And then there was Alex

So for the first time I've been faced with a deadline that, well arrived sooner than I expected.  Who am I kidding?  Deadlines always arrive sooner than you expect.  So this time, while managing the deadline, I also met a new man.   Yes, that's right, a new man with a sultry voice.  Okay, not quite. Alex claims to be a man but he's not, not really, not like he claims.  In fact, he's not a man that DH need give a second thought to.  He's not fictional but he is kind of real.   He reads to me in the quiet of my office and somehow that seems so wrong.

But let me explain.  There's nothing wrong with just me and him alone in my office, his  silken tones seductive and...   Alright, so his tones are not so silken and aside from a slight hint of an accent, his voice is slightly robotic.  Although he does have his times, little nuances here and there. A mispronunciation, oops he slipped on one of my misspellings.  Alex is not quite the man of anyone's dreams but he's definitely the man I've been spending some times with lately.

Who is Alex?  Well, it's hard to describe him for he lives somewhere in the bowels of my computer.

My MacBookAir has a choice of speakers, sexes and I believe even accents.   So I chose Alex.  Now, he's the voice  that will read my story to me, should I wish.  And after reading a chapter or two one too many times, fresh eyes, no matter how mechanical, are welcome.  So Alex reads and I'm proud to say that he even has the occasional attempt at inflection.

When something just isn't quite working or you've looked at a chapter, paragraph, whatever... once too many times, Alex is my first go-to guy.  And he's done a pretty good job.  Reading to me as I drink my coffee and follow along, as the sun dashes away what is left of the night.  It's just me and Alex, my feet tucked up on my chair.  Me and Alex.  I have to admit, after a chapter or two, I'm ready to turn Alex off but he's got me out of my head and on the right path, and I suppose that was the purpose in the first place.

A good pair of human eyes beats hands down, sorry Alex.

So another deadline is met and book two of the Sheik series for Harlequin Intrigue is off to my editor.   I'm pretty excited about Zafir's and Jade's story.  They've had a wild time in Wyoming and Morocco, and I suspect those wild times have only just begun.  Now it's on to book three.  Four books, that will be out in 2017.  Emir, Zafir, Talib and Faisal - I can hardly wait to hold each of their stories, finished in my hand.

In the meantime, my neighbourhood Robin is celebrating the completion of book two, with his usual daily bath.  Which, by the way, has the squirrels and other birds squawking, chirping and flailing their tails in their annoyance that the local watering hole has been emptied.

I'm off, water bottle in hand to refill and get "everyone" settled down.


Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com

Rambling into April

It's been quiet on the blog, or at least quieter than usual.  That's mostly because, since Suspect Witness was accepted and then published by Harlequin Intrigue, I've been on a learning curve that's only just beginning to level off.  Of course, now I'm busy on the book that is to follow but that turns out not to be one book but four, a series:

Four powerful Sheiks, four compelling stories.

The Al-Nassar brothers have it all – power, wealth and a wildly successful security agency that provides investigative and protective services. Follow these daring brothers across the globe from Morocco to Wyoming as in case after case 

these young men take danger to the edge and back before love has them 

finally meet their "match".

Last newsletter giveaway

To celebrate all of this I'm running a contest or two on my newsletter over the course of the year.  The first contests will be giveaways of vintage Harlequins.  I thought, considering the publisher, that that might be appropriate.   But aside from that, there's always something new from news to giveaways.  If you're interested in checking out my newsletter, yes it even has a name, check it out here:  The Walkabout.

So where was I?  Right, I was coming up with excuses for my absence, and I have many - but I promise I'm changing that.  Here's, another excuse though because I am on a roll.  It's Income Tax time in Canada - Whoo Hoo!  Okay, let's go with the reverse of that.  Math is not one of my favourite subjects and I only took accounting because it was a core part of my administration certification in university and I must say that it was not my favourite course.  So why am I the one in charge of completing income tax not only for me but DH and my mother too.  My mom did tell me that there's
really not much to it.  And I suppose, for her, there's not.  She hands it to me with a "thank you, dear" on giving it up and again on me returning the results to her.  Pretty slick.  I really want her system.

Less than two weeks ago.

So that's why things have languished here on the site which was my first home on the internet.  I'm going to amend that because there's been things going on and often this blog was also my place to go back and remind myself of all that's happened in this wonderful writing journey.  Kind of my online journal, okay sanitized journal.  I kept all the nasty stuff to myself.  Got your attention?

So why is it that when you're deep in a story and in no need of more imaginary people speaking to you, you run into more characters?

