Christmas Books Galore!

by Diana McCollum

I am sharing a Christmas book with two great stories in it. During the busy holiday season sometimes it is nice to sit with a cup of tea, my feet up and read a good, short story. A breather if you will, from the hustle and bustle of the season.

 

 A BIG EASY CHRISTMAS by Sue Drake Ward, is a holiday duet with two Christmas stories. 

 

Story one-

Gifts of Christmas-is about Cath Guidry, a French Quarter ghost tour guide who is searching for the perfect gift  for her husband Mitch. Cath gets a little help from Mitch’s Aunt Edi and she has the perfect thoughtful gift for Mitch.

 

Not to be left out, Mitch discovers Cath’s good luck necklace chain is broken and he knows he’s the one fix it.

 

This is a lovely story about two deeply in love people.

Story Two-

 

New Year, New Love is the second story in A BIG EASY CHRISTMAS. Rhonda attends a Christmas dinner at her friend’s house and meets widower Tony, a police detective. They enjoy each other’s company and he drives her home. Neither is looking for romance.

 

Rhonda’s ex is stalking her and she calls the handsome police detective to give her a ride home from work. As new Year’s Eve approaches they both hope to put their pasts behind them and celebrate New Year’s Eve together.

 

This book is included in the following promotional holiday books! Follow this link to sign up for a chance to win these books or buy the bundle. https://maggielynch.com/holiday-books-contest/

The more times you enter the better chance of winning! You can also purchase it where ever you buy books.

 

Have you read any holiday books this year?

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, AS THEY START THIS MONTH WITH THANKSGIVING!!!!🦃🦃

 

End Of An Era

Hi everyone! 

I am Young Adult and Middle Grade author Barbara Binns, writer of contemporary and realistic fiction for adolescents and teens. As my tagline says, I write Stories of Real Boys Growing Into Real Men - and the people who love them.  

This year marks the 8th anniversary of the Romancing The Genres blog. That makes it my 8th year of my nearly uninterrupted writing a monthly post for this blog. I've been a part of things right from the start.

2019 also marks the 21st anniversary of the Arlington Almanac. This journal is sent to residents of Arlington Heights and some surrounding towns. That means people in this predominantly white Chicago suburb gets to read diverse stories about people in Chicago written by me.

I have crafted short stories/flash fiction for the Almanac four times a year for the past eleven years. That means dozens of well received stories of diversity.  This was so important to me, that I have frequently found myself agonizing over a way to tell a new story in the space of 800 words or less only days before the magazine’s deadline.

Never again.

Just a few weeks ago I received this letter along with my quarterly check:

Hey Ms. Binns 

Hope all is good with you!

Wanted to let you know how much we appreciated all your stories that you’ve sent us over the years. We’ve decided that the upcoming Spring book will be our last edition.

The End of an Era for us.

For me too.

This is it. No more deadlines or letters of praise from Mindy and Jim, the publishers. No more checks either.

I met them a dozen years ago at a writer's group held at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library. Jim loves to write, and he is amazing at political satire. So biting and pointed is his satire, that his wife, the publication's senior editor, often refuses to publish one of his stories. They invited some of the other authors present to submit to their publication. At first, I thought it would be impossible. Over the years, I developed a love-hate relationship with the Almanac.  My first story was a memoir type piece about my daughter. That also generated my first piece of fan mail from someone who had had a similar experience with her own child. I have no idea how many stories I have completed for them since then.

Over the years, writing regular flash fiction has taught me  how to write tight. I can now do what I once considered impossible, tell a complete story, beginning, middle and end, in under 800 words. BTW, their limit was supposed to be 750 words, but they never got upset at me when I went over. I only had them refuse one story and that was more for being a little too political than for length. I've written about diverse characters, locations and situations. They told me they loved everything they wrote.

PS, I never confessed this to the publishers, but I guess it's okay to do it now. Those letters of praise meant more to me than the checks that came with them. I might have done it for those alone. From a letter last summer:

Hey B. B. 

Happy Summer, if it ever stops raining! I'm sitting at the Library where I met most of the writers who adorn our little book. Thank God for Libraries! And thank you for your summer story!

