May 18, 2013
Fine Nuances of Writing 101
Pay close attention to your characters' positions. If they are talking with a screen or glass door between them, they should not be able to touch each other without it stating in the narrative that one of them either came inside or went outside. The same with having characters sit together on a sofa in a room previously described as only having single-occupant chairs. It's a lot easier to miss details like this than you think, and while editors are invaluable, they are not infallible.
The best thing about being an eBook only author: You can go back and make corrections and then re-load the new file (for each e-tailer). It takes a little longer to correct a print version, and you have to order a proof and approve it before the corrections will be reflected. So it's possible to change the print version; it just takes a little longer.
It's your book (not your editor's). Make it your best work. You owe that much to your readers.
May 16, 2013
Thrifty Thursday tip
When it starts to warm up, remember that our parents (and many of us) didn't have central air back in the day. Do what they did: Open the windows and turn on the fans. If you must turn on your air in the springtime, see if you can manage to sleep with an oscillating fan by your bed (ceiling fans work well also), since it's usually cooler at night. Remember, fans cool people, not rooms, so if you're leaving the room for more than a few minutes, turn them off. When the heat becomes unbearable, set the thermostat that controls your air at 83 degrees when you're not home, and remember to change your filter once a month (make it the same day you pay your rent or mortgage for easy remembering). Keep cool!
Thrifty Thursday tip
When it starts to warm up, remember that our parents (and many of us) didn't have central air back in the day. Do what they did: Open the windows and turn on the fans. If you must turn on your air in the springtime, see if you can manage to sleep with an oscillating fan by your bed (ceiling fans work well also), since it's usually cooler at night. Remember, fans cool people, not rooms, so if you're leaving the room for more than a few minutes, turn them off. When the heat becomes unbearable, set the thermostat that controls your air at 83 degrees when you're not home, and remember to change your filter once a month (make it the same day you pay your rent or mortgage for easy remembering). Keep cool!
May 10, 2013
He said, she said
One of the "rules" of writing I learned in my critique group from my days of living in Florida (besides the one that goes, "There are no rules"), is not to get caught writing.
I was reading a book late last year, and while I found the storyline entertaining, something about the book irked me for a reason I couldn't identify, and I ended up closing the file and opening another book I opened the file again a few days ago, read a few pages, and this time the problem came to me right away.
No one in the novel says anything.
Yes, there is dialogue, but the writer has made a concentrated effort to avoid using the word, "said." The characters drawl, stammer, murmur, greet, guffaw, assert, mumble, mutter, prompt, and decline, among other things. They also make a lot of actions before or after speaking that make dialog tags unnecessary: swallow, laugh, grin, and chuckle (they do a lot of this, so much that an "ly" word usually accompanies it for variety), grimace, wink, shake their heads, snort, smirk, gasp, nod, scowl, and stare. But they hardly ever just say anything.
This author got caught writing, i.e., taking special pains to avoid the word, "said," and it's driving me nuts! I've only seen two other authors who do this. Call me obsessive-compulsive, but once I realize this, I start making special note of the creative ways they tried not to use this word rather than paying attention to what's going on...and I put the book away.
Guess I'd better find something else to read.
Don't get caught writing.
What will make you not enjoy a book to the point where you close it forever?
He said, she said
One of the "rules" of writing I learned in my critique group from my days of living in Florida (besides the one that goes, "There are no rules"), is not to get caught writing.
I was reading a book late last year, and while I found the storyline entertaining, something about the book irked me for a reason I couldn't identify, and I ended up closing the file and opening another book I opened the file again a few days ago, read a few pages, and this time the problem came to me right away.
No one in the novel says anything.
Yes, there is dialogue, but the writer has made a concentrated effort to avoid using the word, "said." The characters drawl, stammer, murmur, greet, guffaw, assert, mumble, mutter, prompt, and decline, among other things. They also make a lot of actions before or after speaking that make dialog tags unnecessary: swallow, laugh, grin, and chuckle (they do a lot of this, so much that an "ly" word usually accompanies it for variety), grimace, wink, shake their heads, snort, smirk, gasp, nod, scowl, and stare. But they hardly ever just say anything.
This author got caught writing, i.e., taking special pains to avoid the word, "said," and it's driving me nuts! I've only seen two other authors who do this. Call me obsessive-compulsive, but once I realize this, I start making special note of the creative ways they tried not to use this word rather than paying attention to what's going on...and I put the book away.
Guess I'd better find something else to read.
Don't get caught writing.
What will make you not enjoy a book to the point where you close it forever?
May 9, 2013
The more you write, the more you learn...about yourself!
As I work on bringing the story and characters of Love Will Follow to life, something occurred to me: I have a tendency toward romance storylines where instant attraction doesn't occur.
Well, maybe not always. Instant awareness and attraction have been major factors in many of my books...but maybe not so much lately. My book Man of Her Heart (2013) was a continuation of a romance that started in a previous book (Something Real) from 2012, in which the heroine had a crush on the hero, who really hadn't noticed her. It took her giving a sexy performance on a cruise ship for him to open his eyes. But it's Isn't She Lovely? (2012) that I'm really thinking of. The heroine of that book met the hero to discuss an auto accident in which his unlicensed son sneaked out with a vehicle, and in his haste to get home before being discovered, ran over her son in a parking lot, breaking his leg...and then drove off. This is not the type of situation that is ripe for romance; if anything, my heroine wanted to break the legs of both the hero and his son...both legs. But yet...well, you'll have to read the book to see how the change comes about.
