Today I welcome author Karen Ann, to discuss her new release from Martin Sisters Press, Of Blood and Lions. Full disclosure: I had the privilege of working with Karen on the first edit of this wonderfully realized fantasy.
Take it away, Karen!

What is Of Blood and Lions about?

        Of Blood and Lions is the story of Katherine Chambers, who becomes involved in an ancient sibling rivalry between nearly-immortal Assyrian warriors. While hiking near her small hometown in Massachusetts, she is injured in a skirmish between a demon of the enemy and the lion-human hybrids who possess supernatural powers.The only way to save her life is the elixir from the lion Issy, mentor to the hybrids. The only way to administer the elixir is through the lion’s bite. During the following year, Katherine and her husband wrestle with the changes that Katherine goes through as she transforms into one of the lion-hybrids. Throughout the story Katherine desperately struggles to hold on to her human life while dealing with her new abilities. Katherine and her human family become victims of Reggie, the sick and twisted brother of the hybrids, who is determined to get revenge on Issy whom he blames for losing his kingdom two thousand years earlier. Of Blood and Lions is the story of love lost and found and the heart-wrenching tale of one woman coming to terms with the important matters in life.

 

Every story has a beginning, usually in some unexpected place. How did this project get started?

       It all began in 2008 on a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to see the “Art and Assyria” exhibit. While at the exhibit I came across an ancient carving titled “The Lioness and the African.” The ancient carving captivated my attention and my heart. I loved the sensual way in which the lioness held the man with her paws as if to kiss rather than kill him. I purchased a postcard size picture of the carving and for the next two years the story of the lion and the man took shape in my head.

 

Despite all the books purporting to teach "how to write," every writer does it differently. What is your writing process? How do you find time? Are you a pantser or an outliner?

      I’m a scientist by trade and my work requires that I write many technical reports. By nature scientific reports are very structured and always begin with an outline thus it might be surprising to learn that my fiction writing style is somewhat chaotic.  I realized early on in my writing Of Blood and Lions that I didn’t have to be as rigid and deliberate as I am at work. I can let my mind and my writing wander in several directions until the correct course becomes clear. Book One began with the beginning and the end. I filled in the middle as I went along. Even though I don’t work every day on my manuscript, I am always writing in the back of my mind. I imagine that this is probably the case with most writers. I have a notebook in the car, at work, and in my purse to write down ideas as they come to me.  

 

I think every writer lives in fear of losing ideas, so we stash notebooks and recorders everywhere. I keep a lighted pen and pad on my nightstand.  Tell about your writing background. Have you written other stories in the past?

     This is my first fiction novel. I have worked in the medical device industry for 35 years and have authored and co-authored several papers during my tenure.

 

There is something magical about that first story. Like a first child, it remains special forever. What was it like to get published?

     Getting published has been the most interesting and fun project ever! When I first began writing my story it was difficult to look far ahead and to imagine even seeing my book in a book store. I still smile every time I think back to the day the e-mail came from Martin Sisters Publishing telling me they were interested in my novel. I had to read the e-mail ten times before the reality of what they were telling me set in.  In the process I have met many other writers and made many new friends. I’m an introvert and don’t spend much time socializing, so this experience has really helped to pull me out of my shell. 

     The main character Of Blood and Lions scowls constantly at the idea of fate directing her course, but for me it is something I see in my life all the time. For instance, the day I happened to meet you, Nikki, at the Townsend Fair and hired you as my editor. It was your help and encouragement that gave me the push to get my novel published.

 

It was a pleasure, and I'm so happy to see you taking off on this new adventure. What is the Big Cat Project? How did you get involved in that?

     National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative is a comprehensive program that supports on-the-ground conservation projects, education, and economic incentive efforts and a global public-awareness campaign.  The first step in the program is to halt the decline of lions and cheetahs that are dying off rapidly across Africa. These cats once ranged across the African continent and into Syria, Israel, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, and even northwest India. Two thousand years ago more than a million lions roamed the Earth. Since the 1940s, the numbers of lions and cheetahs has dropped from an estimated 400,000 to as few as 20,000 animals. Scientists connect the drastic decreases in many cases to burgeoning human populations. The Big Cats Initiative aims to halt lion population declines by the year 2015 and to restore populations to sustainable levels.

      Many people don’t realize that when one species disappears it affects the balance of many other species and can even put human populations in jeopardy. One of the main inspirations for me in writing this book was to raise awareness not only for the big cats but for conservation in general. For every book sold, $5 will be donated to National Geographic Big Cats Initiative. 