One thing I liked most was that the Almanac became a vehicle for me to introduce a largely white audience to diverse stories.  My 2018 holiday story covered a Chicago family celebrating Kwanzaa.  The 2014 story dealt with an overweight teen girl shopping for a baby shower present for a relative and being mistaken for a pregnant teen (An incident that really happened to my daughter once.)  I've given them stories about a child watching his father die of cancer, a white minister dealing with car trouble in the middle of the night while driving through "the ghetto", and my most resent story for the almanac, a black man in prison during a riot helping rescue a prison guard left behind the lines. I've never shied away from diverse stories, and my audience and my editors have always approved.

Not intending to be caught in a vise by another deadline, I had already sketched out the idea for my next story. It was going to be awesome, about kids dealing with the threat of bullying. Now that story will forever be an idea.

I wish Jim and Mindy the best. They are approaching seventy, and it's time for them to rest. It's just that I will miss them and the lessons they taught me, that I could do more than I ever thought I could.

https://www.almanaclocal.com/

Short Thinking

by M. L. Buchman

I make a third of my living from short stories.

I'd like to pause right there and wind back the clock. Even a decade ago, this was so exceedingly rare as to be laughable. I had a friend who was a short story machine. He wrote three a week and he kept them in the mail until they sold--all of them. Some of those took three years and 20-30 submissions to sell. (Imagine the logistics of that: he produced ~150 stories per year and never let a rejection sit on his desk for more than a week (he had a weekly "mail everything" day), always launching it out to a new market. He got up to half a living with short fiction in an era when everyone agree that even that was impossible.

The present day, where we can sell directly to readers through Amazon, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, etc. has revolutionized that world.

However, let me clarify further, I make a third of my living with romance short stories. This actually is unheard of. I don't even have to wind back the clock. Present tense, there is one magazine for romance short stories: Heart's Kiss. 

So, imagine my surprise when my stories took off. Four years ago last winter, I'd sold a few to Fiction River Anthology Magazine and finally put one up for free on my website for a week just as a promo. And it started to sell. Sell! While it was free. When I took it off free, it really started to sell.

Total fluke, right?

So four years ago this month (I'm not the fastest learner), I tried another. Same thing. And another, and...

For four years now I have posted a free short story to my website on the 14th of every month, left it there for one week, and then watched it sell in wonder.

Now, there are some challenges here. If you don't read short stories, it will be much harder to write them. (Which was part of my excuse for years: "I only read novels so I only write novels.") However, when I finally thought to look at my bookshelf (which has been weeded through too many moves), I saw that many of the books I hung onto were short story collections. As a kid I inhaled short science fiction: Clarke, Asimov, Campbell, Hugo winners, Best of the Year, themed anthologies... I had spent the first decade or so of my reading life immersed in short fiction.

So, as a romance writer, I turned to find...an echoing desert. There were occasional anthologies of novellas, but not true short stories (5-12,000 words). Encouraged by my early success, I set out on a quest to learn to write short romance fiction.

A caveat: I'm a purist. Many people I've talked to about romantic short fiction say: "Getting a glimmer that they have a future together, that's enough." Or, "If I can get the meet cute to squeeze into a single story, that's a romance."

Nope! For me, a romance is only a romance when you get the full HEA. Probably the hopeful MGM musical romantic in me. It took a lot of practice to figure out how to get an HEA in a short story that also included the meet cute, but now it is one of my favorite forms.

Here's where it gets interesting! I started my short fiction in my military romance suspense series. I slowly learned how to move it over to my rapidly growing contemporary romance body of work. OR did I come to have a growing contemporary romance readership because I augmented it with short fiction? I strongly suspect the latter.

Now, finally, I'll take just the quickest peek ahead, which oddly enough is also a long look back. I love writing romantic suspense and contemporary romance and I don't ever see not writing them. But there's this love of science fiction that comes from all those years of wallowing in short stories. And I would love to build a science fiction readership to go along with my suspense and contemporary readership.

Therefore, I've started putting my foot back into SF as well. My fans have seen little blips of this in my few Future Night Stalkers stories. Now I'm going to do it in a regular way. Not free on my site, but instead collected with some of my favorite voices writing today in a quarterly anthology. Come on over, try it out. It's not all romance by any stretch (though I'll be shifting more and more SF rom in there as I learn how to write them), but it is some amazing reading!

JUST LAUNCHED: Boundary Shock Quarterly. #1, #2, #3

While you're at it, don't miss another of my romance short stories. Just subscribe to my newsletter to always get a reminder (and a free book too): http://free-book.mlbuchman.com/

M.L. Buchman started the first of over 50 novels and even more short stories while flying from South Korea to ride across the Australian Outback. All part of a solo around-the-world bicycle trip (a mid-life crisis on wheels) that ultimately launched his writing career.