In Love Will Follow, it is equally inappropriate for the hero and heroine to have a sexual magnetism for each other due to the circumstances under which they meet. I also see shades of this in a few of the romances I have drafted for future publication. When I ask myself why I've been doing this, I realize that it gives me much more story possibilities, because conflict is a must. It won't be necessary for me to fall back on the played-out I've-been-hurt-and-I'll-never-love-again scenario that I have never used and hope I never have to.
I don't want to give away too much about the plot line of Love Will Follow because I'm hoping there will be a few surprises for readers. But if you'd like to try and guess which way the story will go, I invite you to download the free prequel to it, Lost That Lovin' Feeling, from my publisher website or from Smashwords. The prequel also includes the first two chapters of the book.
How do you feel about storylines in which attraction is inappropriate initially? Do you prefer the more traditional, take-one-look-and-a-goner approach to romance? Why or why not?
The more you write, the more you learn...about yourself!
As I work on bringing the story and characters of Love Will Follow to life, something occurred to me: I have a tendency toward romance storylines where instant attraction doesn't occur.
Well, maybe not always. Instant awareness and attraction have been major factors in many of my books...but maybe not so much lately. My book Man of Her Heart (2013) was a continuation of a romance that started in a previous book (Something Real) from 2012, in which the heroine had a crush on the hero, who really hadn't noticed her. It took her giving a sexy performance on a cruise ship for him to open his eyes. But it's Isn't She Lovely? (2012) that I'm really thinking of. The heroine of that book met the hero to discuss an auto accident in which his unlicensed son sneaked out with a vehicle, and in his haste to get home before being discovered, ran over her son in a parking lot, breaking his leg...and then drove off. This is not the type of situation that is ripe for romance; if anything, my heroine wanted to break the legs of both the hero and his son...both legs. But yet...well, you'll have to read the book to see how the change comes about.
In Love Will Follow, it is equally inappropriate for the hero and heroine to have a sexual magnetism for each other due to the circumstances under which they meet. I also see shades of this in a few of the romances I have drafted for future publication. When I ask myself why I've been doing this, I realize that it gives me much more story possibilities, because conflict is a must. It won't be necessary for me to fall back on the played-out I've-been-hurt-and-I'll-never-love-again scenario that I have never used and hope I never have to.
I don't want to give away too much about the plot line of Love Will Follow because I'm hoping there will be a few surprises for readers. But if you'd like to try and guess which way the story will go, I invite you to download the free prequel to it, Lost That Lovin' Feeling, from my publisher website or from Smashwords. The prequel also includes the first two chapters of the book.
How do you feel about storylines in which attraction is inappropriate initially? Do you prefer the more traditional, take-one-look-and-a-goner approach to romance? Why or why not?
April 23, 2013
Chewing the fat with...author Michelle Monkou
Authors Michelle Monkou and Marcia King-Gamble have teamed up to write a series about Carnival celebrations all over the world. Whether you call it Carnival, the Mardi Gras, the bacchanal, or something else, the pre-Lenten celebration is held all over the world, with some of the most festive and famous held in Brazil, Trinidad, and New Orleans, with varying degrees of indulgence, from harmless frivolity to debauchery that would rival that shown in a Cecil B. DeMille movie.
I recently chatted with Michelle about the series, which began with one of her contributions, Carnival Temptress, released last month. And be sure to see the Special Announcement at the end of this post!
Carnival Temptress (e-novella) available for Kindle and Nook; 99 cents.
Chewing the fat with...author Michelle Monkou
Authors Michelle Monkou and Marcia King-Gamble have teamed up to write a series about Carnival celebrations all over the world. Whether you call it Carnival, the Mardi Gras, the bacchanal, or something else, the pre-Lenten celebration is held all over the world, with some of the most festive and famous held in Brazil, Trinidad, and New Orleans, with varying degrees of indulgence, from harmless frivolity to debauchery that would rival that shown in a Cecil B. DeMille movie.
I recently chatted with Michelle about the series, which began with one of her contributions, Carnival Temptress, released last month. And be sure to see the Special Announcement at the end of this post!
Bettye: Welcome, Michelle! I have to tell you
that Black Orpheus (1959) is one of my favorite movies. Tell us about this new series. How many books will there be, approximate
publication dates or span of publication, and which settings will they take
place in?
Michelle: I consider myself a rabid movie buff, but (ducking head in
sand) I had never heard of Black Orpheus. After your comment, I read up on this
movie and wow, what a history it has. I also can’t believe that I haven’t seen
it or heard of this play (and I had to read a lot of plays for my English
undergrad major). So, Bettye, you have
given me homework—LOL.
Carnival Temptress
is a Carnival-themed novella under the series name—The Revelers. The story’s
creation started out as a steamy romance, but quickly had a suspense/thriller
thread that not only wove through this story, but will weave through the entire
series (well, so far; with my author-mind, you just never know). The first in
my series was released in March with four in the total set: June, August, and
October publication months. The plan is then to bundle them into one volume
with possibly a bonus story, in time for the holidays—an ambitious plan given
all my other commitments. My series
started in Trinidad—the granddaddy to all Caribbean Carnivals, followed by Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil; Bridgetown, Barbados; Notting Hill, England, and the bonus
city hasn’t been determined.
Bettye: I hear they get down in Bahia, but of course that's still Brazil, so you might want to consider something different for your bonus city. You'll never believe this, but as I prepare this chat for publication who should pop up on my MP3 player but Cassandra Wilson singing A Day in the Life of a Fool (the theme from the aforementioned Black Orpheus); the studio version, not the live one I linked to.
