Love is in the Air Giveaway

On Aug. 1 decades ago, a mother cradles an infant in her arms, the father smiles down at his newly-born daughter. Her foot is wrapped in bandages since it got twisted during labor.

Time marches on and with that the child grows up and stands beside her betrothed. They exchange their marriage vows on Aug. 2, 1980.

In honor of these two loving events - my birth and wedding anniversary - I am giving away two copies of my recently-released, inspiring-historical romance, Lockets and Lanterns. . . .

As Edith marches down the aisle to marry the man of her  dreams, she doesn’t know he is hiding a secret. Eighteen years later her husband, Red, must confront his past and reveal a deep family secret before it’s too late.

Edith needs answers about her husband’s past, but will he put his children and career in danger to keep his secret? As tragedy occurs and the couple drifts apart, they must find their love for one another again before they lose each other. Lockets and Lanterns, a gripping tale of love, loss, and forgiveness, takes readers back to the 1900s when life was simpler, but sustaining love was just as difficult.

*This book is a clean Christian romance.

And a winner could receive an autographed copy of Ruth Ann Nordin’s books, Eye of the Beholder OR Shotgun Groom. 

 

Mary Peters despairs that she will never get married.  At nineteen, she has no prospects of finding a husband, so she takes matters into her own hands and becomes a mail-order bride.  When she arrives in Omaha, Nebraska, to meet the man she's due to marry, he takes one look at her homely appearance and rejects her.

But fate has other plans for Mary.  Dave Larson happens to be nearby and thinks she will make a good wife.  Though she is stunned that someone as handsome and as kind as Dave would ask her to marry him, she accepts.  She knows that this marriage will not bear the fruits of love.  Love, after all, is for beautiful women.  Isn't it?

Warning: This is rated R due to sexual situations after marriage.

April Edwards, a young widow, is content to manage a farm with her fourteen-year-old brother and a one-year-old daughter. Nothing, after all, could be worse than being married to her deceased husband. Nothing, that is, until her unscrupulous brother-in-law decides to marry her. With no other recourse, April and her brother concoct a plan--one that involves the unsuspecting doctor’s assistant, Joel Larson.

Joel Larson doesn't want to be married. In fact, he’s perfectly happy with things the way they are, but when he’s sent to check on April’s sick child, things take an unexpected turn for the worse. In one instant, he finds a gun and a mandate to marry April staring him in the face. Can a marriage that begins with a shotgun be just the thing Joel needs or has April just confined herself to another miserable marriage?

Warning: This book is rated R due to sexual situations after marriage between the hero and heroine.  Prior to marriage, there is an attempted rape by the villain.  (The rape is prevented.)  There is also reference to past violent situations to the heroine's brother by the heroine's deceased husband.

How to enter:

It is easy. You NEED TO FOLLOW ME on my BLOGSPOT blog: http://janetsinnerramblings.blogspot.com. In the comment section, state your first and last name and that you are following my blog.

There will be TWO WINNERS:

One winner will receive a signed copy of Lockets and Lanterns by Janet Syas Nitsick and a signed copy of Eye of the Beholder by Ruth Ann Nordin.

Another winner will receive a signed copy of Lockets and Lanterns by Janet Syas Nitsick and a signed copy of Shotgun Groom by Ruth Ann Nordin.

When the two winners will be announced:

I will announce the TWO WINNERS on my AUG. 7 blog post at  http://janetsinnerramblings.blogspot.com/.  Ruth Ann Nordin will also announce the winners on her blog on August 7 at http://ruthannnordinauthorblog.wordpress.com/.

At that time, the two winners will be instructed to visit www.JanetSyasNitsick.com to leave their email and snail-mail addresses. God bless and good luck.

Please note:

*If a winner does not contact me within seven days of my Aug. 7 post, I will select another winner on Aug. 15 and post their name in that day’s blog post.

Adding Humor to Your Scenes

Writing is serious business and if you want your work to succeed you must develop good skills. This takes work.

It involves attending writing conferences and workshops as well as critique groups. Hours of pursuit to hone your talents. How do you release these stresses for perfection?

Write humorous scenes. They bring smiles to the lips of your readers, but they also relieve the weary writer. 

However, before you can do that you need to make sure the humorous addition is conducive to the scene or the character’s traits. For example, you could not include humor in a life-or-death scene.

You can, though, use it to show readers a character’s wit. I did this in two different ways in my recently-released, inspiring-historical romance, Lockets and Lanterns. One way was through the character’s actions in a flashback scene where Red first met his soon-to-be wife.

“The barn dance flashed before him.

