Making A Connection

Perhaps the best part of doing this weekly blog is getting to meet so many new and great authors -- all with fascinating stories of their own to tell as well as the stories they write. Today's guest in My Writing Corner fits that description perfectly beginning with the tag line of her introduction:

Where romance and intrigue collide…

Sheila Kell is my guest today. She writes about romantic men who, she describes as leaving women’s hearts pounding with a happily ever after built on "memorable, adrenaline-pumping stories." Her debut novel, His Desire, launched as an Amazon #1 romantic suspense bestseller and later won the Readers’ Favorite award for best romantic suspense novel.

 

Having left behind her days in the United States Air Force and as a University Vice President, Sheila can be found on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where she lives with her cats. When she isn't writing, Sheila says you can find her with her nose in a good book or wishing she had a genie to do her bidding. Let's find out more about Sheila.

What do you enjoy about being an author?

My favorite part of being an author is connecting with the readers and hearing how my stories impact them.

Tell us about your road to publication.

Once I finally sat and finished my draft of His Desire, I initially sent my manuscript to agents and publishers. With the feedback from them, I edited my manuscript and decided to self-publish my first book. 

What is your book that you will feature today and how did you come up with the idea to write it?

His Destiny is part of the HIS series where the stories are interconnected by the agency and family but are stand-alone books. This one was a surprise book that I hadn’t planned to write. But as the story unfolded in another book, this idea came to me to add it to the plan. Here's what the Book Fairy Review says about it:

“Wow, can it get any better? Well true to Sheila's style, Yes, yes it can get better.”

 

More about His Destiny...

Discover what unfolds when fate brings together a man who doubts his worth and a woman in Sheila's passionate novel about distrust and desire. In this compelling story, a damaged man and a broken woman are bound by heartbreak, danger, and the electric thrill of possibility.

 

Let's get a blurb:

Trent McKenzie flees his town, desperate to escape the anguish gnawing at his soul. However, when he receives word that his dear friend may be in peril, he returns, determined to shield her and confront the looming threat. Trent and Kelly embark on a quest for truth, knowing that destiny may not always be just.

How about an excerpt:

        “Look,” she said in all seriousness, “this is between you and Blake. Don’t hold your brothers responsible for this. You’ve been a part of this family all your life.”
        “And we now know why,” he bit out more harshly than she deserved. Good old fucking Senator Blake Hamilton kept him as his dirty little secret. Wondering how Blake actually kept it quiet all these years with opponents trying to unseat him in the senate, always digging up dirt, he almost missed her next words.
        “Make peace, or not, with your father, but don’t cut out the only friends you’ve had.”
Knowing his brothers—there, he’d said it—weren’t responsible didn’t make it any easier to act like nothing had changed, except their title went from friend to family.
        Water slipped toward them as the tide moved in and waves slid inland. Maybe he should’ve taken off his shoes instead of his shirt. Stupid thing to think about considering the conversation, but now that he had company, he’d certainly feel more comfortable that way. “I’ll think about it.”
        “There’s something else. It’s the main reason I wanted to be the one to speak with you.”
Curious, he appraised her and raised a brow. “Go on.” His gut turned in warning that this could get interesting.
        “It’s Kelly.”
Instantly his blood turned to ice with fear, and his entire focus became this conversation.                      “Kelly?” he questioned with a croak in his voice and his heart pounding.
        Nodding solemnly, she continued, “Something’s going on with her. I don’t know what it is, and she won’t open up.”
        Blood pressure rising rapidly, he took those damn soothing breaths Jamie told him to take as sweat broke out on his brow. “What kind of trouble? Is she safe?” he rushed out in one breath, wanting all the information yesterday so he could act.
        “Honestly, I don’t know that it’s any trouble at all, Trent, but something has her spooked.”
        “I’ll leave in the morning and drive straight through.” Kelly, baby, stay safe until I get to you.
        Shocked, she sucked in a breath. “Trent, that’s sixteen and a half hours.”
        Shrugging, he was already calculating everything he had to do before he left. That long drive was nothing for Kelly’s sake. Hell, if he didn’t need transportation when he returned to Baltimore, he’d just hop on a flight and store his bike. “I can make good time on the bike.                        Besides, it’s Kelly.”
        A knowing smile spread across Megan’s face.
        Let her think what she wanted. Kelly was special to him. Precious. And, not to be touched. He respected her too much. That didn’t mean his dick didn’t think differently whenever he was around her. But what was important now was making sure she was okay.
        “Tell me more,” he insisted, as the need to be by Kelly’s side simmered in his veins.
        Well, Jamie, you got your wish. I’m going to face them. At least my brothers.

