Author Blog Hop - Meet The Authors

Lisa McManus Lange invited me to participate in a blog hop.  Today it's a different kind of blog hop.  Not a reader hop, nor a book hop, nor even a review hop.  Today it's an author hop.  How did this happen?  Or more aptly, what is this?

Well it's a hop that passes the torch from one author to another.

But first, a little more about how I got here.  As I said, Lisa McManus Lange invited me.  I met Lisa ages ago when I stumbled on her blog and was intrigued by a fellow Canadian author and by what she had to say.  So I'd leave a comment from time to time and one thing led to another and soon I found us in the "ultimate" of friendship moments "facebook friends".  Seriously, Lisa is one of those go-to girls you can always count on to cheer you on or help you out.  Not only that, but she just published her young-adult book Newbie Nick, the release date coming up soon!

The purpose of all this is so that you can find out a little more about the authors participating in this hop, starting out with me and moving on to the two authors I've tagged - and of course going backwards and checking out what Lisa had to say in her post.  So without further ado - here are the four questions that tell you a little more about me.


1.  What am I working on?
I am in that lull between projects.  The latest romantic suspense was just completed and I've agreed to do a romantic suspense series.  And the lull?  I'm not sure if you can call "thinking about the next stories" a lull.  But the action is all going on in my head right now and not on the computer.  Sorry, to scare some of you folks but yes, that's the way it is - there are voices in my head.  In my world, we writers call them characters.

2.  How does my work differ from others in my genre?
My work differs from others in my genre I think in one word, as with other authors, voice.  Each of us views the world in a different way and that transposes to our writing.  For me, I love exotic locations but I've also learned that one doesn't have to travel too far from home to discover  something that is strange and different and right in your corner of the world.  I like to find the differences and show how very much the same we all are - even in the face of difference.

3.  Why do I write what I do?

-->I write romantic suspense and women's fiction.  The latter is because I love to delve into the human condition, explore how life impacts women and give each story hope too, with a thread of romance weaving through whatever issue they are dealing with. And suspense?  I suppose writing romantic suspense was inevitable.  I grew up a cop's daughter and while other children were told not to talk to strangers, I was told to get a good description of the suspect and report home.   Now, that exchange in an airport or at a temple or the library or...  I think what if that's not just an innocent discussion, what if that's not just a pen, what if it's something more sinister? 

4.  How does my writing process work?
I usually think of an idea - sparked by something I see, hear - might be just a line someone says.  After that I need a setting, once I have that I begin to think of scenarios and then characters - what do they do, who are they?  This is where a lot of the research occurs, making sure I have the facts to make the setting and the characters' motivations real.  Once I have that I begin to write a synopsis and from there I write as close to three final chapters as I can get.  Once I've done that, I start writing.  That's when the organization stops, I write freestyle from there to the end, stopping only for the occasional fact finding mission or sometimes I just mark the trouble spot and worry about all of the remaining "reality" checks when I finish the first draft.

And the authors I've tagged? - Laura Whiskens and Annette Bower.

Laura Whiskens is a writer I met online in a writers' group.  She's one of a number of writers from "across the pond" whose work I've had the pleasure of reading lately.  I stumbled on her when I read her short story Danny Boy and knew I wanted to read more.  If you haven't read this story, I'd highly recommend it. 

Laura J. Whiskens is a British writer who published her first short story in July 2013.  Since Danny Boy was released she has written a further 3 short stories and published a paperback collection of her work, Telling Tales.  She has received 5 * reviews worldwide and is currently working on a new novel, two childrens' books and a further short story in The Hunter collection.

You can view her online blog here:   laurawhiskenswriter.weebly.com/blog.html

Like me, Annette Bower is a Saskatchewan romance writer.  I don't remember the exact time and place that we met but Saskatchewan romance writers are relatively rare, so it was inevitable that we would bump into each other.   Annette's recent Woman of Substance is a thought provoking story that takes us to the heart of what it might be like to live as a morbidly obese woman. 

Annette Bower writes 100 word stories, and short stories that are published in anthologies and magazines.

Annette Bower writes novels, Woman of Substance, and soon to be      re-released, Moving On.

Annette Bower writes with a view of her city 

@ www.annettebower.com/blog and her home is www.annettebower.com.  

She loves company.

Mark your calendars and on June 16, hop on over to Laura's blog and on June 23 hop to Annette's and see how they both answered these same four questions and what authors they've tagged to do the same.  I'm betting that you'll stumble on a few books to add to that "To Be Read" pile.