“He knew that bowing before her after their introduction at the dance was a gamble. He smiled, satisfied his movement at least caught her attention. He pulled out a strand of his red hair as a calling card, an impulse of pure genius. He snickered.”

What do we learn from this? That Red is a fun-loving and confident individual portrayed through his pulling out a hair strand as a calling card and his thinking this was an action of “pure genius.”

If the character is jovial, humor also works in dialogue. Another excerpt from Lockets and Lanterns:

“The crisp air drifted in behind him as Red opened the door. He came over to her. His red hair swept down around his brow. He laid the dead animal on the kitchen table. ‘Here’s a goose for you to cook.’

“Edith glared at the furry, long-eared animal. She raised her face to her husband. ‘That’s a rabbit.’ She shook her head at him.

“He wrapped his arm around her waist. His cold lips pressed against hers. He took a step backward and gave a sly grin. ‘No, it’s a goose because his goose is cooked.’”

This dialogue excerpt flowed naturally. It started with the vague description of the word, animal, to the wife looking at the dead rabbit to the ending dialogue of “No, it’s a goose because his goose is cooked.” 

How do you achieve this natural style? Watch and listen to those around you. Family gatherings are good avenues. I have one son who knows how to insert some zingers. What about the family recalling your past missteps? My oldest sons remind me of the first time I had a microwave oven and heated up some leftover chicken. It became crispy chicken. Are you laughing?

Modify these incidents and create scenes which fit your characters. Children are good fodder. I remember when my oldest granddaughter was four. It was a clear day until all at once a big wind came. “What a wind?” I told her. She replied, “Well, God can do whatever He wants because He is a big guy.”

Mentally note these events and rework them to place in your manuscript. Have a friend or critique partner read them to make sure they work. Have you ever heard a joke and laughed because it was expected of you but you did not get it? Of course, you have. This is why it is important for others to exam what you write.

Additionally, read the public pulse, emails and Facebook postings, there always are comical comments. Print or jot them down either physically or mentally for later use. No matter what period, except perhaps Regency, you can redo those for the era. People cry, laugh and smile since the beginning of time. But jokes do go out of style so watch that. 

Years ago my family visited the Ford Theater where Lincoln was shot. The reason John Wilkes Booth got off the shots without the audience at first knowing was because of the laughter to a line in the play. When tour guides repeated that joke, not one of us laughed. The line no longer worked.

Well, I will go for now. Take care and remember to lighten your load with chuckles and as always God bless. 

Writing When You Got the Blues

The blues come. The blues go but how do you escape them when you experience these downturns?

This is the time you push your chair to your desk and concentrate on your writing. Why? Because in this way, your mind focuses on your work and bypasses the dark days.

Of course, if it is the death of a loved one or a terrible family crisis this would not work. However, if it is an incident, an argument or something along this line, getting your creative juices going provides better mental healing than any pill could achieve and without the side effects. 

Forming that witty character who you love lightens your mood. There is a character in my Work in Progress, Cameos and Carriages, I just adore. Perhaps it is because she is bubbly, naive and says what she feels without hesitation. Here is an excerpt: 

... Looking to his right then to his left, he took a step forward bumping into Annie Lee. 

She giggled. “You hiding, Johnnie boy? I thought you got over your schoolyard pranks.” 

Reshuffling the camera to get a better handle on it, John took a step backwards to eye the redheaded beauty. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t see you. I-I ...”

“Not paying attention isn’t going to snag a headline,” her long hair bobbing. 

Annie Lee puts me in a better mood. But it does not need to be a character, setting the scene also gives you inward peace. When I wrote an intimate scene by a fountain, I needed to go to the Internet and find a picture of the kind of fountain I had in mind. This was not easy since it was one I had seen in an old motion picture. Thus I searched several Web sites before I came to the three-tiered design I desired. Another excerpt:

She turned her head from him and fixated on the fountain. The water gushed from the top tier to the second before flowing to the bottom tier’s large rock base. She swept her hand over the bubbling liquid. 

He reached for her arm and clasped his fingers around hers. Laughing, he brushed his lips against her hair. “Your hair smells nice but you didn’t answer my question.”

Giggling, she stirred her index finger in the cool water and faced him. “Did you say something?”

In addition, do not forget the importance, if you are a believer, in the power of faith and how this intertwines in your work. 

Christ is my center but in no way am I saying I am perfect or I never experienced depression. With two different autistic sons and other problems, I have had my share. But then again, writing and faith helps placate the bad times. My recently released inspiring-historical romance, Lockets and Lanterns, includes biblical quotes which ease characters’ pains just as they do mine. For example, the novel includes this passage:  “I laid me down and slept; I awakened; for the Lord sustained me.”

