Overcoming Stereotypes & Fulfilling a Dream

A Guest Post by Donna Del Oro 

I’ll never forget my last English department meeting. Several of us were retiring that June and at the May meeting, our department chair asked us what we planned to do in retirement. The replies ran the gamut from the usual (“I’d like to travel more” and “I’m going to spend more time with my grandchildren”) to the unusual (“I’d like to start a second career” and “I’m going to write a novel and get published”). The last reply was mine and our department chair’s response was to laugh and say, “You’re too old to start a writing career.” Well, I never liked the woman, anyway, so I wasn’t surprised or too offended. This was typical of her. And she had no idea that inside, there lurked a thirty-something, kick-ass redhead who always liked a challenge. At the meeting, a colleague of mine took umbrage, puffed out her chest and said, “Well, why not?”

I wondered about the old stereotypes about retired people. Most media images showed senior citizens rocking on their porches with their grandchildren or volunteering at local libraries and food kitchens. Nothing wrong with any of that, of course, but I’d always had a longing to be more creative and produce a product beyond my weekly lesson plans. The urge to create was strong and I’d often read books and thought, “I could write a story just as good or even better than this one. At least, I wanted to try.

By the time I got home that day, I was asking myself, “Yeah, why the hell not?” We come through this lifetime—from all empirical evidence, anyway—only once. Each day is a gift and should not be wasted. Each and every one of us has some kind of creative urge or talent. I’d been raised to believe that one should never say, “I can’t”, but instead should always approach a seemingly impossibility with, “How can I?” From the day I walked out of my high school for the last time as an educator in 2003, I was asking myself, “How can I?” How can I learn to become a good writer, learn the current cinematic style of writing popular fiction—my perceived route to publication—and how can I get published?

Books on writing fiction, many meetings of the Valleyrose chapter of the RWA, many rejections and many critique sessions later—four years worth—a publisher offered me a contract for my first completed (and many times revised) manuscript. My women’s fiction novel, OPERATION FAMILIA, saw the light of publication into print form and three years later, won an award for Second Prize in the Romantic Comedy category of Latino Books into Movies Award, sponsored by Latino Literacy Now (an organization founded by Edward James Olmos, the actor, writer and producer). The judges were people in the Hollywood film industry. That book was only the beginning. 

So if anyone ever laughs and says, “You can’t,” always think, “Oh yeah, how can I?” or “Why the hell not?” After that, the journey is, well, maybe not easy but certainly possible. Overcoming society’s stereotypes of age, gender, socioeconomic circumstances, birth, race, and education is a challenge but definitely do-able. These stereotypes are a nuisance, irritating background noise, and must be ignored. Turn a deaf ear and listen to your own voice, saying “Why the hell not?” It’s the only voice that matters.

A BODYGUARD OF LIES (released Jan. 13th) has a dual setting, a contemporary one and a WWII/London setting. It's a blend of romance, mystery and WWII espionage. I researched it while in England, Ireland and Germany in 2009. The story involves a Jewish-American FBI analyst, who's recruited by MI-5 to go undercover and investigate a naturalized American grandmother. The elderly woman is suspected by MI-5 of being a notorious Nazi spy never caught by the Allies during the war, who caused the deaths of thousands and is wanted for war crimes. Jake Bernstein runs into a series of unexpected obstacles and complications: This spy knows a secret that could endanger the royal family; the old woman has a beautiful granddaughter who threatens to derail his investigation; a neo-Nazi group in Ireland known as the Celtic Wolves; and a clever, cagey old woman who's not as weak as she looks.

Donna Del Oro spent her childhood in two places, Silicon Valley, CA and the countryside of East Texas, as her father tried several job opportunities. Finally settling in Silicon Valley, she grew up in a bilingual, bicultural world--Spanish on her mother's side and English on her father's. Comfortable in both worlds, she decided upon retiring from teaching to write about her Hispanic side. Four women's fiction books resulted and a series about professional singers, their careers and love lives. Retired and devoting much of her abundant free time to exercise, writing, singing and her grandson, Donna has finally reached a point in life that totally satisfies her. Life is good and she has no complaints, just a lot of gratitude for her many blessings.

Donna's Website

April was Busy. May... Well, May May Be Hell

Well, folks, I guess I slipped in my promise to post more regularly. Believe me, I thought about it several times, from under the pile of marking that trapped me. However, Winter Term 2012 has been successfully put to bed.