Anyway, the concept of
collaboration is a fascinating one for me (I plan on doing one next year).
Whose idea was this series? How
did it come about? Did you and Marcia
use the same cover designer to achieve a a similar look? The same editor?
Michelle: Marcia King-Gamble and I both share a common heritage of the
West Indies. My birth mom is Jamaican who has lived in England since she was an
adolescent and my adoptive parents are Guyanese-born. I was born in England, but grew up in Guyana
and finished the rest of that growing in the U.S. While I used to wave my
Guyanese flag at Carnival events, I guess I need to have a tiny Jamaican patch
on my clothing, too—LOL.
Marcia and I have wanted to work together for many years.
Life and commitments usually delayed any significant push until we kicked
around this idea and it took hold. You couldn’t possibly live in the Caribbean
and not have experienced Carnival. I
have never participated in it or if I did, I was a teeny child and can’t
remember Guyana’s Mashramani. But I do remember sitting on the verandah
watching the bands go past and the thrill and fear (I don’t like the
stilt-walkers). I’m proud of the
richness of the Caribbean culture, its worldwide contributions to the world’s
economy, and its talented and gifted people. I also wanted to set the Caribbean
on the pedestal of romantic settings. And that it is just as important a
setting as any other European or American settings commonly used in romance
stories.
My story set in
Trinidad was decided to be the first. Again, Trinidad has the biggest Caribbean
Carnival and a lengthy colorful history.
I have friends who participate annually in the Carnival and leave their
day jobs in the U.S. to head back “home” to celebrate for that week. They were
my eyes and ears to get the real experience. I lived vicariously through them.
Thanks, Michelle “Trinibaby” Buckmire, a Carnival reveler to her core.
Marcia and I decided to use the same cover artist to keep
that unified look, and it was easier to communicate and toss around ideas with
one person. Author Christy Carlye did a fantastic job.
As far as editing, Marcia and I went to our individual
resources. Our voices and styles are different—a good thing. Readers will not
get a regurgitation of story or style.
Bettye: Marcia is a peach. She was the very first of my fellow writers to reach out to me when I was first published, a kindness I never forgot. I hope to work with her one day as well.
Tell us
specifically about Carnival Temptress (uh-oh, there's Cassandra Wilson again, singing a cover of the James Taylor tune Only A Dream In Rio, but hers has a real Brazilian beat to it...can you tell she's one of my favorites?).
Michelle: Carnival Temptress, The Revelers series novella, takes you
to the wonderful, sunny island of Trinidad to enjoy Carnival. Micha Lindsey and
her friends are heading to the annual festivities that promise to make them
forget their worries and heartbreaks. Out of a job, and out of a relationship,
Micha is ready to have Carnival work its magic on her. What she didn’t expect
was for sexy, brooding Amar Jaikaran, her youthful crush, to be the one with
the magic touch.
Amar Jaikaran feels invaded by his sister and her friends
who noisily barge into his life. From the first day, he’s appreciative of
Micha’s transformation from the giggly teen who he remembered to this stunning,
curvaceous beauty. Separately, they have experienced their share of pain and
loss. Would a few days of tossing aside inhibitions and celebrating life’s
pleasures heal their wounds and steer them toward each other to fall in love?
Note: This eBook contains steamy scenes and graphic language.
Bettye: Ah, the freedom of being on vacation! My sister took an island vacation over 40 years ago and eventually married the man she met there. In my single days I had some nice flings when visiting my sister and brother-in-law, but I digress...
You published this
series independently, and you are also indie publishing backlist titles while
remaining traditionally published. What
do you like best and least about indie publishing?
Michelle: I went the indie route because I didn’t have a choice.
Shrinking and/or constant advances, stagnant or decreasing distribution, and
lack of career movement in the traditional publishing whether at my doing or
the publisher’s forced me to look at other options.
Almost twelve years ago, when I got published, I didn’t come
with the plan to be fitted with several labels: black writer, black romance
writer, romance writer, contemporary romance writer. I had a desire to write
various kinds of books. The idea of branding by the reader or more so by the
publisher meant that someone had to anoint me to come into the circle of the
published, then for me to conform and enjoy the view, or that, after a tap on
the head, I can now write other stories or take the ascent on the slippery career
ladder.
For better or worse, I’ve stepped onto the diving board, taken
a deep breath, and doing a swan dive into indie publishing. My spirit to write
whatever I want may result in a romance book that continues any one of my
Harlequin Kimani series; an erotic romance about a modern-day Indian princess
and a Greek tycoon (1st draft done), a horror novel (believe it or
not, I wrote horror before romance), an epic style historical about a Moor (my
first work that I tried to get published. I think I still have the bruises on
my nose where the doors slammed, hard and fast). As far as the box of my current author life goes,
it has been opened, and good luck to anyone trying to put me back in.
Now, for traditional publishing, I’m still under contract
with a new series—the Meadows family—under Harlequin’s Kimani imprint. It is definitely
less of a headache to have on board the editor, cover artist and salesperson. Having work in print and eBooks with the
traditional publisher covers bases and helps with keeping my name out there. Now, more than ever, I have options.
Bettye: Tell me about it! I love the freedom of indie publishing. I do feel that being a hybrid, with a foothold on both traditional and indie, is best for the reasons you state, but I've pretty much ruled out a future in traditional publishing (actually, I don't think it's possible for someone like me whose publisher cut me loose...both of them).
Tell us, what's next for
Michelle Monkou?