What’s your next project or what are you working on now?

I’m working on the Agents of HIS series now and Casper is up in Chasing Shadows at Dusk. He’s former Delta operator and must return home to help his brother out of a jam. We all know that returning home is never as easy as it sounds.

What advice do you have for beginning writers?

Sit in the chair and write the story. Don’t just ponder it. Don’t just plot it. Write it, get an editor, and then pull the trigger and submit it to agents/publishers or publish it yourself. But it all starts with writing it.

Great advice! Thank you, Sheila, for being my guest today. Here is the information on where to find her books as well as contact information:

Buy links: 

https://www.sheilakell.com/book/his-destiny 

For more information….

Sign up for Sheila’s newsletter: http://www.sheilakell.com/subscribe

Find Sheila on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sheilakellbooks

Follow Sheila on BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/sheila-kell

Follow Sheila on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/sheilakell

Find Sheila on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/Sheila_Kell

Contact Sheila for information on her reader group, advance teams, and other ways to follow: sheila@sheilakell.com  

Any comments or questions for Sheila?

A Visit to the World of the Media

As someone who spent 40 years working in television and the media, and still writes books set in the television world, today's guest in My Writing Corner immediately caught my attention, though my work was always behind the scenes as a Producer and Newsroom Manager.

Our guest, Nikki Knight, describes herself as an Author/Anchor/Mom … not in that order. An award-winning weekend anchor at New York City’s 1010 WINS Radio, she also writes short stories and novels. Her stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Mystery Magazine, and Black Cat Weekly, online, and in anthologies – and been short-listed for Black Orchid Novella and Derringer Awards. Active in writers’ groups, she has served as Vice President of the Short Mystery Fiction Society and is currently Co-Vice President of the New York/Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime. As Kathleen Marple Kalb, Nikki writes the Ella Shane and Old Stuff mystery series. She, her husband, and son live in a Connecticut house owned by their cat.  Let's find out more about Nikki and her new book.

Welcome, Nikki. What do you enjoy about being an author?

I get to make it all up! My “day job” is as a weekend anchor at 1010 WINS, the top all-news radio station in New York City. Enough to say that the stories I cover at work are often dark and gritty and not many people get happy endings. But when I’m writing the story, I get to make sure everything comes out right! For me, it’s the best thing about fiction.

What do you find is the most challenging part of being an author?

I’m still not as good as I’d like to be with rejection. After more than 300 – across short stories, querying, and contests – I should be. But every once in a while, I get one I can’t play off. Or I get passed over for something I really wanted and needed. And then I have to remind myself of my own great advice about rejection – see below! Being a pro doesn’t mean you don’t feel it…it just means you handle it gracefully. 

Tell us about your road to publication.

It’s been a long one! Getting into print the first time took 200 rejections over three projects and a couple of years – in the middle of a family health crisis. After I got signed for the first book, I revised an earlier project, inspired by my time at a small Vermont radio station, and the new version sold…only to be dropped after one book! Then: Covid. New round of family health issues and losses. Wrote other things but couldn’t give up on Vermont. Finally found a new home at the Wild Rose Press…and here we are with: Live, Local, And Long Dead!

What is your book that you will feature today and how did you come up with the idea to write it?

Welcome to the Vermont Radio Mystery Live, Local, And Long Dead! The series (now two books and more than a dozen published short stories) is inspired by my early-career time at a small radio station, and it’s kind of my happy place. Maybe an escape fantasy! DJ Jaye Jordan returns to Vermont after a personal and professional meltdown to take over the station where she worked 20 years ago and gets into all kinds of trouble. In Live, Local, And Long Dead, the whole town is at a Green-Up Day cleanup when not one, but two bodies turn up: one a woman who was involved with both Jaye’s ex and her new man, the second a much older skeleton. Now, Jaye and the entire gang will have to solve two murders – and get 103-year-old Grandpa Seymour to the Senior Prom!

