’t surprised to learn that procrastination is a common hoarder trait. More surprising, to me, was another characteristic: perfectionism. For example, the book noted, a person collects stuff with the intention of recycling it. But rather than just throw the stuff in a bin, as most people would, a hoarder must recycle it perfectly. The more the stuff accumulates, the more difficult it becomes to get it right and the more he puts off taking care of it.
This reminded me of me of my mother’s newspapers, which occupied a large part of her garage. Every day, when she finished reading the paper, she would fold the sections neatly back into place and add the newspaper to her latest pile. When the stack was high enough, she’d tie a cord around it and transfer it to the garage. This was before the days of curbside recycling collection, so her next step would be to decide on the best method of disposal.
After my first travel article was published in The MontrealGazette newspaper, I wanted to query the editor with more ideas. I realized it would help to know what locales had already been covered in recent issues and refresh myself on the newspaper’s travel writing style. I didn’t have the Internet back then, so I asked my mother if she had any old Saturday Gazettes around. She directed me to her garage.
There I found every Montreal Gazette newspaper going back to a couple years. I leafed through the neat stacks, no doubt messing up my mother’s work, and picked out all the Saturday issues. For me, they were gold. I took them home and devoured week after week of Gazette travel sections, sent the editor a query and secured my second travel feature. Later, I got a third and fourth.
In case I ever wanted to try for a 5th Gazette article, I kept all the travel sections in a box, which I brought with me from Montreal when I moved to Calgary 21 years ago. After all, this was a company move and I didn’t have to pay to transport stuff. A few years later, I queried The Gazette editor again. He said he remembered me fondly and wondered what had happened to me, but turned my idea down. I’ve since heard, sadly, that he died.
The box of travel sections is still in my basement. I’ll probably never read them again and really should throw them out.
And I will, one of these days, when I get around to it.