Michelle: I have spent many years on the board of a national romance
writing organization and immediately before that I was on the board of a local
writing chapter. I have had my sleeves rolled up for a long time. All those
hours of commitment were done out of selflessness. But it also took the focus
off of me and my career. Now it’s time
to take what I’ve learned and what I already know and go inward.
I recently posted on social media that I was practicing
saying no to various requests. It’s not out of self-importance, but out of
survival. I was the go-to person, the honey-do person without the “honey.” Now
I’m focusing on my career with aggressive goals for the indie side and very
pointed strategic goals for the traditional side. That takes focus and time
that I can’t share readily with completing other tasks. Hence, my new inclination
to say, thank you, but I have to say no.
So stay tuned, because short of illness and/or death, I’m not done.
Bettye: Good for you! You were up there with my friend Deatri King-Bey as a candidate for the title of "hardest-working woman in publishing." I can readily understand why you have to put a little more emphasis on your own personal goals.
How can readers stay in touch with your goings-on?
Michelle: I have the usual social media available to keep track of my
career and some aspects of my life:
Facebook: Author page--http://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Michelle-Monkou/274955788064?ref=hl
Twitter: @MichelleMonkou
Website: http://michellemonkou.blogspot.com
Bettye: Anything else you’d like to say to your readers?
Michelle: Thank you for taking a chance with the first book you read
by me. If you still are hanging in there for the long haul, thank you even
more. I hope that I have managed to be an auto buy. Your support is always appreciated, and I will
ask that when you’ve read a book to post an honest review to assist others who
may be picking up my book for the first time.
You, readers, are an important part of this equation in my writing life
and contentment.
And to you, Bettye, thank you for this opportunity and for your support. Wishing you continued success with your
writing life and books.
Bettye: Thanks for coming by and chewing the fat, Michelle!
Readers, for an excerpt of Carnival Temptress, please click here. Enjoy!
Special Announcement: The second book in the Revelers Series, Marcia King-Gamble's Seducing Circe, is now available! Not only that, but Marcia and Michelle are hosting an online launch party tonight (April 23rd) from 7:30-9:30PM Eastern Time at Marcia's Facebook Page. There'll be fun and prizes, so do stop by. And Lord, don't stop the carnival!
April 21, 2013
First Look: Secrets & Sins
I'm working diligently trying to get Love Will Follow ready for publication next month and don't want to reveal the twist in the story by giving a lot of excerpts (what the hell, there's already a free download of the action preceding it, as well as the first two chapters, of it here), but since it's Sneak Peek Sunday I figured I'd give a preview of the project I'll be working on once Love Will Follow is in the can (target publication date: late summer/early fall). This is women's fiction and is different for me in that it contains flashbacks to Chicago in the 1950s. I'd love to know what you think...
******
Stony Island Avenue was fairly quiet on this early November night. The recent time change meant the sky got dark during rush hour. Like the rest of the businesses on the block except for bars, restaurants, and a stray store here and there, the law offices of Roscoe Scott were closed, but Julia knew he would be there. He’d promised to wait here for her when she left Lorraine’s hospital room, and he would bring her home. Julia had been staying with him at his home on Pill Hill since she’d been attending Chicago State University, because it was easier to get to her classes from here in the city than from her mother’s apartment on the grounds of her employer’s estate in the monied suburb of Winnetka. Julia wished she could see her boyfriend, Melvin, tonight, but she knew her father would never permit him to call on her after nine o’clock at night. She truly loved Melvin, but right now she needed her father more.
She paid the cab driver, then slipped into the stairwell leading to her father’s second floor offices above a bank. She heard voices from her father’s inner office and called out to him. The tall frame of Roscoe Scott quickly appeared in the doorway, closing the door behind him. Julia, in need of comforting, ran toward him, letting her tears fall freely. Miss Trudy had been right about one thing: She was damn lucky to have her father in her life.
“Oh, Daddy, I feel so bad,” she sobbed. “Not only did Lorraine lose her baby, but the doctors told her she won’t be able to have any more children. Something about the way she fell and the damage to her insides.”
“I know, baby. I’m so sorry,” Roscoe soothed, his hands rubbing her back. “I visited Lorraine this morning. She’s become like another daughter to me, between her working in my office and spending so much time at the house with you.” For a few moments they just stood, the only sound Julia’s muffled sobs. “I know it’s awful, Julia,” he added, “but I’ll tell you the same thing I told her: She’s a wonderful girl with a lot to offer any man. She’ll get through this, and she’ll find love again. With a better man than Vernon Pace,” he added gruffly.
“Is anything going to happen to him, Daddy? This is all his fault. He’s the one who pushed her. All right, so we all know he didn’t mean for her to lose her balance and fall down the stairs, but if he had kept his hands off of her she wouldn’t have taken that fall. Lorraine said he was drunk.” Julia’s lower lip protruded, and her hostility showed in the hardening of her features. “He hasn’t even been to the hospital to see her. I wonder if he even knows what happened. He actually left her lying on the floor last night and just went to bed.” A fresh wave of tears poured from her eyes. It made her physically ill to think of her friend lying at the foot of the stairs, bleeding and wracked with pain, finally managing to get up and call for help. Vernon probably wasn’t even aware of what happened. Julia imagined him sleeping it off, then getting cleaned up, polishing those damn wing tips he always wore, combing his wavy hair, and, after preening like a peacock, going out for yet another night of drinking and carousing, ending up in bed with yet another of Chicago’s prettiest young girls.