 

That is a very generous donation, Karen. Obviously,  you care deeply about the planet we live on.   I hope you get a terrific response to help these beautiful animals. What else inspires you?

     I am inspired by the people around me in addition to the movies I watch, the books  I read and even the music that I enjoy listening to, especially country music. The songs always tell a story and somehow speak to my heart.

 

Lions, ancient Assyria, mythology--where did your research for this project take you?

     My research for this book took me all over the world. At first it began with books on the Assyrians and then on to books about lions. There was a tremendous amount of investigation into world history when I was creating the different lion-hybrids. I went back and forth trying to decide which ages and wars the other hybrids would come from. It’s been a great refresher course! I also am very fortunate to work in a very diverse company and have several friends who consider themselves to be of Assyrian decent. These friends helped me tremendously in understanding the Assyrian language and history.

      One other fun activity that I did for my research was to take a fencing class. Even though the fencing lesson in the book only takes up two paragraphs, I didn’t feel comfortable writing about an activity that I wasn’t familiar with. The racing scenes also were written from my experience while on trips with my husband to Lime Rock Race Track in Connecticut.  

I spent a day as a movie extra for an as-yet-unfinished mystery, and I'm a huge auto racing fan. What’s next to come out of your notebooks? New stories in the same universe, or others?

     I’m in the process of writing Book 2: Family Matters. Without giving away too much of the story, it will center on the Katherine’s new hybrid family and the parts of her human family that she still has with her. The antagonist in the first book, Reggie, will be causing even more problems for his siblings and the other hybrids. Melissa the witch, who played a small role in Book One will have a chapter devoted to her life and history.  I am also planning to delve deep into Reggie’s psyche when he was growing up in Assyria under his father’s strict rule in order to flesh out why he is as full of revenge as he is. Many people who have read Book One are also interested in how Issy the lion came to be in her present form. I am devoting a chapter to her transformation back in 3200 BC.

 

Having read Book One, I know Katherine has some challenges ahead of her, which I'm sure you'll handle with your deft touch. Who are your favorite authors?

     The list is long but the top five are Steven King, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allen Poe, J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin. I am obsessed with Games of Thrones lately and am on my second reading. I have a serious problem, I know! 

Tolkien and Bradbury are right up there on my list, too. Just for fun, tell us one unusual tidbit about yourself.

     I like to pet bumble bees. On cool spring and fall mornings the bumble bees that didn’t make it home in time can be found still clinging to the flower or leaf they last visited when the sun went down.  If you’re careful you can touch their fussy backs and spend time identifying the different species.

What fun! I like to pet dragonflies in the same circumstances.

Karen, thank you so much for stopping by today. Best of luck with your book. Readers, to purchase your copy in print or eformat, click here. To visit Karen's website, click here.

Words on Paper

I love going to the dump. Excuse me, to the recycling center. The weekly ritual could be a drag, but the drudgery is relieved by checking out the “still good” area, which includes a (recycled) bookcase.  True, most of the books are forgettable (Windows 97 for Dummies), but every once in a while I come home with a treasure.

Last week I scored the first five Harry Potters, in hardcover with the jackets intact. Not that I’m a huge fan, but I’ve only read the first two. But the real treasure slipped out when I shook out something used as a bookmark. It was a letter. In an envelope, with a stamp and a postmark from 2002. A personal letter, handwritten by one person to another. Of course I read it.  

As literature, it did not impress me. It wasn’t meant to, being just a note to express regret that the writer missed seeing the recipient, and proposing a future meeting. Still, the strong, clear penmanship, so very personal, and the firm thick paper made me feel a connection to the writer and recipient. Someone’s hand held formed the letters, folded the paper. Someone breathed on it, tucked it into the envelope, licked the flap. Another someone slit it open, eagerly or ineptly, judging by the ragged tear. I imagined a smile of pleasure and anticipation. Perhaps the letter was the beginning of a romance, the cementing of a friendship, or the renewal of family ties.

In any event, the letter moved me as mere email or text message couldn’t. Oh, I use modern communication and I’m grateful for it. But that simple letter was so personal. It took effort, it took time. It is tangible, and it will last far longer than the flickering script on a screen. Maybe what we’ve gained in speed and accessibility we’ve lost in intimacy and permanence.

Lest you think I’m an old fogey mourning the past, let me leave you with another image. PBS is airing a series on Shakespeare, starting with Macbeth. Ethan Hawke explores the tragedy from many angles, and is granted the opportunity to read from a first folio edition of the Bard’s collected plays. The 400-year-old book is placed on a low stand, and there is Hawke, almost in tears, on his knees before words on paper.