That's the good news.

Now, the bad news...

In May and June, I am teaching an intensive course that is compressed into six weeks, and today I got a call from another department that is stranded and looking for a prof for another one. So, yeah, I might not be back into the blogging swing as much as I'd like for a while yet, especially considering I am expecting second round edits for Textbook Romance at any minute.

I also turn a whole year older on May 17, so cut me some slack for infirmity.

And, I must admit, I have discovered a trove of 21 Jump Street episodes on YouTube, which was not very good for inspiring hard work in my "leisure moments," I can say, honestly.

Oh well - I shall soldier on!

I hope everyone's having a wonderful spring, and the humidity isn't killing you yet.

Character Interview: Gawain – of the Vampires

Today, Elise Wyles gives us a chat with her character, Gawain of the Vampires.

What’s your favorite food(s)? (Isn’t limited to humans – if you write paranormal can be anything you want it to be.)

Food? Why I don’t imbibe food of the earth. Frankly its revolting, tasteless, and as appealing going in as out. Now a nice, warm, cup of the sweetest blood? Oh yes, that’s simply divine. Of course, the sweetest is from the veins of my chosen one.

Who was your first boyfriend/girlfriend and how old were you when you met?

My first was Bede of the Woods. I was eight hundred and twenty one years old.

How long have you worked at your current job?

Since I was one hundred and sixty five years old. It was my calling, my life until I met Bede who has become my life.

What’s your greatest pet peeve with your Mother/Father? Why?

Pet peeve with my parents? What in the Stylox…oh yes, I see it’s a human custom isn’t it? Well, there were no issues with my parents growing up. Mother and father have both been kind to me. They took pride in all I did and still do.

If you could meet anyone living or dead who would it be and why?

Bede’s father – I’ve the desire to rip out his throat with my claws and stomp on his beating heart for the treachery and brutality to Bede and her young sister.

Who’s your favorite artist, singer, etc.?

I do so love the songs of Selene – lullabies sung to the young for generations. They’re calming, soothing and fill one with the hope of life.

Name two things about Bede you’d change and tell us why?

Two things…hmmm. Well, firstly I’d change her desire to constantly nag. I swear the woman hasn’t stopped nagging me about going back to Amuliana’s realm since she discovered my minor falsehood weeks past. I always keep my word and having her worrying and fussing is frustrating.

Her pesky habit of helping those who are undeserving of her kindness. She has been talking to the Queens, seems she’s feeling the urge to nest and since she has not grown into her immortality enough to reproduce an offspring of our own – she’s taken in every child with a wing, a fang, a claw…all while using her wiles to keep me distracted.

The Forsaken Series

By Elise Whyles and Ciara Lake

Series Overview:

Among us walk immortal beings – cursed to hide within the shadows they live along side us as they have for centuries. Using, feeding, living off the mortals so reviled for their weakness – yet there are some who will be awakened and immortality will be given.

Now, an ancient evil stirs – rising to threaten not only the Immortal Realms but the mortal world. A cursed vampire General stirs, plotting his revenge on those who have forsaken him…but he’s forgotten about the innocent, who like him have been punished.

There are those who are Forsaken.

It could be anyone among us…

Series Website   
Elise Whyles Facebook   Ciara Lake Facebook

The first book, Forsaken Heart by Elise Whyles is set to release in April 2012. The second book Curse of a Dargon’s Claim  by Ciara Lake will release shortly after

New Release: Nardi Point by Nancy LaPonzina

Nancy LaPonzina tells us about her new release, Nardi Point, available April 17 from Rebel Ink on Amazon and other ebook retailers.

When a story appears that's shaped around reality that always doubles my interest level! I suppose because I like to learn a little something with a good book. Nardi Point is such a story. Set in Raleigh, North Carolina, listed in recent magazines as a city ranked in the top ten places to live in the United States, this women's fiction follows a successful Information Technology couple and their pursuit of a home and family.

Should the past make way for the present...