Roscoe shrugged. “I’m afraid nothing will happen unless Lorraine tells the police what really happened, but she just told them it was an accident. At this point she just wants him out of her life. She’s not interested in getting revenge.”
“But Daddy, it’s not fair for Vernon to go about his business like nothing happened. Lorraine’s life is changed forever. She can’t ever have any children. Even once she’s single again, what man is going to want to marry her?”
“Julia, there are plenty of people, men and women alike, who aren’t able to reproduce.” The stern tone of Roscoe’s voice reminded Julia that his own late wife had been too sickly to carry a baby. She opened her mouth to say she didn’t mean anything against Vivian, who passed shortly before Julia graduated high school, but her father continued talking.
“Lorraine is a beautiful young lady, inside and out,” he said. “I’m sure she’ll find another husband before too long. In the meantime...well, she’ll go on, that’s all. Just because she has to.”
“Do you really think it’s all right for Vernon to get off scot-free? His parents visited Lorraine while I was there. They say they haven’t been able to find him.”
“Maybe he went someplace to sober up. I wouldn’t worry a whole lot about Vernon, Julia. The guilty usually get punished, one way or another.”
Julia began to feel better. Her father was so wise. She decided to share her latest worry with him. “Daddy, Miss Trudy is expecting Lorraine to go back to Winnetka with her when she’s discharged from the hospital, but I don’t think she wants to go. She likes it here in the city. Besides, those people her mother works for won’t let a grown woman live on their property unless she works for them, too.” She chewed on her lower lip. Maybe her father could help. He always had…
He didn’t let her down. “She doesn’t have to go to Winnetka. She can stay right here in Chicago. She still has a job in this office, and if the family she boarded with before she got married doesn’t have a room for her, she can move in with us. In fact, it might be better for her to be with us while she recovers from—” his voice grew tight—“her hysterectomy. There’s plenty of room at the house, and I can arrange with Mrs. Walker next door to have the housekeeper look in on her a couple of times a day and see that she eats breakfast and lunch. So don’t you worry, Julia.”
She let out a relieved breath. “Thanks, Daddy. You always take care of everything.” She looked at him questioningly at the sound of a thudding noise coming from inside his office.
He glanced at the closed office door. “Uh, look, sweetheart, I’m with a client right now. Why don’t you just sit out here and read a magazine, and I’ll be with you in a few minutes to run you home.”
“All right, Daddy.”
Julia glimpsed through an issue of Jet magazine, which featured ongoing coverage of that horrifying Emmett Till murder three months ago in Mississippi. Her father, who ranked among the most prominent colored attorneys in Chicago, had served as an advisor to Mamie Bradley, young Emmett’s grieving mother, whose murder in the Delta town of Money occurred just a few counties away from Roscoe’s own hometown of Eighty-Eight, near Greenville.
Julia hadn’t been kidding when she told her father that he took care of everything. He was really her hero. It made her proud to say she was Roscoe Scott’s daughter. He easily could’ve abandoned her and her mother, Miriam, to whom he’d never been married. He’d been the son of one of the better-off families in their hometown, while she’d been a penniless deaf mute with good looks and an hourglass figure her only assets. Eventually Roscoe had married someone else, the daughter of his mentor. Vivian Scott didn’t possess a lot of physical strength—she had a heart condition—but she had the ability to give wonderful dinner parties at their home on Pill Hill, as well known as much for interesting mix of guests as they were for the wonderful food. Miriam Dunstan—she informally adopted the surname Scott and maintained the fiction that she and Roscoe were divorced—could never have managed to entertain the most prominent colored people and wealthy white liberals among Chicago’s population. In spite of extraordinary beauty, a deaf woman had few prospects, whether in Eighty-Eight, Mississippi, or in Chicago. But Roscoe had taken care of them. He’d graduated from the Howard University School of Law and moved to Chicago to start his career, handling criminal cases and doing pro bono work for the NAACP. Through his work he met a wealthy couple from Winnetka whose adolescent son was deaf, and he arranged for a housekeeping job for Miriam. Mother and daughter left Eighty-Eight for Chicago in Nineteen Forty-One, when Julia was just seven years old.
From that point on, Julia had become a “daddy’s girl.” Roscoe had taken an interest in her grades, brought her to his home for weekends, brought her to the circus and live plays, enrolled her in Mrs. Arnella Hunter Walker’s famous charm school for young ladies, and always assured her that she would go to college. Julia knew she had been blessed. Maybe if Lorraine had had a father to look out for her, she wouldn’t be lying in that hospital room right now.
Lorraine had had so much to deal with since her marriage to Vernon Pace...happiness at being a bride, then sadness at the realization that her husband continued to see other women...back to happiness at becoming pregnant...and now devastation at the loss of her unborn child, barely two weeks after the baby shower Julia had given for her. Lorraine had so looked forward to having her baby. Julia, deeply in love with Melvin Cheeks and with dreams of getting married herself, was equally excited about being a godmother.
It seemed to Julia as though she sat there for an eternity, lost in the world of ‘If only…’ Then she heard muffled voices and dragging sounds coming from her father’s office, as if he had someone in there helping him rearrange the furniture. She put the sound of the noise out of her mind, thinking about how she and Lorraine had planned to take their children to the park together, and how their offspring would also be best friends. Of course, Lorraine’s baby would be older than Julia’s, but they joked that Lorraine would have a boy. By the time she had a girl, Julia—or so she hoped—would be married to her boyfriend, Melvin Cheeks, and they would have a baby girl around the same time Lorraine and Vernon had theirs. Now that would never be.