 

Finding the words

Craft shows are amazing. You never know what you'll find, except you're pretty sure to meet some interesting people. Crafters tend to be creative, friendly folks, eager to talk and willing to share their enthusiasm for their work. Over the many years I've been doing craft shows, I've never yet come away without a sense of inspiration.

Occasonally I offer my books at a craft show. Despite the advantages of epubbing, lots of people still like "real" books, and even more like to meet the author in person. And I must confess that shoppers' awe of writers is quite an ego boost.

This weekend my table was near a wood-turner's, happily for me. I'm a great lover of wood, in its living form and in the multitudinous shapes it takes in the skilled hands of a woodworker. This particular turner, a former shop teacher, was equally intrigued with the written word, and we ended up swapping items. He got a copy of Framed; I got a stick.

The stick was about a foot and a half long, of clear, fine-grained maple with a satiny finish. It slid easily into my hand, and my fingers stopped naturally at a knob about a third of the way down. Each end is smooth and rounded. I like the balance of it, the perfect weight, the way it feels like an extension of my arm. Most of all, I like its name.

It's called a "spurtle." An old word, but new to me. By definition, a spurtle is a stick for stirring porridge or soup. The derivation is Scots and goes back at least 400 years. I'm charmed by the idea that there is a name for a stick used to stir food; the equivalent in my kitchen is  simply a "wooden spoon." But mostly I love the way the word feels in my mouth. It has a hiss, a pop, a purr, a growl, and that luscious "tl" at the end. Very satisfying.

Porridge is not often on the menu in my house, so my spurtle will probably hang on the wall, with assorted ribbons according to the season. But I'm so enchanted by it, I might write a Highlander novel, just so I can use its name.


What  unusual words have you found in unexpected places? And where do they take you?

Inspiring Blogger Award

Ute Carbone has pipped me for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award. I'm thrilled!
Ute (pronounced ooh-tah, only God and her parents know why) vies with me for the claim to our local indie, Toadstool Books in Milford, NH, where she will be signing her latest book, Blueberry Truth, on Saturday, Feb. 2 at 2 pm. Her other books include The P-Town Queen, Dancing in the White Room and Afterglow. Visit Ute at http://ute-carbone.blogspot.com/.

According to the rules of the award, I'm supposed to tell you seven things about me.

1. The one thing I wanted for Christmas and didn't get--Fernando Alonso's F-1 Ferrari race car. Nor did I get driving lessons with Fernando.
2. The one thing I never dreamed I'd do--stand in front of the local Planning Board and make train noises.
3. The best thing about my life--my husband and my kids. I don't care if that's corny.
4. Next to reading and writing, the things I love to do best--hiking, needlework, gardening, and collecting odd bits of information.
5. I drive my husband nuts by scooping (not slicing) canned cranberry sauce.
6. My husband drives me nuts by leaving drawers not...quite...shut.
7. Hubby and I share our little bit of heaven with deer, foxes, raccoons, bears and bobcats.


And I'm supposed to nominate another bunch of bloggers:

Cindy Sample
Nancy Wright
Jacqueline Seewald
Holly Hunt
Liz Delisi
Rita Bay
Cindy Davis
Julie MacShane
Karen Ann
Jen Vaughn


These are all wonderful writers. Look them up!

Stalking the Corn

My friend Rita Bay  is posting a series about "horrible homonyms" and I don’t want to steal her thunder, but here is a homonym that shouldn’t be one. 

Last summer my local newspaper ran a front-page photo of a farmer’s ruined crop in the field. “Corn Stocks Destroyed by Car,” said the headline. Well, okay.  It’s a stretch, but one could say the farmer’s future supply of corn was destroyed by some idiot driving an SUV through the young plants. I shrugged and let it go. 

A few weeks later, in a story about farmer’s markets, the same newspaper featured a photo of fresh, delectable corn piled high. “Stalking the corn,” said the caption. My mind immediately went into Euell Gibbons mode—I still use a well-worn copy of his famous book on foraging, Stalking the Wild Asparagus. Then my bent for sci fi took over, and I imagined mutant corn rampaging over the Great Plains as intrepid environmentalists hunt it down, armed with hypos of recombinant DNA. I’m weird like that. 

Stalk, stock. To my mind, there’s no confusion about them. Stalk has an “aw” sound in the middle, while stock has an “ah” sound. Could there be a regional variation in the pronunciation? Granted, I’ve lived in New England for “only” fifteen years, but I have a pretty good ear for dialect and have always been able to distinguish a difference in the two words. Perhaps not as distinct as in the Mid-Atlantic, where I grew up, but clearly discernible. 