Booklist has selected his military and firefighter series(es) as 3-time “Top 10 Romance of the Year.” NPR and Barnes & Noble have named other titles “Top 5 Romance of the Year.” In 2016 he was a finalist for RWA's RITA award.

He has flown and jumped out of airplanes, can single-hand a fifty-foot sailboat, and has designed and built two houses. In between writing, he also quilts. M.L. is constantly amazed at what can be done with a degree in geophysics. He also writes: contemporary romance, thrillers, and SF. More info at: www.mlbuchman.com.

Scent of the season

by Courtney Pierce

As I occasionally do, this month I’m giving our Romancing the Genres readers a piece from my collection of two-page stories. When I complete a hundred of them, I’ll publish these little ditties in a collection titled Is There an App for Life’s Third Act? – Short Stories for Baby Boomers in a Hurry. Yep, the title is excessive for extra-short stories, but that’s by design. As we boomers get older, I want to capture those moments that defined our youth, entry into adulthood, middle age, and finally our retirement with headwinds.

The change of season, especially from summer to fall, sparks memories triggered by aromas, like the sweet and savory blend of vegetable beef soup, the spiciness of chili bubbling on the stove, or the mouth-watering fragrance of cinnamon rolls puffing up in the oven. There are other triggers, too, even more powerful ones than food. Some scents ignite memories of first loves and desire. Ah, yes, the perfume that lingers in the fibers of that forgotten sweater in the drawer. This short story is one of those.

Scent

The first step into the perfume department of Nordstrom scrambled my memory like aromatic crossed wires. I had only one scent on my mind; the memory of a citrusy aroma. For the life of me I couldn’t remember the name, but its secrets were lingering in an old sweater that had been in my drawer for years. So much clung to that sweater that I could never get rid of it.

“Can I help you?” the saleswoman said from behind the counter. A variety of delectable

potions waited in glass bottles of sensual, curvy shapes. Dishes of coffee beans dotted the area to clear the olfactory palate.

With my wrist extended, a jet spray of something amber from an S-shaped bottle made my nose wrinkle. Too vanilla and sweet. Did the woman just ask me a question? “What? Oh . . . I hope so. I’m trying to find my youth.”

The sixtyish woman pursed her lip-sticky smoker’s lips, an odd shade of Bing cherry that had bled into the crevices. She tapped her matching acrylic nails on the glass case, which tinkled a small key attached to an orange rubberized wrist coil. “Never heard of it. But Youth Dew is right over here.” She moved down the case like a cougar stalking a bunny rabbit.

“No, no, no. A scent from my youth ―I was fifteen,” I said and dodged her clawed paw. “I can’t remember the name. I’ve been swimming in the memory of the fragrance for days. It’s driving me crazy.” I pointed to my temple and rolled my eyes.

“Give me a bitty hint.” The saleswoman studied me for an expensive sales clue.

I ignored her, but I caught a glimpse of myself in the oval mirror on a stand, someone I didn’t recognize. With sagging eyelids, my once-vivid blue eyes appeared tired. The peachy glow in my cheeks had been brushed on from a compact. Even my blond hair was a result of a combustible mixture concocted by a hairdresser. But at fifty-five, the aroma of a memory never faded. If I could just get a whiff, the years would roll back to the moment where I was young and fresh, my whole life ahead of me.

“Fresh, light and fruity,” I said. The memory whirled like an iced strawberry daiquiri. In the strobe of colored lights in the high school gym in 1976, I was beautiful as my lemony fresh eau de parfum swirled around me. The guy I had a crush on took my hand to dance. I’d never touched him before. His skin was softer than I expected as we slow danced to Lynrd Skynrd’s Freebird. In slow motion, the flickers of light animated his fingers against my clingy synthetic blouse.

“Do you want to Be Delicious?” the woman asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“Yes. . .” I whispered. A spritz of Donna Karan’s Be Delicious on a white strip waved in front of my nose. I closed my eyes. Crisp green apples, with undertones of savory herbs. “Nope. Nice try, though. Mine was lemony. Wrong fruit.”

The saleswoman nodded and gave me a knowing smile. “Guilty? It’s Gucci.” She released the words like a tickle session.