Let's get a blurb:

Vermont DJ Jaye Jordan's Green-Up Day ends in murder when not one, but two, bodies turn up in an old park -- and one of them was much too close to both her ex and her current man when it was alive and bodacious. Now Jaye, with the help of a colorful (and diverse) cast of townies, will have to clear her men's names, unravel a World War II-era mystery…and get Grandpa Seymour to the Senior Prom on time. 

How about an excerpt:

The Prom-Posal:

        “Go get ′em!” I hissed, giving Grandpa a high-five and grabbing the boom box. The plan was the kids would walk Aunt Patsy out into the Plaza on some pretext, and then Grandpa would appear on the porch, roses in hand, and cue the unseen elves to fire the music.

        I slipped out the side door and hid behind the back of the porch. 

        Aunt Patsy, flanked by Ryan and Xavi, was walking into the Plaza, talking animatedly to the kids. “You really saw a white squirrel? How fascinating…”

        Grandpa walked onto the porch, roses in hand. Ryan elbowed Aunt Patsy.

        “Seymour?”

        “Maestro!” He snapped his fingers. I hit the button, and Johnny Mathis’ glorious tenor filled the cold gray air.

        “Chances are…”

        Grandpa grinned.

        “Seymour, what are you doing?”

        He walked down the stairs as she crossed to him. They both move a little slowly but are impressively nimble for their age. Ryan and Xavi had the phones, of course borrowed from Rob and me, at the ready, recording the moment for social media and posterity, which was great, but what was really terrific was the expressions on the couple’s faces.

        Sometimes, the world just seems to be spinning in a better direction when you see two people’s eyes meet. Love is love, and thank G-d for it.

        “What is all this, Seymour?” Aunt Patsy asked with a warm, amused smile.

        “I want to take my girl to the prom. And the kids tell me I have to ask in a fancy way to have any hope of getting a yes.”

        “Do they, now?” She took the flowers, and then, her face broke into a great big smile. “Well, I have only one thing to say to you.”

        She glanced back at the rectory and snapped her fingers.

        A banner unfurled from the upstairs window, bright pink letters and lots of glitter on shiny white: “Yes!”

        A shower of large pink and sparkly confetti followed the banner, and I looked up to see Maeve beaming in the window as she threw more.

        Grandpa laughed. “I’ll take that. You got me good, Pats.”

        “Why should the guy have all the fun?” She was laughing too. “Couldn’t let you away with that patriarchal nonsense.”

        He took her hands. “But you don’t mind letting me lead when we dance.”

        “Dancing’s different. Sometimes a girl has to let her guy take the lead. Like now.”

        I turned up the music a little to give them a hint. Grandpa pulled Aunt Patsy in, and the two swayed together as the small crowd applauded

        If this was the prom-posal, I could only imagine what would happen when Grandpa decided to put a ring on it.

What’s your next project or what are you working on now?

I’m always working on new Vermont stories, even when I’m writing something else. I really love these people and this setting. And the next Vermont book, Live, Local, And Larcenous, is slowly taking shape! 

What advice do you have for beginning writers?

Get used to rejection and learn from it. Rejection is depressing and it hurts, and we tend to take it too much to heart. A rejection is “no, today” on one piece of work. It’s not a sweeping statement about your writing or a divine judgment on your career. And definitely not on you as a real person. Learn what you can from any feedback and just keep going. See a rejection for the temporary setback – and possible learning opportunity – it is, and don’t give it more power than it deserves.  It’s never fun, but it doesn’t have to rule you! 

Thank you, Nikki, for being my guest today. Here are some buys links for Live, Local, and Long Dead and Nikki's contact information:

Buy Links:

Amazon:   Live, Local, and Long Dead (A Vermont Radio Mystery): Knight, Nikki: 9781509257461: Amazon.com: Books

Barnes & Noble:  Live, Local, and Long Dead

Social Contacts:

Website:  https://kathleenmarplekalb.com/nikki-knight

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NikkiKnightAuthor

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/NikkiKnightVT

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathleenmarplekalb/

Other: YouTube: NIKKI KNIGHT'S RADIO STORYTIME - YouTube   

Any comments or questions for Nikki/Kathleen?