So restore your soul by writing even when you got the blues and as always God bless.

Web site Design

When you are designing a Web site, what should you include?

Answer is it depends on what you want to highlight, such as your work or your biography, etc., but one thing is certain your site needs to be simple. You heard the old adage: “Keep it simple, stupid.” Well, this applies to your Web site.

At a workshop on Web sites, the presenter told attendees people only stay on a page for a flicker of a second. If you cannot attract that person in that timeframe, they will leave. People are busy and one item which will move a visitor to another site is overload.

Easy navigability is important. Does your Web site contain too many pages? You do not need many. My new Web site includes five - Home, Meet the Author (with contact author form), Janet’s Itinerary, Other Books and News & Praise roll.

Home page displays my inspiring-historical romance’s book cover, Lockets and Lanterns; a best-selling author endorsement (which I never could fully express my gratitude for); and book links to purchase the book and connect with me on Facebook, Twitter and my blogs.

Meet the Author page shows this beautiful person wearing a hat. Of course, I am kidding there, but it does have picture of me with a hat. It also includes a two-paragraph biography of myself and a contact Janet form. Again, keep it simple. HOWEVER, WHATEVER YOU DO NOT PUT YOUR PERSONAL EMAIL ADDRESS ON YOUR SITE UNLESS YOU WANT NUMEROUS EMAILS.

Janet’s Itinerary is the next tab. This allows visitors to see where I will sign books. Keep this current. I viewed several author pages where the itinerary was not updated in a year. What does this show? An author not active in the marketplace. How are you going to sell books when you do not care about your site?

My next button is Other Books. Here I tell about my work in progress and other books, such as my award-winning story, “The Silver Lining,” available for free on Smashwords and Barnes and Noble. Here are the links to download them: Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/42833; Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-silver-lining-janet-nitsick/1030476803?ean=2940011212130&itm=2&usri=the+silver+lining+by+janet+syas+nitsick

Last tab is the News and Praise Roll. On this page, I left a couple of spaces to highlight the subject matter of my most recent blogs. Also, there are awesome book trailers for my new romance, Lockets and Lanterns, and my previous book, Seasons of the Soul.

Besides keeping the navigation simple, have an attractive Web site. Do not let it get too busy, though. I visited sites where the page took forever to load due to the photo or graphic being too intricate. In addition, remember to not use red background and white lettering. Why? Because when you want to print a page for further reference, nothing will show up. Think of those details when designing or redoing a site.

Another asset is to tell visitors what your books are like. My slogan is “Homespun romantic tales of joys and hardships endured through faith and love.” This lets readers know what type of books you write and if they are not interested they can go elsewhere. You need to gear to your target audience. Is a science-fiction reader going to be interested in romance? Perhaps but odds are against it. There are occasional crossovers; however, this is an exception but not the rule.

Right now, I am finishing a great science-fiction book, Return of the Aliens, written by our own best-selling romance author Ruth Ann Nordin. It is a deviation from her usual, though, I am loving the suspense and the research involved relating to the Bible book of Revelation. As a journalist who dealt with facts, I like this.

One more thing remember to not overdo content. If people see a litany of words and paragraphs, what are they going to do? Go someplace else. That is not what you want. Keep them there by paraphrasing, short sentences and delete unnecessary text. Once more, keep it simple.

Well, I probably should wind this down. If you want to check out my site, it is www.JanetSyasNitsick.com. It is not perfect but, I believe, it has a few good points. Now, think of your Web site and make whatever changes you feel improves it and as always God bless.

Life and Writing

Life. What an endurance. Just when you think everything is going your way then something interferes.

The same is said about writing. You planned to write that scene or word count, but then out of the blue a family problem occurs and you spend your week dealing with that issue.

This is what happened to me last week. Praise God everything worked out, but the incident cut into my writing time. This is when I reassessed my mood.

What really is more important? Writing?

Think again. When we are long gone, it is not what we wrote which is remembered instead it is our children, family and with me humbling myself before the Lord.

Of course, we need to write and we hope our books are best sellers or leave life-lasting impressions. However, our primary influences are still with our family and grandchildren.

I can verify this because my inspiring-historical romance, Lockets and Lanterns, is loosely-based on my grandfather who had red hair, a charming whit, was a fireman and exhibited a thumb-twiddling habit as the main character does in my new novel. The story, though, is not his story, but an imagery one seeped in the early-twentieth-century - the time period they began their marriage. In fact, their wedding picture appears on the book’s cover.

Without knowing my grandpa, I could never have experienced his engaging personality and his love for my brother and myself. I recall the many times he jokingly said to my sibling: “You’re full of baloney.” Images and expressions stay with you. Thus appreciate these simple times.