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com

An Absent Mind

An Absent Mind is a riveting new novel from Eric Rill, author of Pinnacle of Deceit and The Innocent Traitor, is about a race against time.    The ticking time bomb is Saul Reimer's sanity.  His Alheimer's is going to be the catalyst that will either bring his family together or tear it apart.

My review of An Absent Mind:

Alzheimer's is a difficult journey for any individual or family to take and there is no opt out.  In An Absent Mind, Eric Rill takes on a family's journey as their patriarch is diagnosed with Alzheimer's.  The story is told in a unique fashion, first person that swings from one family member to another, including occasionally, Saul's doctor.  I liked the easy back and forth of switching from one person's story to another.

As Saul's Alzheimer's progresses, his point of views becomes shorter and shorter until they are only one garbled sentence.  And as the story evolves, we see the effect Saul's condition has on each member of the family, how they cope and grow or how they don't cope.  Nothing is a given, nothing is for sure, as this family struggles to survive.

Rill tells a story that captures you and keeps you turning pages to the end--it is a journey through Alzheimer's and while it can't be called everyone's journey, it opens the door on the effect, both good and bad, that  the disease can have on a family and on the patient.  And despite all the pain and the inevitable end, this story has heart and gets to the pulse of what family is all about.

I gave it five stars.

An excerpt from An Absent Mind:

SAUL:  MY LAST PLACE ON EARTH

It's all unraveling.

Last night, I found myself somewhere on Monkland Avenue.  I had no idea how I got there.  I looked in a store window and saw my reflection.  It took me a bit to figure it all out --like that the person in the window was a man, and that the man was me.

I didn't know what to do.  I glanced down at the bracelet on my wrist and everything--well, not everything, but the gist of it all came back to me.  I am Saul Reimer, formerly a healthy, intelligent man, married to the same woman for many years, and the father of two children he loves more than anything in the world.

The key word is formerly, as I am sure you have already figured out.  Because today--and I have no idea what day it is, other than it is really cold and I wish I had a jacket on--I am nothing, not a real man, that's for sure.  I mean, how can you be a real man when you don't even know where you are half the time, and when you do know, more often than not, you can't grasp the concept of your surroundings?

I felt in my pocket for my wallet, but it wasn't there.  All I had was my bank card.  I spotted an ATM machine at the corner.  But when I got there, I couldn't figure out how to work it.  A woman walked up from behind.  I gestured for her to go in front of me.  She smiled and said that she was in no rush.  I looked at the machine with all the words flashing across the screen.  My hands were getting slimy, and beads of that wet stuff covered my forehead.  Why couldn't she just go first?  Then suddenly, it all made sense.  I followed the directions, but it took a few tries to get the card into the machine with the strip the right way.  I looked behind me again.  The woman was fidgeting with her purse strap.  Then the machine asked me for a personal identification number.  The bad news is, I had no idea what it was.  My brain is like a short-wave radio, mostly static that occasionally finds the station, but even then the sound isn't always clear.

In a way, it will be a blessing, when my mind is totally gone, when I am a vegetable, slouched in a wheelchair.  Like many Alzheimer's patients on Montreal's West Side, I'll probably make a pit stop at Manoir Laurier.  Then when Manoir Laurier can't cope with me, or we can't afford it anymore, they'll ship me off to Belfrage Hospital, my final stop on this beloved earth.  I'll be there incontinent, drooling, and incoherent--that is, if I can even manage to get a word through my blistered lips.  And when it's all over--when my heart finally gives out, or I contract pneumonia and my family says, "Let Saul go; he deserves some peace"--when that happens, they'll take me down to the autopsy room, cut my skull open and find the tangles and plaques on my brain.  Then they will be able to say with 100 percent certainty that Saul Reimer had Alzheimer's.


BIO:
Eric Rill was born in Montreal and graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Arts and from UCLA with an MBA.  He held several executive positions in the hospitality industry, including president of a global hotel group.  His hobbies include trekking, scuba diving, and coll  Recting antique carpets.   Eric has two sons and divides his time between his residence in Panama and international travel.  You can reach him at his website:  www.ericrill.com

Absent Mind can be purchased at:
Barnes&Noble
Amazon


On randomly drawn commenter will win a $50 gift certificate from either Amazon or Barnes and Noble.  So enter a comment and follow along on the remainder of the tour and log in to the   rafflecopter draw.

Follow the rest of the tour here.


Good luck!