A new wave of tears overtook her as she struggled to cope with how Lorraine’s entire future had changed. Her nose became congested, and she got up and went into the bathroom for a tissue to blow her nose. The toilet roll was empty, nor were there any of those hard brown paper towels kept in a basket on top of the toilet tank. Julia hated to intrude on her father’s meeting, but she had no choice. One of her nostrils had already closed up; if the other did the same she’d be unable to breathe.
She knocked on her father’s door, then entered without waiting for a response as she wiped her eyes. “Daddy—”
“Julia, don’t come in here!” her father shouted.
She stared unbelievingly at the scene in front of her. A mop in a bucket of water leaned against the side of her father’s desk. On the edge of the desk sat a kitchen knife stained with blood, and her father and a man she didn’t recognize were bent over a rolled-up rug on the side of the desk, from which two shoe-clad feet protruded.
Men’s shoes. Brown wing tips, polished to the nines, worn with argyle socks.
The type Vernon Pace always wore.
She turned wide, questioning eyes to her father, who hastily grabbed his coat and ushered her out of the office. “I’m taking you home right now.”
“My God, Daddy, what—?”
“No questions,” he said roughly, practically pushing her out the door. “I want you to forget you were ever here tonight. And I certainly want you to forget what you saw.”
She nodded, still dazed. Amazingly, her nasal passages had cleared, probably from shock. Those feet belonged to a dead body, but this wasn’t The Wizard of Oz, and those feet didn’t belong to the Wicked Witch of the North. This was horrifyingly real, and instinctively she knew those feet belonged to Vernon Pace.
Her best friend’s husband was lying dead in her father’s law office. How had he gotten there?
Julia descended the stairs as if in a trance. The brief ride to the house was accomplished in silence. Her father went back out immediately after dropping her off, and the next morning acted as though nothing happened.
Julia dared not ask any questions, but inside she felt numb. She kept remembering how her father had given Lorraine away at her wedding, kept hearing his toast at the wedding supper, when he warned Vernon that if he ever hurt Lorraine he’d have to answer to him. Everyone had laughed, thinking it was a cute. But it wasn’t cute anymore, for Vernon had hurt Lorraine, and now he was dead. Her father was, after all, a criminal attorney. He knew a lot of criminals, and that man helping to clean up looked like he could snuff out someone’s life in a heartbeat.
At the hospital this morning, with both her and Trudy sitting by Lorraine's bedside, her father promised Lorraine he'd take care of the divorce for her. Had he lured Vernon here by promising not to press charges in exchange for a quick divorce? Was this other man lurking in the shadows with knife in hand, waiting to pounce?
She’d always known her father to be an honorable man, but it looked like he’d made good on his threat regarding Vernon. The knife suggested that Vernon had been alive when he came to the office. Surely it was no coincidence that he ended up dead. If her father had conspired with the other man to have Vernon killed, that made him an accomplice, and just as guilty as the one who’d stabbed him.
And now that she knew about it, she’d just become an accomplice herself. ###
First Look: Secrets & Sins
I'm working diligently trying to get Love Will Follow ready for publication next month and don't want to reveal the twist in the story by giving a lot of excerpts (what the hell, there's already a free download of the action preceding it, as well as the first two chapters, of it here), but since it's Sneak Peek Sunday I figured I'd give a preview of the project I'll be working on once Love Will Follow is in the can (target publication date: late summer/early fall). This is women's fiction and is different for me in that it contains flashbacks to Chicago in the 1950s. I'd love to know what you think...
******
Stony Island Avenue was fairly quiet on this early November night. The recent time change meant the sky got dark during rush hour. Like the rest of the businesses on the block except for bars, restaurants, and a stray store here and there, the law offices of Roscoe Scott were closed, but Julia knew he would be there. He’d promised to wait here for her when she left Lorraine’s hospital room, and he would bring her home. Julia had been staying with him at his home on Pill Hill since she’d been attending Chicago State University, because it was easier to get to her classes from here in the city than from her mother’s apartment on the grounds of her employer’s estate in the monied suburb of Winnetka. Julia wished she could see her boyfriend, Melvin, tonight, but she knew her father would never permit him to call on her after nine o’clock at night. She truly loved Melvin, but right now she needed her father more.
She paid the cab driver, then slipped into the stairwell leading to her father’s second floor offices above a bank. She heard voices from her father’s inner office and called out to him. The tall frame of Roscoe Scott quickly appeared in the doorway, closing the door behind him. Julia, in need of comforting, ran toward him, letting her tears fall freely. Miss Trudy had been right about one thing: She was damn lucky to have her father in her life.
“Oh, Daddy, I feel so bad,” she sobbed. “Not only did Lorraine lose her baby, but the doctors told her she won’t be able to have any more children. Something about the way she fell and the damage to her insides.”
“I know, baby. I’m so sorry,” Roscoe soothed, his hands rubbing her back. “I visited Lorraine this morning. She’s become like another daughter to me, between her working in my office and spending so much time at the house with you.” For a few moments they just stood, the only sound Julia’s muffled sobs. “I know it’s awful, Julia,” he added, “but I’ll tell you the same thing I told her: She’s a wonderful girl with a lot to offer any man. She’ll get through this, and she’ll find love again. With a better man than Vernon Pace,” he added gruffly.