“Gotcha, but that’s not it.” I shook my head.

The woman moved to a new display. “Mmmm...how about this?”

A citrusy aromatic strip transported me to a Florida orchard with Jo Malone’s Nectarine. “Yes. Completely.” I widened my eyes. I’m close. Senses sparkled. “Begins with an S. Skin . . . Skinny . . .Skinny Dip!” I drummed my forefingers on the counter. “Thank God! I remembered the name!”

The saleswoman snorted a laugh. “Honey, that cheap drugstore cologne was discontinued forty years ago.” She snatched another tester bottle from the mirrored tray and pointed the nozzle at me. “I think Obsession is more your style.”

Loma Smith Photography

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her new family. She writes for baby boomers. By day, Courtney is an executive in the entertainment industry and uses her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor and mystery. She has studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, she is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers Pacific Northwest Writers Association, and She Writes. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal. 

Check out all of Courtney's books at:

courtney-pierce.com and windtreepress.com. Both print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com

The Dushane Sisters are back in Indigo Lake. More laughs, more tears...and more trouble. Protecting Mom's reputation might get the sisters killed―or give one of them the story she's been dying to live.

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."

Colorful characters come alive in Courtney's trilogy about the Dushane sisters. Beginning with The Executrix, three middle-age sisters find a manuscript for a murder mystery in their mother's safe after her death. Mom’s book gives them a whole new view of their mother and their future. Is it fiction . . . or truth? 

Get out the popcorn as the Dushane Sisters Trilogy comes to a scrumptious conclusion with Indigo Legacy. Due out in summer, 2017.

Covering the Cover

by Diana McCollum

I have been a part of two anthologies. The first was a collaboration with other Windtree Press authors. I wrote my story. It was edited by other authors. And I had no control over the cover or anything really but my story. One person handled each and some times more than one of the tasks in putting the anthology together.

In the anthology "Gifts from the Heart", released early January 2015, I wrote a very short story "Saved by the Ring". This story is based on a true story my father told me about. The incident took place during WWII. I updated it to a contemporary story.

I felt the book turned out great. I liked the cover. It's hard to please everyone, and the more authors involved the more differences there are of what would work and what wouldn't. So the fact that one person or maybe two were in charge of that aspect was great.

Fast forward a couple years and I had two short stories come out in the anthology "Love & Magick". All together there are six different short stories, from various genres, and by three different authors. There are historical, time travel, a grown up fairy tale, contemporary, western and paranormal.

In  the anthology, Love & Magick my first two short stories were published, "Ghost of a Chance" & "The Crystal Witch".

We all chimed in on what we wanted on the cover. When you think about it, covering all the different genres on one cover would be impossible.

Having three women with their own ideas, almost impossible.

Our cover went back to the cover artist half a dozen times until we finally settled on this one. And this last cover one of us didn't like the fact the lady looked like she was NOT wearing a swim suit.

Although, she could have been wearing a strapless bikini top. So it went back to the cover artist and Karen Duvall of Duvall Design photo shopped bathing suit ties around the ladies neck. A cover artist is an indispensable part of your publishing process. No matter who you hire, the money is well worth having a professional looking cover.

Our theme was romance and each story had some sort of magick in it. I believe our final cover suggests that.

The design of a book cover is so important since that is the first thing that grabs a reader to pick up your book and read the back copy/blurb and buy it. That initial emotional response, so important!

One thing you need to think about is the mood of your book. The colors, patterns, and type of lettering that resonates with your book theme.  "Love & Magick" I believe the cover mood shows mystery, magick and romance. The blues with the moon enhance the mood.

Another way is to check on the e-book outlets for covers in your genre. What is popular right now for suspense, historical, paranormal etc. You want your cover to stand out from the competition. Check out the covers of New York best sellers in your genre. Set up a file on your computer with all the covers you like. What is it that draws you to that cover? Then you have ideas to give your cover designer.

If you are creating your own book design it is better to go simple and sophisticated, rather than trying to cram too much on to the cover making it cluttered and too busy. If the reader's eye can't focus on the simple, she'll move on to another book. Fonts should be bold and clear for your title and your name. 

Always make sure you check your cover as a thumbnail size. Is the design show good as a thumbnail? Most people who buy online will see this thumbnail size first. You want your book to pop and show well in the small size.