Challenges vs Luck

As authors, we all have different and often many difficult challenges we face along the way but sometimes our drive and good luck can help us move forward. Today's guest in My Writing Corner,  Nancy Stevenson, has met and managed to overcome a number of challenges, but she says it all begins with support.

Take it away, Nancy! Please tell us your story:

Parents set the stage for most of us. I was lucky. The life I landed in was filled with

smart adults willing to share their interests and thoughts with a wide variety of friends.

My sister and I became accomplished eavesdroppers, loving their laughter and their

serious pursuits which included travel, history, mental health, good food, politics and

civic leadership.

The years slipped by. College followed. I became engaged to a man returning from his years of Marine Corp duties in Korea before returning to college for my senior year. Like so many of my era, I married three weeks after graduation from college.

After my husband finished law school, we returned with our first child to live in Chicago. As our family grew, they worked through the summer months, baling and storing hay bales, interrupting but not forfeiting river excursions and pond swimming. Idyllic years of our two girls galloping on farm horses, the two boys on motorized scooters and good hard work for all of us. The children are grown now with children of their own.

My luck continued in that a friend suggested I join the Illinois Humanities Council, (now

Illinois Humanities) part of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was a heady

experience to sit and even occasionally argue with a published Shakespearean expert

or the Director of the Field Museum or laugh over the spontaneous poetry of a Swift

scholar from the University of Chicago.

After the birth of a grandchild, I began to want to write stories for her. Subsequently

signing up for a two year program in Writing for Children at Vermont College, now the

Vermont College of Fine Arts. With the guidance of inspiring authors and the spirited

learning of fellow students, we were told to write and write and write some more, “Butt in

Chair” as Jane Resh Thomas admonished. Plus every month, we would produce writing

for a critique from one of the faculty. After Vermont College, I threw myself into

NaNoWriMo with its challenge of 50,000 words written in the month of November. Since

then, writing is my joy, my break from problems, my companion when the apartment is

Empty.

What do you find is the most challenging part of being an author?

Telling the story is all-consuming and the fun part. The challenges come from taking the stories to the public by finding a publisher, then in their promotion.

How do you develop characters?

I am now a widow living alone for the first time. My bossy characters, their problems, struggles and dreams, keep me company on long walks and sleepless nights. I don’t know where they come from, but they pop up with minds and goals of their own. On several occasions, they change the story. I don’t create a plot in advance. I let the characters give me direction.

What advice do you have for beginning writers?

For advice to beginning authors, I’ll repeat what many of  the gleanings from workshops, lectures and books by renowned writers, Eudora Welty, Stephen King, Anne Lamott, Margaret Atwood, Natalie Goldberg, etc. etc. ( I soak up great author’s words).

First order: Read, Read, Read.

Then: Write, Write, Write. Practice is everything, they all say.

Tell us about your road to publication.

I self published two children’s novels, Capitol Code and Horse Dreams, after finishing  a Vermont College curriculum, Writing for Children. I thought my age prevented me from looking for an agent that might help me find a publisher.

When I completed my adult novel, Long Reach, a friend suggested I submit my manuscript to The Wild Rose Press who reviews non-agented documents.

Happily, The Wild Rose Press accepted my text.

What is your book that you will feature today and how did you come up with the idea to write it?

When I heard about NaNoWriMo, a challenge to write 50,000 words in a month, my environmental mystery Long Reach evolved.  Of course, after that original out pouring of words, editing, cutting, developing scenes went on for several years of pulling it in and out of the filing cabinet.

A bit of history is what spurred me to write Long Reach.  My husband and I first went to the Inside Passage of the Georgia Strait, British Columbia, Canada after out marriage in 1955, a long time ago. He had visited friends on an island there in his childhood and wanted to go back. So we drove across the country on our wedding trip, took ferry boats to the island and I added my love of the area to my love of this new husband.