“Is anything going to happen to him, Daddy? This is all his fault. He’s the one who pushed her. All right, so we all know he didn’t mean for her to lose her balance and fall down the stairs, but if he had kept his hands off of her she wouldn’t have taken that fall. Lorraine said he was drunk.” Julia’s lower lip protruded, and her hostility showed in the hardening of her features. “He hasn’t even been to the hospital to see her. I wonder if he even knows what happened. He actually left her lying on the floor last night and just went to bed.” A fresh wave of tears poured from her eyes. It made her physically ill to think of her friend lying at the foot of the stairs, bleeding and wracked with pain, finally managing to get up and call for help. Vernon probably wasn’t even aware of what happened. Julia imagined him sleeping it off, then getting cleaned up, polishing those damn wing tips he always wore, combing his wavy hair, and, after preening like a peacock, going out for yet another night of drinking and carousing, ending up in bed with yet another of Chicago’s prettiest young girls.
Roscoe shrugged. “I’m afraid nothing will happen unless Lorraine tells the police what really happened, but she just told them it was an accident. At this point she just wants him out of her life. She’s not interested in getting revenge.”
“But Daddy, it’s not fair for Vernon to go about his business like nothing happened. Lorraine’s life is changed forever. She can’t ever have any children. Even once she’s single again, what man is going to want to marry her?”
“Julia, there are plenty of people, men and women alike, who aren’t able to reproduce.” The stern tone of Roscoe’s voice reminded Julia that his own late wife had been too sickly to carry a baby. She opened her mouth to say she didn’t mean anything against Vivian, who passed shortly before Julia graduated high school, but her father continued talking.
“Lorraine is a beautiful young lady, inside and out,” he said. “I’m sure she’ll find another husband before too long. In the meantime...well, she’ll go on, that’s all. Just because she has to.”
“Do you really think it’s all right for Vernon to get off scot-free? His parents visited Lorraine while I was there. They say they haven’t been able to find him.”
“Maybe he went someplace to sober up. I wouldn’t worry a whole lot about Vernon, Julia. The guilty usually get punished, one way or another.”
Julia began to feel better. Her father was so wise. She decided to share her latest worry with him. “Daddy, Miss Trudy is expecting Lorraine to go back to Winnetka with her when she’s discharged from the hospital, but I don’t think she wants to go. She likes it here in the city. Besides, those people her mother works for won’t let a grown woman live on their property unless she works for them, too.” She chewed on her lower lip. Maybe her father could help. He always had…
He didn’t let her down. “She doesn’t have to go to Winnetka. She can stay right here in Chicago. She still has a job in this office, and if the family she boarded with before she got married doesn’t have a room for her, she can move in with us. In fact, it might be better for her to be with us while she recovers from—” his voice grew tight—“her hysterectomy. There’s plenty of room at the house, and I can arrange with Mrs. Walker next door to have the housekeeper look in on her a couple of times a day and see that she eats breakfast and lunch. So don’t you worry, Julia.”
She let out a relieved breath. “Thanks, Daddy. You always take care of everything.” She looked at him questioningly at the sound of a thudding noise coming from inside his office.
He glanced at the closed office door. “Uh, look, sweetheart, I’m with a client right now. Why don’t you just sit out here and read a magazine, and I’ll be with you in a few minutes to run you home.”
“All right, Daddy.”
Julia glimpsed through an issue of Jet magazine, which featured ongoing coverage of that horrifying Emmett Till murder three months ago in Mississippi. Her father, who ranked among the most prominent colored attorneys in Chicago, had served as an advisor to Mamie Bradley, young Emmett’s grieving mother, whose murder in the Delta town of Money occurred just a few counties away from Roscoe’s own hometown of Eighty-Eight, near Greenville.
Julia hadn’t been kidding when she told her father that he took care of everything. He was really her hero. It made her proud to say she was Roscoe Scott’s daughter. He easily could’ve abandoned her and her mother, Miriam, to whom he’d never been married. He’d been the son of one of the better-off families in their hometown, while she’d been a penniless deaf mute with good looks and an hourglass figure her only assets. Eventually Roscoe had married someone else, the daughter of his mentor. Vivian Scott didn’t possess a lot of physical strength—she had a heart condition—but she had the ability to give wonderful dinner parties at their home on Pill Hill, as well known as much for interesting mix of guests as they were for the wonderful food. Miriam Dunstan—she informally adopted the surname Scott and maintained the fiction that she and Roscoe were divorced—could never have managed to entertain the most prominent colored people and wealthy white liberals among Chicago’s population. In spite of extraordinary beauty, a deaf woman had few prospects, whether in Eighty-Eight, Mississippi, or in Chicago. But Roscoe had taken care of them. He’d graduated from the Howard University School of Law and moved to Chicago to start his career, handling criminal cases and doing pro bono work for the NAACP. Through his work he met a wealthy couple from Winnetka whose adolescent son was deaf, and he arranged for a housekeeping job for Miriam. Mother and daughter left Eighty-Eight for Chicago in Nineteen Forty-One, when Julia was just seven years old.
From that point on, Julia had become a “daddy’s girl.” Roscoe had taken an interest in her grades, brought her to his home for weekends, brought her to the circus and live plays, enrolled her in Mrs. Arnella Hunter Walker’s famous charm school for young ladies, and always assured her that she would go to college. Julia knew she had been blessed. Maybe if Lorraine had had a father to look out for her, she wouldn’t be lying in that hospital room right now.
Lorraine had had so much to deal with since her marriage to Vernon Pace...happiness at being a bride, then sadness at the realization that her husband continued to see other women...back to happiness at becoming pregnant...and now devastation at the loss of her unborn child, barely two weeks after the baby shower Julia had given for her. Lorraine had so looked forward to having her baby. Julia, deeply in love with Melvin Cheeks and with dreams of getting married herself, was equally excited about being a godmother.