Have you read books where you've wondered how on earth does the cover relate to the story?

When I write,  I weave elements of paranormal,  and fantasy into my stories. I always have a Happily Ever After, because I have to for my own satisfaction!  

My hope is that I am able to take you away from your everyday life for a journey that is both entertaining, and fun, and sometimes a little scary, then I've succeeded in my job as a writer.

To purchase click on links:
"Gifts of the Heart" by Windtree Press Authors
"Love & Magick" by Judith Ashley, Diana McCollum & Sarah Raplee

http://dianamccollum.weebly.com/books.html
http://bit.ly/2nld4AC  (visit my author page on Facebook)
@Dianasuemcc   Follow me on twitter

Anthology: A Taste of Romance from Australia

Becoming a member of the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild (MRWG) in 2012 was a life changing decision. My goal was to improve my writing craft and make new friends, but by the end of that first meeting, writing had transformed from a hobby to a full blown career aspiration. 

MRWG Members—ranging from novice writers to multi-published award-winning authors—were welcoming and extremely generous with their writing and publishing knowledge. I didn't realize at the time, but I'd found 'my tribe'—an amazing group of women who not only support and motivate each other throughout their writing careers, but women who have become true friends. 

In 2015 MRWG celebrated its 25th Anniversary with the release of the Sweet & Spicy short story anthology. Our second anthology, Taste of Romance, was released on Valentine's Day 2017. I’m extremely proud that my story, Love Interrupted, is included in this anthology of wonderful Australian authors.

A TASTE OF ROMANCE

The heat rating for all 16 stories range from white-chocolate-sweetness to dark-chili-ooh-la-la so there's something for everyone in this delightful collection. All stories are short enough to enjoy whenever you get ten minutes in your busy day, or you may want to stop whatever you're doing to read them all. Or maybe you’d prefer to save your reading for a quiet evening of splendid men, and a glass of wine.

Love is a box of chocolates – treat yourself to a delicious assortment of sixteen romance flavors from new and established authors. 

Firefighter Ryan Harper is a dark chocolate-coated orange cream. His rich, bitter shell hides a sweet and sumptuous center that satisfies long after the final bite. 

Detective Colt Callaghan is chili-cherry swirl in decadent milk chocolate. He hides behind a gruff exterior, but underneath he’s sexy and sweet, with a shock of spice when you least expect it. 

Space Engineer Simon Dubois is a handmade truffle. Decadent and Indulgent. Dark chocolate caressing a ganache infused with earthy, sensuous Armagnac, and sweet succulent smoked pimento. A fusion of flavor, a frisson of pleasure. 

Taste of Romance is a collection of love stories and romance fiction from members of the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild. The anthology spans many facets of romance, from contemporary to historical, romcom to suspense, with heat levels ranging from sweet to erotic. These works are a celebration of the past 26 years of encouragement and support the Guild has given to romance authors as they journey toward publication and beyond. 

Amazon US

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N115NAM

Amazon Australia

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B01N115NAM

Lauren James is a country girl at heart. Raised on a small property surrounded by animals, it's no surprise she writes small town romance with lots of love for creatures great and small.

Having failed fabulously at painting, sewing and playing guitar, she finally found her creative outlet in writing strong, quirky heroines, and tough, handsome heroes with gooey animal-loving centers.

Lauren lives on the outskirts of Melbourne, Australia, with her beloved rescue greyhound, Daisy.

You can contact Lauren via her website, Facebook or Twitter.

Pulled in a Different Direction

by Diana McCollum

In 2010, or there about, I had two stories I was developing plots for, and writing, a historical romance and a contemporary romantic suspense. Working a full time job with a round trip commute of two to three hours a day left me too tired at the end of the work day to write. So my writing time was on the weekends.

This made for slow going for me, anyway. My husband was working out of town and only home on the weekends, so that was our honey time.

During this same time frame I started posting once a month on this blog and every couple months on the free short story blog Judith Ashley and Sarah Raplee used to run.

I found I enjoyed writing short stories. They were really short stories of 1,200 to 2,000 words each.

Feeling quite depressed one day, I complained to Sarah about the slow progress I was making with my historical and suspense stories.

She had an idea!

Judith and Sarah had been discussing self-publishing an anthology of short stories. Sarah asked me if I would be interested in writing two short stories to be included in the anthology. I said, “Hot, doggie! Sure I would.”