We continued to visit the Georgia Strait when life allowed, renting house boats to explore the coasts, taking children, joining friends over several years, finally building a small cabin on one of the many islands in the Strait. The area was known by its First Nation settlers as a land of plenty with whales, octopuses, salmon, crab, deer, ravens, eagles and lush vegetation, berries, edible ferns and vegetables.

We explored up and down the coast, watching the heavily snow-capped mountains losing  snow each year of global warming. We saw lush hilltop forests decimated by bull dozers, causing run off into the sea below. My daily dives into breath-taking cold seas grew easier with warming water, a pleasure for swimmers perhaps, but devastating to prawn and salmon spawning.

I was moved to tour one of the pulp mills to find out about the process and visited a library in the nearest town to understand more about lumbering and its ups and downsides.  With all these experiences, I knew I needed to write Long Reach.

Let's get a blurb:

Long Reach is a mystery of action and adventure with an unexpected twist. Is Nora guilty of pushing her husband overboard in a fit of violent anger? Or is she a victim in an environmental conspiracy?

On a fishing trip in the beautiful waters of the Georgia Strait, British Columbia, Canada, Nora is accused of attempting to murder Joe, her husband and partner of 30 years. Fearing her anger caused the incident, Nora strives to discover if she is guilty or innocent.

In the search for truth, thugs shoot at Nora, she is kidnapped, jailed and tried in court for manslaughter and other crimes. With the help of a First Nation Mountie and a First Nation healer, can Nora prove her innocence and expose the conspirators responsible for air, water, and land pollution and stealing rights from First Nation tribes?

Want more? Let's get a couple of short excerpts:

Albert Mackey, a provisional Mountie who has just left his drought stricken home in Alberta, is assigned to a fishing accident. He dashes to the scene in his outboard Zodiak, thinking. Here In Grant’s landing, he found water aplenty, but also aching poverty and death from drought of another kind. Nature’s spectacles were diminishing: forests once filled with cedars and firs, now cut raw to the bone on mountainsides that plunged to the sea; giant logs, some eight feet across, dumped into the ocean and dragged off to factories and pulp mills; islands laid bare by giant bulldozers scraping thin topsoil to the channels below; runoff and refuse sinking to cover

spawning beds; clear water becoming thick like mucus. On arrival from Alberta, he’d thought he had found perfection. Instead, he looked at a world filled with breathtaking mountain peaks, long fiords stretching toward the wilderness, spectacular beauty hiding areas of desiccated hope and increasing despair. (25)

Later in the book - Nora, my protagonist, walks down a street in Grant’s Landing, the

fictional town near their cabin, and hears a naturalist talking about

pollution:

“How many friends and neighbors now have mysterious ailments? How do you feel in the mornings? Do you wake up tired? The woman waved her pen in the air. “The sludge the mill gives the Grant’s Landing park is polluted. When they offer it to you as examples of the mill’s generosity, don’t accept it. That sludge poisons our land. The poison moves up the food chain into our bodies. And that’s not all. When the Grant’s Landing mill burn its hog fuel made of sea soaked wood, the carbon and the salt combine to make dioxin. All that coats our lungs, making them stiff and heavy.”

The crowd was rapt., silent , as the woman went on. “Mills are using thousands of gallons of water every hour of every day. They tell us they can’t use less, as it would make heavier concentration of chemicals in the effluent. Hear that? The mills complain that closed

water systems cost money. Weigh those costs.

“...But you don’t want to listen to a lecture from me. Make your own decisions. The future of Grant’s landing depends on all of us working together. Join us.”

What’s your next project or what are you working on now?

I have another novel waiting for approval from a publisher, New Beginnings B&B and another novel , Connecting, almost ready to send out. Both are different from Long Reach, more family sagas than environmental mysteries.

Here are the Buy Links for Long Reach, followed by Nancy's contact information.

Buy Links:

Amazon: Long Reach

Barnes & Noble: Long Reach

My Website: https://nancywriter.com/store/long-reach-paper-back/

Social Contacts:

Website: Http://nancywriter.com

Email: stevensonnancy04@gmail.com

Thank you, Nancy, for being by guest today. Any questions or comments for Nancy?