It seemed to Julia as though she sat there for an eternity, lost in the world of ‘If only…’ Then she heard muffled voices and dragging sounds coming from her father’s office, as if he had someone in there helping him rearrange the furniture. She put the sound of the noise out of her mind, thinking about how she and Lorraine had planned to take their children to the park together, and how their offspring would also be best friends. Of course, Lorraine’s baby would be older than Julia’s, but they joked that Lorraine would have a boy. By the time she had a girl, Julia—or so she hoped—would be married to her boyfriend, Melvin Cheeks, and they would have a baby girl around the same time Lorraine and Vernon had theirs. Now that would never be.
A new wave of tears overtook her as she struggled to cope with how Lorraine’s entire future had changed. Her nose became congested, and she got up and went into the bathroom for a tissue to blow her nose. The toilet roll was empty, nor were there any of those hard brown paper towels kept in a basket on top of the toilet tank. Julia hated to intrude on her father’s meeting, but she had no choice. One of her nostrils had already closed up; if the other did the same she’d be unable to breathe.
She knocked on her father’s door, then entered without waiting for a response as she wiped her eyes. “Daddy—”
“Julia, don’t come in here!” her father shouted.
She stared unbelievingly at the scene in front of her. A mop in a bucket of water leaned against the side of her father’s desk. On the edge of the desk sat a kitchen knife stained with blood, and her father and a man she didn’t recognize were bent over a rolled-up rug on the side of the desk, from which two shoe-clad feet protruded.
Men’s shoes. Brown wing tips, polished to the nines, worn with argyle socks.
The type Vernon Pace always wore.
She turned wide, questioning eyes to her father, who hastily grabbed his coat and ushered her out of the office. “I’m taking you home right now.”
“My God, Daddy, what—?”
“No questions,” he said roughly, practically pushing her out the door. “I want you to forget you were ever here tonight. And I certainly want you to forget what you saw.”
She nodded, still dazed. Amazingly, her nasal passages had cleared, probably from shock. Those feet belonged to a dead body, but this wasn’t The Wizard of Oz, and those feet didn’t belong to the Wicked Witch of the North. This was horrifyingly real, and instinctively she knew those feet belonged to Vernon Pace.
Her best friend’s husband was lying dead in her father’s law office. How had he gotten there?
Julia descended the stairs as if in a trance. The brief ride to the house was accomplished in silence. Her father went back out immediately after dropping her off, and the next morning acted as though nothing happened.
Julia dared not ask any questions, but inside she felt numb. She kept remembering how her father had given Lorraine away at her wedding, kept hearing his toast at the wedding supper, when he warned Vernon that if he ever hurt Lorraine he’d have to answer to him. Everyone had laughed, thinking it was a cute. But it wasn’t cute anymore, for Vernon had hurt Lorraine, and now he was dead. Her father was, after all, a criminal attorney. He knew a lot of criminals, and that man helping to clean up looked like he could snuff out someone’s life in a heartbeat.
At the hospital this morning, with both her and Trudy sitting by Lorraine's bedside, her father promised Lorraine he'd take care of the divorce for her. Had he lured Vernon here by promising not to press charges in exchange for a quick divorce? Was this other man lurking in the shadows with knife in hand, waiting to pounce?
She’d always known her father to be an honorable man, but it looked like he’d made good on his threat regarding Vernon. The knife suggested that Vernon had been alive when he came to the office. Surely it was no coincidence that he ended up dead. If her father had conspired with the other man to have Vernon killed, that made him an accomplice, and just as guilty as the one who’d stabbed him.
And now that she knew about it, she’d just become an accomplice herself. ###
April 20, 2013
Observations from Bettye-ville
Here are some observations I've made this week:
Observations from Bettye-ville
Here are some observations I've made this week:
- Joint efforts can be powerful...as evidenced by the swift identification and capture of the suspects of the Boston Marathon Bombing by local and federal authorities, and the lockdown of the metro area by the governor, mayor, and local authorities to keep residents safe. Bravo!
- That said, one week ago there were many more healthy people, alive and with all their limbs, than there are this week. May God rest those who perished in the bombing and heal those who were injured. I think we all hurt from this, but these people's lives are changed forever.
- The terrifying events in the Boston area were the leading story, but let us not forget the natural (as opposed to man-made) disaster in Texas. That community has been decimated; it will take years to recover, if it ever does. Not only are houses destroyed, but the air quality is damaged. Remember them in your prayers.
- It must truly be springtime in Wisconsin--the roads are torn up with detours everywhere, roads are closed to accommodate flooded streets, and the bikers are gathering by the dozens in the parking lot of Harley-Davidson. Before you know it motorists will be hearing people screaming on the roller coasters as they drive past Six Flags Great America across the Illinois border.
- NookPress is a pain in the ass. I remember rolling my eyes when I read that if you want to re-upload your book file you first have to take it off sale, then re-upload the new version. No more simply uploading a new version and having it become effective 12 hours later. It takes hours just for the original file to be removed. I found out firsthand how disruptive this is when I noticed that the cover art for my new prequel, Lost That Lovin' Feeling, was picked up twice I'm not liking this...
- Most of the people who accepted my invitation to read Lost That Lovin' Feeling prior to publication and put reviews up right away have already done so on its Amazon product page. Why didn't I do this sooner?
Until next time! How are things in your world?
Posts