Instead of looking at not being able to write with sadness, embrace these setbacks. These moments could develop into creative fodder later. It also gives your writing a down-home realism. Listening and watching never are bad characteristics to witness. When you tell your granddaughter it is windy today and she replies, “God can do anything He wants. He is a big guy.” You can use that in a story like I did in my book, Seasons of the Soul.

Well, I made my spiel. God’s blessings to you. If interested, Lockets and Lanterns, (His secret ... Her broken heart) is available NOW at http://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-61862-169-6 before its official release date of April 24.

Social Media-Perplexing

Social media what a perplexing place.

When everything works like a machine, it gives you a place for people to get to know you and to promote your wares. But when the well-oiled machine gets a kink in its armor, what do you do?

There are no quick answers.

Get a cup of coffee. Call a friend and see if they can work you through it. But if that does not work, you have to investigate it yourself and this does not always work well.

The other day I got an instant message. I thought I had signed out of this type of email-message system so I did what I did before to not participate in it.

However, this also said I no longer was in a certain Facebook program. I checked the system out and it seemed to work fine, but then again there were some changes in the way the program appeared. Although I seldom use this communicating system, you still want it to work when necessary.

Then a couple of days later I got the answer. Facebook changed the way the program operates. I would sure like to know why they keep changing their system.

Anyway, all I know is busy people do not need to spend time readjusting what they thought was perfected.

This experience reminded me of what happened last summer when I got locked out of Facebook. I used a different devise to log into it, thus Facebook would not let me onto my page. This was exasperating since I had used this same device before and did not have this problem.

In order to gain access, Facebook required me to look through a series of friends’ photos. Have you ever tried to identify past pictures of friends? Honesty, I did not know them when they were two, twenty, etc. I failed the test and tried three times with the same result - one failure was because I took too long.

I was about to scream and sipping a cup of coffee did not help this time then a dear friend found some links which enabled me to change my password, and I was back on it like I never left. Here they are http://www.facebook.com/KnownIssues?v=app_4949752878 Help Center Home http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=749 Login Bugs

Try these links but whatever you do change your password. Once you do that, you will get back into Facebook.

Well, my coffee sits beside my desk. I am ready to take a sip, watch what pops up next and hope to work through this perplexing networking system. God bless.

concept Editing, What is It?

My new novel, Lockets and Lanterns, is in its final stages of production. One of those processes was concept editing.

What is that? you ask.

In a nutshell, it is looking at your manuscript as a whole.

Is your title inviting? Does it tell the reader what the story is about?

If your story is a romance, you can show that on a cover, but you also need to make sure your cover does not display a mystery or some other genre which is not your target audience. My book, Lockets and Lanterns, tells you this is a historical, and the bride and groom on the cover shows romance.

This is what a concept editor looks at as well as the overall story line. Is there enough conflict to enthrall readers? In my novel, there is a secret the groom keeps from his bride. This hidden promise will have tragic consequences. The story line must keep people interested in finding out the secret and have believable characters in which readers can empathize with during their times of heartaches and joys.

A concept editor also is your deleter-in-chief. You will see paragraphs and what you considered “sharp” dialogue gone. After staring at your work in horror, you realize the concept editor was on the right track. If layers of dialogue or descriptions muddle your story, what good is it? Once you understand that, you look at the strikeouts in new ways. The editor is helping you keep the readers’ interest. How often have you weeded through a story or read it halfway then shoved it to the side because of lack of interest? A lot more than we would like to admit.

Another task of the concept editor is to analyze sentence structures. Is the sentence clear or does it need to be clarified through rewording or using dialogue tags, such as she said, in certain circumstances to determine the speaker? Though, remember to limit tags as much as possible. I often use actions to let the reader know who is talking.

Besides these, this editor will continue to examine for improper word usage like the word, “past.” This is a mistake I see quite often in books. “Past” is for an occurrence which happened in the past. “She thought of her past mistakes and shook her head.” However, “passed” is used when you move around an object or a person/s. “Nora passed her sister before stepping outside.” A concept editor should catch this as well as to look for misspelled words and when certain words, such as Pa, need capitalization or when awhile is one word or two. If it is at the end of a prepositional phrase, the usage is a while. But if you mean it took awhile for him to answer, it is one word.

I found the process unnerving at times, especially when your mistakes stare up at you and whole paragraphs are deleted, but necessary because that person is your gatekeeper in making your story compelling, well written and the best possible. But remember they also are human beings and can miss items which will glare at you later. Have a blessed New Year and watch for the spring release of Lockets and Lanterns.