The other day I was convinced to hit a few church bazars even though my goal is to do the reverse, gather up surplus stuff and donate to one of those same bazars.  Instead, I found books.  What can I say - yes I really did need the vintage hard cover of Anne of Green Gables and yes, Christmas is not my favourite holiday but I really did need that group of free tree ornaments.  While church hopping we stopped for lunch in a basement lunchroom, another experience as two men were sitting at one table and had that distinctive look about them of men who live on the fringes of society.  Their clothes were rather ill fitting and they were unshaven and had walking sticks, not the kind that you use to get more exercise but the kind that are used to shove garbage aside in bins looking for recyclables.  And sure enough they were talking about the methods to best utilize recycling depots.  They were deep in their conversation and it would have been rude to interrupt.  But darn if there's not a story everywhere.  In the end they left after they'd finished their coffee, with smiles, and I'm sure, full of more stories.

There's a world of stories out there and sometimes this blog is the only place I get to write them down.  Till next time...  



Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com

Rewind - Life and Fiction

It's hard to believe how long this blog has been running but it's been here since the beginning, since the book that started it all, From the Dust in the waning months of 2007.  

This morning  I took a bit of a break and stumbled on this long ago post and thought it was worth a share...

The streets are still dark and early morning frost clings to the sidewalks and streets. At this hour of the morning I imagine many to-work-drives are silent. Or maybe the conversation revolves around social activities, kids, the day's schedule. I imagine most conversations don't go something like this:

"So," I begin addressing hubbie who is a bit of a political junkie. "What do you think would happen if an ambassador was shot and killed by one of the military in a military dictatorship?" I'm referring to a "small" plot complication in my current WIP (work in progress).

Silence.

The street lights are pooling glints of light onto the cold chipped pavement. With snow pushing impatiently on the horizon, we're on a rapid slide to winter snow and thousands of miles away from the balmy warmth of Asia where current WIP is set.

"If it was the British Embassy how would Britain react?" I ask because the country in question was once a British Colony and is now a military dictatorship.

"You can't do that," says my previously silent spouse. Probably fearing my next move will be to phone an Embassy. And he's not far off, although I thought I'd e-mail.

"Why not?"

"Aren't you going a little big?" he asks but it's really more of a statement.

And there's some truth in that. 

In life and in fiction - How big is too big? And when is it just too much?

Ryshia

It's Out There

I'd heard rumour that the book was out, that Suspect Witness, my first Harlequin Intrigue, had not only been released, it had hit the shelves.  I'm not sure why this came as a surprise to me but it did.   Maybe it was because I'm in the midst of another book and with a dozen things on my mind including Suspect Witness, I was gearing up for February 1.  But, here's the rub, there is a release date for the paperback and one for the e-book.  The e-book is not until February 1 not so the paperback.  Now to add to those dates, there's the time that a Harlequin Intrigue remains physically on the bookshelves - one month.  So, by all logical accounts, okay by my slightly skewed calculations, that would be the month of February.


But there were already reports of scattered sightings.   The author of That Night, Lisa McManus Lange had even rushed to her book store only to get the last copy of Suspect Witness.

Oblivious to all this, I spent the day of January 19 picking my mother-in-law up, a sweet lady despite her relationship status, for an appointment that was booked months ago and then off to lunch.  It wasn't until I got home that I saw a tweet, thank you Janie Crouch, that my book was out.

I was excited but it took me until January 20 to get to my local Chapters to discover if this might be true.  Was Suspect Witness on the shelves and not just lurking on my office floor in the guise of author copies?  I dragged DH along with me who wanted to know as soon as we'd rushed those golden book gates why my book wasn't featured front and centre with the books of interest.  I ignored that comment and charged to the back of the store where the "real" fiction is kept.  After skirting two teenage girls huddled over a table that was mere feet from where I needed to be I crouched down and looked.  

I should have known - not there, but I didn't expect it would be - not really.  But wait, one title looked familiar as did the author and the one beside that.  I looked a little closer, and discovered there it was, Suspect Witness, parked in the middle.  I wanted to yell, hey over here - look.

But the thought of all that was overpowered by the voices of the young ladies only a few feet behind me who were discussing the relative merits of acids and bases.  One really wasn't getting it and the other was trying her best to clarify the concept.  I wanted to interrupt that conversation to ask them if they really believed that my romantic suspense could possibly be of less interest than their scientific analysis?  I'm sure from their perspective they were wondering what my fascination was with the book rack and might possibly even be rolling their eyes at the woman who kept backing so close to their table to take pictures of books that held no scientific relevance.

Leaving acids and bases for another day, it was off to Walmart.  There, the book shelving situation was a different story.  The clerk who oversees the books with a diligence that an army corporal might admire, told me that January books had not yet been cleared off and it would be another week or two before February replaced them.  The way she said it made it clear that she thought this was obvious and that I should look at a calendar and not bother her with February books that were currently not her concern.

But all that was fine for I'd seen the proof that Suspect Witness exists beyond an online entity.  It's out there.



Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com

Aliens, Margaritas, and a One Horse Town

It's hard to believe that the ruins at Casa Grande, Arizona are now over a week ago.  Blogging became a little difficult as we packed and headed back on the road and toward home.  But here's what I missed mentioning.  Big miss - it is one of the largest prehistoric structures built in North America.  What it was used for is still not known, the people who know the secret to this imposing stone structure that stands in the middle of the Arizona desert and that is surrounded by a complex irrigation system, are long gone.

The road we took this year wound through beautiful and slightly terrifying mountain cliffs and valleys in Arizona before hitting New Mexico.

Along the road there were many oddities from the "One Horse Town" that consisted of one house and a fake horse attached to a hitching post, to the sign saying public library with no houses in sight except one house with a library sign tucked into a opening in the hills near the town of Notes, New Mexico.  I wanted to stop in the worst way but we needed to hit Albuquerque before dark.  And it was a good thing was didn't for then we had the "Contact" experience.

Gleaming on the plains of New Mexico some miles out of Socorro there is a Very Large Array or VLA for short.  The VLA consists of 27 dish antennas that have been monitoring the universe and discovering some pretty amazing things.  In fact some of the movie, Contact, was filmed there.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time for the tour, only time to drive up and find out what the heck was going on.  I'll read up on all of it later, when life settles down.

We hit Albuquerque in time for supper at El Pinto.  It's a cavernous yet oddly cosy Mexican restaurant on a dark street that on a first visit, makes one think to keep the doors locked.  It might be a very nice neighbourhood, I don't know, I've only seen it at night, and unlike home - there's not a lot of street lights.  Either way, El Pinto is worth visiting.  Great Mexican food although this time around I was craving vegetables and had a Taco salad.  Of course, there were the margaritas with fresh lime juice that vie with the food for which is best.  When morning arrived, Albuquerque delivered another surprise - hot air balloons, a lot of them.  In fact by the time we left there were over sixty launched and more coming.  While Albuquerque is known for it's fall balloon festival, December is not the month for it.  But apparently the cold weather has hot air balloon enthusiasts gathering.

From there it was on to Wyoming where the land rolls in mountains, hills and plains that for miles seem as untouched as they might have hundreds of years ago.  Wyoming is where we see the most wildlife.  Birds of prey, herds upon herds of antelope, and land that sprawls out in dips and valleys and mountains, in this part at least, seem little bothered by the intrusion of man.

It's strange how a State line seems to change the terrain as if somehow the line was drawn where the topography changed but that's impossible, or is it?  But that what seems to happen as we cross into Montana, I can't tell you what it is exactly but there's a distinct difference between the two States, both beautiful in their own way.

There's nothing like a road trip to give me lots of ideas and locales for stories.  Meantime Christmas is almost here and today, well it's Festivus for the Rest of Us.  How can you forget that hilarious episode of Seinfeld.  I loved George's parents.  They played off each other so well.

Happy Festivus.  Merry Christmas.

Ryshia

Bring Cash and Keep Low

It turns out getting published by Harlequin was only the first of my challenges.  After the excitement died down, there were expectations and I met each one except for one - the author picture.  Turns out that uploading an acceptable author picture to the Harlequin site is not as easy as I thought.

It all began with the camera of choice and the fact that the IPhone camera is not particularly fool proof.  It does not take the perfect picture every time, at least it doesn't for me or more specifically, DH.   Picture one I thought was a keeper - not so fast, the size of it was off, mostly I suspect because of DH's penchant for playing with settings.  Another picture was in order but with everything good and bad that has happened late summer through early fall,

This wasn't the pic sent in.

combined with packing for an extended trip, the picture kept falling into the wreckage of preparation.   Finally, picture two was taken, I admit in a bit of a rush, but still I waited to get the thumbs up.

Instead, another rejection.  This time the picture was out of focus.  It's not obviously out of focus or I'd never have sent it - in fact to the amateur eye it looked fine.

So now release date is coming closer and I desperately needed an acceptable photo.  Fearing another rejection, I decided that it was time to take the advise that had been in front of me all along and hire a photographer.  I found one in the San Tan Valley area that was offering a great deal for a half hour shoot.  We connected by e-mail and she told me to meet her at a park, she'd be wearing red, follow the trail and bring cash.

Bring cash?  Follow the trail?  Was I meeting for some sort of shady deal that I hadn't been forewarned about or was this, as advertised, a photo shoot.  Do I come prepared or do I dare show up at all?

Fast forward two days and one cancellation later that made me glad that I was arriving with DH in tow.   On the upside, it turned out the deal wasn't shady, in fact, the photographer was a personable woman who made me laugh the entire half hour.  Ironically though, I thought Arizona would be a unique setting for someone from the prairies, rock - desert etc.  Instead, the pictures were taken in a park with trees in autumn shades behind me, just like September at home!

So now the photos have been taken and I'm waiting to receive them.  It will just be a matter of time to see how well this all turns out.

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com