Stylish, brunette Laurinda Elliot is the type of accomplished business woman glossy magazines feature on their covers. Effectively managing a software product development team in Raleigh, North Carolina, Laurinda's drive and savvy delivers all the perks: an upscale townhouse, Porsche Boxer convertible and designer clothing. Yet she now yearns for a different success—one that brings surprising first time experience with vulnerability. Her uber software code developer partner Dan Riser, can't buy into the new direction she leads them, but goes along to keep the peace, and more importantly, beautiful Laurinda.

Or the present make way for the past—and love...

When prehistoric Native American pottery artifacts are discovered on the couple's North Raleigh building site in the Nardi Point subdivision, the ancient past collides with the present and Laurinda and Dan's relationship hangs in the balance. Laurinda must trump construction economics and greed to preserve commitment to her dream, uphold her friendship with holistic healing practitioner, Leyla Jo Piper, and answer to a new romance, all while attempting to conserve North Carolina history. Will digging up the past, bury her future? Nardi Point explores the thread of life that blends past, current, and future to recognize the importance of knowing who we are in the story of life.

You can't make this stuff up! Artifacts, both historic and prehistoric have been discovered in the Piedmont region, up around Falls Lake, north of Raleigh. Early Native Americans some 10,000 years ago followed trade routes that purposely led along the Neuse River to hunt and fish. This is particularly amazing since the Egyptian pyramids are only some 3,000 years old. They migrated to coincide to when fish heavily populated the river, then caught and processed the fish to store and trade. Some 41 sites around the lake were identified for archaeological exploration. And indeed, Prehistoric pottery sherds, pounding/scraping implements, and other primitive tools were unearthed.

The importance of carefully retrieving ancient artifacts from the earth has all to do with carefully examining where the artifact was found, and with what surrounded or accompanied the artifact. It's called provenience, or context. Archaeologists can determine for what the object might have been used if it's found near charred wood, for instance. Perhaps it was a cooking vessel or tool. In the case of irresponsible artifact hounds, or potstealers, the items are pulled from the earth, sometimes by large backhoes. This indiscriminate removal completely destroys any context for how or why an artifact was used–forever. There is no going back.

Laurinda Elliot faces the dilemma of her personal dream to build a home and start a family, securing her relationship with Dan, against the builder's greed to just build right over the artifacts discovered. This spring, Spike TV plans to air a reality series called American Digger. The American Savage team plunders archaeological resources across America. The cash they get from selling the artifacts to buyers and collectors is divided between the landowner and the team. Laurinda, with Leyla Jo, must confront this mentality and recognize their role in the human story of life — Nardi Point.

Find Nancy LaPonzina at:
Blog
Facebook
Twitter: @NancyLaPonzina
Or email her at: oywriter@embarqmail.com

Socially Conscious Blogging

In order to put my corner of the internet to better use, I would like to open this blog up to any blogger with a cause!

If you have an ongoing passion about something - awareness, advocacy, fundraising, etc - for animal welfare, equality/oppression issues, children's advocacy, author rights, non-profits, diversity topics, social justice concerns, missing persons, etc, I'd love to offer you a guest spot on my blog.

I am also taking volunteers for "regular" guest shots and interviews for the summer months.

It's not the biggest blog on the block, but it does get hits, and it gets fed/shared to a few bigger sites and my social media.

Email me at anneholly2010 at gmail.com, and we'll make it happen.

(Disclaimer: I don't have to agree with everything you say, and I am not adverse to a little controversy, but I naturally reserve the right to turn down submissions that make me ridiculously angry... i.e., no KKK sermons, please. I'd also like to avoid straight-up partisan politics, as well, and stick to the ethical/practical justice questions behind the issues. Open globally.)

Why I Write Romance

A Guest Post by Christine Warner, author of Some Like it in Handcuffs

I actually was doing my daily blog round the other day and came across this question when another author was being interviewed:

Why do you write romance?  Why not another genre?

Such simple questions, but they stopped me in my reading tracks and I had to ponder the questions myself.

I started reading romance at a pretty young age.  My sister and the two neighbor girls came across a bag of Harlequin romances.  I don’t remember how, if they belonged to their mother, our mother, or we picked them up at a neighborhood garage sale, or maybe their grandmother or ours tossed ‘em our way.  That’s neither here nor there, the point is that summer we received a wrinkled, brown paper bag of books and we devoured them.  

We’d sit outside on the trampoline and read passages aloud to each other until the light faded from the sky.  We’d read them alone, on rainy days, before bed, in between swims in the pool.  That summer opened up a whole new world to me.  