Cinco de Mayo

Today there's not only Cinco de Mayo but all kinds of things to celebrate.  One, I've crawled out of the writing cave and submitted two projects aka stories.  I kind of miss them now, no more mornings running from deranged killers or crawling through bat caves and no more Josh - sigh and Max - add a second sigh there. 

 So they're off into the world and I wait and worry that they made it safely.

Meantime, last week I was blogging the alphabet with a great group of bloggers but things kind of fell apart near the end - for me, not for them.  So while I never got to x, y or z, I had fun all the same.  It was too bad as I had a favourite name for z.  i saw it on a clerk's badge one day while I was shopping.  Zed.  How great is that?  A name that appears, if phonetically pronounced, to be exactly how z is pronounced in Canada.

So back to Cinco de Mayo.  While I have no ties to that holiday and I'm not even in the right country, it's still a great excuse to haul out the lawn chairs, open a bottle of tequila and have a fish taco or two.  Because you know, there's been almost a full week without even a trace of snow!  Now if that isn't worth celebrating...
 

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com
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VW and the land of the Volkswagon

I saved V for today specifically to have the VW post.  I know that sounds right and it sounds plausible but it was also convenient.  As the story I am just finishing lurches to the finish line it is gobbling more of my time and it seems like it will never be done.  But the end of a story always feels like that, like the edits will never end.

And I'm happy to declare as I return to writing a blog post I started this morning, that the finish line has been reached, for now.  The story is out to my reader who fortunately, is much faster reading than I am at writing.

The punch to the finish line of a book reminds me of one of my first vehicles.  Back when in those free and easy days when all you have to think about is yourself and your possible career plan or lack there of, I was in love with the Volkswagon Beetle, and one of my first cars was a bug.  That was before its rebirth, we're talking the vintage model.

And as I thought about that old bug I remembered a trip that I took with a friend from the prairies to Victoria, British Columbia.  Now the VW could do sixty miles an hour top speed and that was with a

wind in your favour and a flat road.  So the mountains presented a bit of a challenge.  My trusty old VW crawled up those mountain roads chugging and panting to make it only to race down the other side. 

And then the worst happened.  The car wouldn't start.

Remember the days of youthful flying by the seat of your pants, when worries were as few as the dollars in your pocket?  A car that was a little finicky was not going to stop us from reaching Victoria not when just cooling the engine off got that car going again.  I shudder to think of driving that balky little vehicle onto the ferry for the last round of the trip.  But she started right up to drive off with no problems and we were problem free again until we hit the mainland.  From there we jump started the car a couple of times before we finally arrived home.

Why didn't we check in at a service station?  I wonder that now.  But if we had, I suppose now, I wouldn't have a story.  And the story was, that Volkswagon made it despite weary parts, all the way to the end.  Kind of like a story, one day at a time, one word at a time and eventually you'll finish that last word and voila - a story!

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com
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Letter V Song

This morning there's not just one word beginning with V but a whole lot of V words.  Why weren't there learning videos like this when I was learning my alphabet?  Although, I don't know about you, but when I was singing A B C D - no one was mentioning consonants.  However, consonants are something every fledging writer should know.

For all you adults just enjoy this light video with your coffee, and maybe it will begin your day with a smile!

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com
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Time for U

T is for time

U is for underestimate

Never underestimate time for it is probably out and about over-estimating you.  Like today when I am blogging T and U because I had so much time yesterday...not!  I thought I did.  I thought I had time to do it all, to catch up on my edits, to get a brochure for the upcoming craft sale ready, to walk the dog, pay the bills, answer e-mails, clean the house and the list rolled on. 

We all know the list.  The tasks that scroll threw our mind when the alarm rings in the morning.  And then like water dripping out of a tap, that distinct blip, blip, blip... and the day is gone. 

Yesterday I threw a few extra things into the rotation, a book finished and reviewed, a coffee with a friend I'd neglected, and the list goes on.  But there was even more I didn't get done.  Like that book, excuse me books, two of them - still working on it.  The book prizes that need to go out have moved to today - tomorrow at the outside and there again is a list, of what still needs to be done.

Time just got away!

So when I had the opportunity to review a new book about just that - maybe being happy with where you are and not rushing to be somewhere else or even be something else - I thought, yes I'm interested.    Now, I'm not sure if this is exactly what the author is going to tackle but it appeared to be on those lines and caught my interest.  Yes, it's more on my to do list but sometimes it's nice to do something a little different and give back.  Plus, as I said, the book might be helpful.  I'll update all of that on Goodreads.

Meantime I will continue to time wrangle and today in honour of saving time, I am blogging T and U. 

Til tomorrow.

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com
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