Then I started coming across a similar confusion, from writers across the country. “He chocked it up to bad parenting.” “Her tummy was chalk-full.” This isn’t a question of dialect. It’s plain and simple sloppy speech. Worse, it's sloppy writing.  

A chock is a wedge or other item used to prevent movement or to fill an empty space. A doorstop is a chock. I chock my car to keep it from rolling backward whenever I put it up on a ramp. If my tummy is chock-full, I can’t eat another bite. But if your tummy is chalk-full, you’ve been swallowing pulverized limestone, and that can’t be healthy. “To chalk up” is to record or attribute, as in writing a point on a scoreboard. (Think of writing with chalk.) It carries a connotation of a provisional judgment—He blamed her bad manners on poor parenting, but maybe he was wrong. 

We are writers, folks. It’s our job to be precise about the words we use. Make sure you’ve got the right one.

 

 

 

 

Last week Nicole McCaffrey tagged me for The Next Big Thing blog hop, a chance to talk about the new books we have coming out or in the works. Most of the authors I know have already participated (I'm always the last to get on the action!) so I'm not passing the game along. Anyway, here's a sneak peek into my next work.


What is the working title of your book?
A Thousand Words. As in "A picture is worth..."

Where did the idea come from for the book?
As in my last book, Framed, I'm using themes related to art as titles for my series set in an art gallery and picture framing shop. Other titles might be Still Life, Oil and Water, and so on. In this one, the action is instigated by an advertising image from the late 1950s.

What genre does your book fall under?
Cozy mystery.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
No idea! Mature ladies, that's for sure. The dogs should be  German short-haired pointers, and the setting should be the Monadnock region of New Hampshire, for its beauty and colonial history.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
When a reporter  investigates the most hated man in her small town, she discovers that sometimes the sword is mightier than the pen.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Agency. 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Thirty days. I wrote it during National Novel Writing month in 2010.

 

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
The Crewel World series by Monica Ferris: amateur sleuths who are very good in their own field get tangled up in murder and find solutions because of their esoteric knowledge.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Hmm. How do I say this without committing libel? Let's just say that when people get laid off, they often bear a grudge against their former employers. And when I worked as a picture framer (no grudges there, trust me) my co-workers and I often indulged in making up stories about the figures in the artwork we framed. "This one looks like she'd cheat on her husband." Or "I think he's really a murderer."

What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

Readers will learn a little something about the art of framing, abandoned settlements from colonial times, and the behavior of bears. Bird dogs play a crucial part, and how newspaper "stringers" earn a living might make readers value their contributions more.

 

Here's the prologue from A Thousand Words:

 

 

A Thousand Words

Prologue

 

     “Get yourself up here now, Jenny!” The voice on the phone was breathless and urgent.

                “What’s going on, Ed?”

                A string of muttered curses filled her ear, then, “That son-of-a-bitch Royce is tearing out the floor at the town hall. Get up here before the cops haul him away.”

                Jenny Southbury didn’t even bother to reply. She snatched up her purse and a yellow legal pad and hustled out to her dark red compact sedan, managing the rickety steps from her porch door with a groan for her achy knees.

                Constitution Hall, commonly referred to as the old town hall, sat at the highest point in Linford, New Hampshire, only a mile or two from her antique farmhouse. As Old Red steadily climbed the curving road, Jenny focused on the police radio mounted on her dash. Although she regularly wrote for the local newspapers, she didn’t normally report on accidents or crimes. Her beat was town meetings, local committee reports, and human interest stories. A corner of her mind noted that whatever she was headed for might involve all three.

                The radio was quiet for the moment, emitting only the occasional squawk of static. That meant the first excitement had passed and the responding officers were on the scene, doing what needed to be done. No sirens or flashing lights prompted her to pull over, so she didn’t think she’d run into anything exciting. Still, whenever Quentin Royce was involved, trouble followed.

                Rounding the final curve to the windy, open top of the hill, Jenny found both of Linford’s police cars with all their lights going, the ambulance standing by, a large box van emblazoned with “Ryan’s Exotic Wood,” Royce’s glossy Range Rover, Ed McCarthy’s well-worn town works truck, and a clutch of very interested observers. Three burly men lounged against the box van while Royce, a man Jenny didn’t recognize and the two police officers argued vociferously before the doors of the hall.