I knocked out two short paranormal stories, around 20,000 words each. And guess what I discovered? I enjoyed writing paranormal romance! My two stories, “Ghost of a Chance” and “The Crystal Witch” were fun to write. 

Along the way, I learned a lot about editing (hired an editor), choosing art for a book cover and working with a designer, I learned how to use Jutoh a publishing program, and create space for print books, and marketing etc.  And at the end of the learning curve was our anthology, "Love & Magick".  

It has been one great learning experience. Not at all the road I thought I was traveling on.

I now have a spin off novella, “The Witch with the TridentTattoo”, featuring one of the characters from “The Crystal Witch”.

I never would have guessed my first published book would be an anthology. But that’s the path I landed on.

The historical romance and romantic suspense I was working on? They are filed in a doc on my computer. Someday I’ll get back to work on them. Right now I’m having too much fun writing the “Twilight Witch”, the next story in the Coastal Coven series.

Have you started down one path, only to find you end up on another path

altogether?

Mary Kay Cadillac

By Courtney Pierce

As many of you know, I'm writing a collection of two-page stories titled Is There an App for Life's Third Act. These tales are quick moments, a slice of life for baby boomers. This one happens to be a true one. Happy Holidays, everyone!

 Mary Kay Cadillac

“Driving in Houston is an adventure,” I muttered, inching my Honda into the turn lane on San Felipe Drive. Acceptance of my work transfer to this city required keen denial skills about the heat, bugs, traffic, and the immeasurable wealth flashed in fancy cars. So I wasn’t surprised when a long pink Cadillac pulled next to me like a docking cruise ship. The elderly woman behind the wheel rolled down the window and shook her freshly polished, pink-tipped finger in my direction to cut in line. A turn signal would have been nice for a hint of politeness. With traffic at a stand still, I waved and smiled, seething behind oversize black sunglasses. The enormous pear-shaped diamond on the woman’s bony hand flashed a warning shot in the five o’clock sunlight. Don’t mess with her. Let her in. She was older, richer, and had a fat bumper.

I gawked at the car and sat up straight. “I’ll be damned. A Mary Kay Cadillac.” It must have been one of the originals from the sixties. This changed the game. The Pepto Bismol paint job was pristine; hand-buffed weekly, no doubt. The back fins could have sliced a tuna into sushi, and the stacked tail lights resembled pump-up water rockets.

I let the Cadillac ease in front of me to get a better view inside. Plus, she was old—not sixtyish old but ninetyish old. Being nice was defined by example.

Waiting through yet another light change, I stared through the back window; the driver’s snow-white hair had been teased into a shellacked wave cantilevered to the left. Her doo barely moved when she gestured to her passenger, another elderly woman who sported a white curly pageboy and a diamond choker. They gabbed non-stop as the signal finally turned green. 

Our cars became magnetized. I followed the women at ten miles per hour. The pink rocket ship glided on white-walled tires like four doughy Krispy Kremes. She turned left—with no signal—into River Oaks, one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the country, home to diplomats, energy tycoons, and good ole oil boys. An extra ten rooms defined the fine line between beautiful and heinous homes on this street. Time for a detour.

I pulled to the curb when the Cadillac stopped in front of two arched, wrought-iron gates with a scrolled W in the center. They parted to become frilly Vs with a low, motorized hum. My mouth popped at the Georgian mansion holding court on the other side.

“Oh....my....God! Classic!” I lowered the window for better clarity. Wet heat, with a hint of bayou, blasted my face. I shut off the engine, transfixed.

Two puffy feet squished into sling-back pumps stepped out of the driver’s side. A boutique gift bag and pink patent leather purse dangled from the woman’s arm. A suited black man appeared out of nowhere and replaced her in the seat. She handed him the keys. The hump under the woman’s vintage Chanel suit compromised her stooped trek to the passenger side. She opened the heavy door and snapped her fingers, jingling her crowded charm bracelet. Out jumped a coiffed standard poodle, its diamond-studded collar sparkling like a circle of fireworks. The white ball on the end of the dog’s tail might have guided me through “This Land is Your Land” on Sing-Along-With-Mitch.

“A dog?”

I took that same route home from work for the next twelve years, but never spotted the Mary Kay Cadillac or the priceless pair again.