I discovered The Happily Ever After and I was in LOVE!!!

I became an addict, a junkie to that tingly feeling in the pit of my stomach as I neared the end of the book.  All the conflict and challenges and questions answered.  I flipped the pages faster and faster until I finally understood why the hero did what he did, said what he said, or the moment I got why the heroine took the blame or refused to speak up to justify something she said or did.  The situations were so emotional.  I had tears in my eyes several times, a lump in my throat, anger burning in my chest for the injustice suffered, the misunderstandings and the near misses of discovering love.

Then I’d rip through the pages, dying to see how they resolved their dilemmas and would reach that pivotal scene.  In the final chapter all was explained and a sigh of relief escaped.  That gooey shiver of happiness as the hero and heroine came together, confessed their love and the world’s axis tilted to the correct angle.  

Sometimes that feeling stayed for hours, days, weeks…until another spine in a different book was broken and I got the chance to fall in love with a new adventure in romance.

I LOVE that happiness.  And I write romance because I want to share those feelings with readers.
*

Sunny Kennedy, the only female in a family of blue blood male detectives, is determined to prove testosterone isn’t the only qualification required to solve a cold case. Handcuffed while undercover then taken to the precinct by an attractive detective, her domineering family demands she work with Detective Judson Blackwolf, or she’s off the case.

Judson Blackwolf thinks women in law enforcement should work behind the scenes. The prospect of working with his Captain’s sexy daughter doesn’t thrill him. He only agrees in hopes of solving the murder of his one time mentor’s daughter. Once the case is over, he’s moving to Montana to heal his wounds from the loss of his last partner.

But when their investigation takes a dangerous turn, Sunny and Jud soon realize their feelings for each other cannot be denied.

Find the ebook at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and at the Wild Rose Press.

Learn more about Christine at:
Twitter
Facebook
http://christine-warner.com/

Interview with Author Vera Jane Cook

How did you get into writing?

I started keeping a diary when I was very young. I couldn’t imagine going a day without writing in it. I also became an avid reader at an early age. I particularly loved Victorian novels and poetry. I think that’s what gave me a real love of the English language.

What's the earliest story you can remember writing?

I wrote a story about a bear in the first grade. I remember that my teacher loved it. She told me I should be a writer but I had no connection to that at the time. For most of my young life, I wanted to be an actress

When did you decide to make the move to "published"?

When someone read my first book and cried and just loved it, I decided I might just have something to say. I spent years sending my work to publishers and agents. It finally clicked.

How did you find the experience of seeking a publisher?

It was just awful. That’s why my first published novel, Dancing Backward in Paradise, was self published through iuniverse.

What did it feel like when the acceptance notice came?

I was stunned, then I was most grateful.

What inspired you to write the current release?

I love the supernatural. Many of my favorite books are written by Anne Rice. I love being able to be absurd and to create characters from another time. I love these larger than life, these philosophical characters that are at once frightening and endearing.

What books have most influenced your life most?

There are so many but to name but a few that came from my early love of writing I would have to say: Cheri and the last of Cheri, The Picture of Dorian Grey, The Brother’s Karamazov, War and Peace, Gone With the Wind, Sons and Lovers, The Red and the Black, Wuthering Heights, etc., oh etc., etc..

What book are you reading now?

All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreeve

What are your current projects?

I’m writing another southern novel and it’s the most sexual book I think I’ve written. I’m trying to show how love is a part of that, love and need, and finally, obligation.

Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?

I learned how much I love writing, and how interested, even fascinated, I am in spirituality. My characters fight between good and evil and they come to see that you can’t really separate them the good from the bad, that life is all opposites, that in good there is evil and vice versa. In this world we can only make a choice. I love to study religion. Annabel Horton is very religious. She believes in God though she has not seen God anywhere but in the eyes of the devil.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

Don’t ever give up. Be absolutely focused on what you need to get your novel done. Don’t compromise.

How important is the support and friendship of other writers?

You need other writers. They can be tremendously helpful and supportive. You need to know you’re not alone, that others are having it just as hard as you, have achieved as much as you. You can get honest feedback, shared information and sometimes, you can even help another author through blogs, advice, agents, etc.

How does your family feel about your writing career?

I couldn’t ask for more support.