                Jenny parked beside the road, nodded to several onlookers she recognized as she passed them, and made her way across the rocky expanse that served as lawn for the hall. She stopped a few feet from the knot of angry men.

                “Oh, and now the goddam press shows up,” Royce sneered. “Get her the hell out of here.”       

                Sgt. Mike DeRochers glanced at Jenny, gave her a brief smile, and turned back to Royce. “Freedom of the press, sir. She’s not interfering—”

                “She puts my name in the paper, I’ll sue her ass off—”

                Mike ignored his threat. “Sir, I need to see your authorization for removal of items from this building. If you don’t have authorization, I will have to issue a cease and desist on behalf of the owner of the building--”

                “I am the owner—“

                Officer Kealy disagreed. “Sergeant, the Town of Linford is the owner, and the Historical Society is charged with upkeep—“

                “And I’m the chairman of the Society, so I can do whatever I decide should be done with—”

                The man Jenny didn’t recognize spoke up for the first time. “Officers, this man told me he had authority to sell me the wood from the stage in the hall. I have a buyer for red chestnut, it’s already in the truck. I just need to—”

                Sgt. Mike had had enough. “Mr. Royce, I‘m arresting you on suspicion of attempted theft, transfer of stolen goods, abuse of your power as chair—”

                 Whatever else he tried to say was drowned out by Royce’s shrieks of outrage. Jenny calmly jotted down the highlights, making careful note of the charges and ignoring the profanities. She asked for a statement from Sgt. Mike and gathered the names of witnesses. The exotic wood dealer declined to speak with her, but a nod from one of his crew indicated that he would talk to her. She made a point of walking past him, and he slipped her a business card. “Call me tonight,” he muttered.

                Jenny gave the barest acknowledgement and moved on to talk to Ed McCarthy. “Shelly Currier called me, why I don’t know,” the town road agent said, “and I called the cops. Then I called you.”

                “So Shelly actually saw them in the hall?”

                “Yup. By the time I got here the damage was done and most of the wood was in the truck. I stopped ’em from driving off, though.”

                She glanced at the truck, where Sgt. Mike was in a heated discussion with the dealer. She caught the word “impounded” and watched as the crew slowly unloaded the wood. It made quite a pile. Her heart ached at the thought of the destruction to the historic hall, long on the list of properties to be upgraded and restored in Linford. There was never enough money to do the work, however, and over the years the building had fallen deeper into disrepair.

                “I better go get a bigger truck,” Ed said. “They’ll want me to take that wood down to town hall. Though where we’ll store it I have no idea. Barely room for the cops, let alone evidence.” He shuffled off, waving elaborate hand signals at Sgt. Mike to telegraph his intentions.

As Kealy escorted Royce to his cruiser, they passed close to Jenny. “I’ll kill you,” Royce snarled. “One wrong word and I’ll kill you.”

 

BARRICADE THE EXITS!

In my opinion, there is entirely too much CSI on television. New York, Miami, LA, East Podunk. I get the picture--crime is everywhere. And the investigators are smart, sexy people with great educations and devastating logic. 

My beef is not with the stories or the actors. What I object to is the way writers have picked up on the noun “exit” used as a verb. 

English is always turning nouns into verbs. Look at tasked or gifting. As a further example, until about the 1960s, jet was strictly a noun. Then people started flying in jets. They started jetting. That was cool; jet as a verb is exciting. It implies speed, high fashion, importance. It has an emotional content and descriptive power. 

Not so exit. Police investigators are specifically trained to write emotion-free, neutral text to avoid prejudicing any possible prosecutions. Their reports are dry as dust: “The subject exited the area.” It may be accurate, but it certainly doesn’t carry the same impact as “The perp ran away,” does it?  

I see exit so often in the submissions I edit that it has become like a no-see-um, the ubiquitous New England pest. They’re barely visible, but their bite will jolt me right out of whatever I’m doing. And the last thing you want to do is jolt your readers out of your story.  

Fiction writing is all about emotion. Every time you can choose an emotive word over a non-emotive word, do so. Exit is flat. It shows the reader nothing about the character or the action. It’s an easy choice when you’re writing fast, but in your rewrites you should leave it for police and military reports, stage directions, and computer instructions. Find verbs that play multiple roles—leave, emerge, step out, run away, saunter, take off, veer, sidle, slink, stride. A horse can exit a barn, or it can bolt, skitter, trot, slip, meander, or plod. See how each verb creates a different picture in your mind? 

So barricade the exits. Do a search in your manuscript and examine each use of the word. Replace it ninety-nine times out of a hundred, and watch your writing come alive.