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Milwaukie, Oregon, with her bossy cat. She writes for baby boomers. By day, Courtney is an executive in the entertainment industry and uses her time in a theater seat to create stories that are filled with heart, humor and mystery. She has studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. Active in the writing community, she is a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association and on the Advisory Council of the Independent Publishing Resource Center. She is a member of Willamette Writers, Pacific Northwest Writers Association, She Writes, and Sisters in Crime. The Executrix received the Library Journal Self-E recommendation seal. 

Check out all of Courtney's books at:

courtney-pierce.com and windtreepress.com. Both print and E-books are available through most major online retailers, including Amazon.com

 

The Dushane Sisters are back in Indigo Lake. More laughs, more tears...and more trouble. Protecting Mom's reputation might get the sisters killed―or give one of them the story she's been dying to live.

New York Times best-selling author Karen Karbo says, "Courtney Pierce spins a madcap tale of family grudges, sisterly love, unexpected romance, mysterious mobsters and dog love. Reading Indigo Lake is like drinking champagne with a chaser of Mountain Dew. Pure Delight."

Colorful characters come alive in Courtney's trilogy about the Dushane sisters. Beginning with The Executrix, three middle-age sisters find a manuscript for a murder mystery in their mother's safe after her death. Mom’s book gives them a whole new view of their mother and their future. Is it fiction . . . or truth? 

Get out the popcorn as the Dushane Sisters Trilogy comes to a scrumptious conclusion with Indigo Legacy. Due out in early 2017.

Little Blue Pill by Courtney Pierce

I write for baby boomers, and I like to challenge myself with short stories about the experience—really short stories. Most are only two pages and encompass moments in time about aging and still being young. Wisdom meets Peter Pan Syndrome. Some stories are humorous; others are poignant with a touch of heart. My goal is to write 100 of these stories to publish in a collection. As a summer treat, I’m pleased to share one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it.

THE LITTLE BLUE PILL

Drudgy tasks get divvied up in a thirty-six-year marriage. On Sunday nights, one of mine is to dish out the vitamins for the week. Supplements hold the promise of whistle-clean arteries, lubed joints, soft skin, and shiny coats. Omegas are added to the array of acids, enzymes, and fiber, and topped with a chaser of prescriptions―a tiny cholesterol pill for me; a blue prostate pill that ends in “ide” for my husband. The blue pill identified whose is whose. But one particular week stood out from the rest.

Photo: Digitalart

Like all Monday mornings, the forty-minute routine started: coffee, toast with a flap of turkey, and a round of vitamins before getting ready for work. I headed upstairs for my shower while my husband read the paper. I jumped when the glass door slid open. He climbed in with me.

“Want me to wash your back?” he asked. He started kissing my neck. Now, there were three of us lathered up in the shower stall. Even his voice sounded smooth and slippery in the aroma of hibiscus flower body wash. Did I send out a rush of hibernating pheromones when I buttered the toast?

“We’ll be late,” I cooed. The dark lashes around his dreamy brown eyes dripped with water. My hands followed the cascade of soap over his lean torso.

He whispered in my wet ear, “Who cares? This is a good way to start the day.”

I breezed into work twenty minutes late, not sure if my internal glow radiated the words pole dancer on my forehead. I agreed with everything my staff asked of me for the entire day, reveling in the fact I still had it all goin’ on after so many years. Hot flashes could stay in hell; my man was a stud.

A repeat of our morning frolic unfolded on Tuesday, and again on Wednesday. With the bed left unmade and our sweats strewn on the floor, we rushed out the door laughing about being late. By Thursday, coming off my fourth glow-round, curiosity niggled under the hickey on my neck. This was so out of the blue.

Blue.

I checked the cabinet over the coffee pot after my husband left the house. I sucked in a breath. The bottle of “ide” pills sat right next to the Viagra, both the same shape and color: oblong and robin’s-egg blue. I put on my cheater glasses and inspected the contents for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

“Holy Shamoly!” I said aloud. I had, indeed, doled out Viagra in my husband’s vitamins. Should I switch them out? Confess? An innocent mistake, but this was fun. Anticipation of scooting the sheets eclipsed my guilt. Fix it on Sunday.

The deception nagged at me all day at work. Tomorrow’s romp wouldn’t be as enjoyable if instigated by a pill and not my irresistible charm. I might as well have been a blow-up doll. What started as an accident had become something underhanded. I needed to come clean. Honesty over honey thighs. This was akin to date rape. I’d worked myself into the wrong kind of lather.

The rumble of the garage door sent me into a busy frenzy with an extra wash of my hands. Would he be upset? Think the gaffe funny? A gamble, for sure, but I threw the dice. I poured two glasses of red wine.

My stud muffin came through the door and loosened his tie. He set his briefcase on the kitchen island and greeted me with a deep kiss. I handed him a goblet and gazed into his puppy-dogs. My fingers raked through his soft salt-and-pepper hair. Truly irresistible.

“I have a confession.”

“What?” He took a swallow of wine. “Did you buy something crazy?”

“No. I did something crazy. I accidentally put Viagra in your vitamins last Sunday instead of that “ide” pill. They’re both blue.”

He grinned. “I know. I switched them out on Monday night.”

Courtney Pierce is a fiction writer living in Oregon with her husband of thirty-six years and bossy cat. She enjoys writing for baby boomers. Her novels are filled with heart, humor, and mystery. Courtney has studied craft and storytelling at the Attic Institute and has completed the Hawthorne Fellows Program for writing and publishing. She is also a board member of the Northwest Independent Writers Association.

Colorful characters come alive in Courtney's latest novel, The Executrix. When three middle-aged sisters come together after the death of their mother, the manuscript for a murder mystery they find in the safe will change their lives. Is it truth? Or fiction? Sibling blood must be thicker than baggage while Mom becomes larger in death than she was in life.

Visit Courtney's website at www.courtney-pierce.com. Her books can be purchased at Windtree Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo Books, and at several independent bookstores in the Portland area.

How Not To Write A Short Story

by Wendy Clark

Thank you for joining me! Today I celebrate the half-year anniversary of my short story debut, “Fatty Patty.” It’s about a now thin girl who returns to her five-year high school reunion to get revenge on the classmates who tortured her and on the boy who broke her heart. As the first in my soon-to-be released anthology of San Juan Island Stories, it’s currently free on Amazon, BN, Google Play, and Smashwords. Check it out!

I used to think I couldn’t write short. Like the 7-minute mile and two-finger whistle, short stories were utterly beyond me. They belonged to Mark Twain, Eudora Welty, and other masters filling my English syllabi. I couldn’t make anyone laugh or sigh in a few sentences no matter how desperately I tried.

Every time I penned a simple boy-meets-girl story, the girl morphed into a supermodel astrophysicist and the boy revealed himself as a time-traveler out to steal her results , and to save the future from Nazis, they decided to start a rock band…wait, what happened to my simple sweet romance?

About that time I realized my true problem.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t write a short story.

It turns out I couldn’t write a novel either.

After abandoning several epics that would make Gilgamesh nervous about his word count, I started examining the short stories I loved. One of my favorite manga (Japanese comics) begins with a man gazing on his sleeping love as he murmurs, “My relationship…I’ve decided to end it today.”

 

The entire story – how they met, how they misunderstood, how they persevered anyway, how they overcame the misunderstanding – is told in a mere 30 pages, most of it long image shots of Tokyo, and with a minimum of dialogue. It’s gorgeous, compelling, and most importantly, it has a happy ending I can believe in.

Thanks to studying this and other examples, I became hooked on retelling short romantic stories. Because the most painful experience of first love I can remember is high school, I gave my characters their second chances during a high school reunion.

At about the same time I righted my writing wrongs, two monumental events shifted my life:

After 12 years of planning, my boyfriend convinced me to stop putting off my travel dreams and scheduled a fantastic trip to the gorgeous San Juan Islands. We kayaked, spotted bald eagles, explored hand-crafted pottery, savored pine rum chocolates, and slept in a cabin made from the shell of an old boat. This became the setting for my San Juan Island Stories.

Second, I ran my first race. I ran less than five miles and finished in six thousandth place (#6190 actually). A few months later, after the release of my third short story, I ran over six miles and finished twenty percent faster. I’m not at a 7-minute mile. (Yet.) But I thought I couldn’t write a short story, either.

Maybe it’s time to practice my two-finger whistle.

How about you? What impossible task amazed you when you finally conquered it? Or what impossibility lies ahead, just waiting to be conquered?

BIO

Wendy Lynn Clark is an award-winning author of romance, young adult, and science fiction. Her San Juan Island Stories are light, sweet romances perfect for a Pacific Northwest summer day. Sign up for free stories and exclusive updates at http://www.wendylynnclark.com/.