Blood of the Dragonfly by Hawk MacKinney (VBT, guest post, excerpt, and GIVEAWAY) GFT

 

 

I have the pleasure of sharing a guest post by author Hawk MacKinney, who provides thoughts on...

 

 

The Craft of Writing

by

Hawk MacKinney 

www.hawkmackinneyauthor.com

 

 

Genre, the writing process, and hobbies are all aspects of the same juices that drive one to write. Genre is generated by content which begins to emerge with intros and initial settings in the first chapter. That sets the background with the ‘classic’ genre format, be it science fiction, romance, mystery, adventure, or fantasy. For me, I prefer to let an outline float behind my writing as I attempt to set the hook for readers in setting, plot, and characters. 

 

One common mistake new writers make is to create superfluous characters or story lines for the sake of bulk. Readers can pick this up in a heartbeat of a single sentence. Deleting or editing-out characters shouldn’t be a problem. In my process, I usually already have the sketch for the last chapter in mind before I finish with the opening paragraphs. In this way, subordinate or secondary characters or supporting serial characters don’t run away with some humdrum mundane wordy digression or plot twists that do nothing to move the story forward. 

 

None of these cornerstones are sacrosanct. Any can be changed. Every writer has a different process. However, in my case, I have found that outlines and final chapters hold me to my original objective. Twists and double twists are fun. Readers like sniffing out the false and the lethal. Psychotic perps are great for turning scenes and suspicions downside-up with underlying plots changing with each page and chapter.  

 

Caveat—dialogue is character-specific. Regional/planetary/cultural linguistics can be tricky and fatal for a story line if a writer is unfamiliar with usages or mismatches them. Most importantly, let your fantasies decide what you want to write—then make it yours. Your readers will recognize the heart, the passion, and the feeling behind your words.

 

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Blood of the Dragonfly

by 

Hawk MacKinney

 

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GENRE: Fiction/Mystery/Suspense

 

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BLURB:

 

While dangling a fishing hook from his flat bottom skiff before dawn, former SEAL-turned-PI Craige Ingram spots grey-black smoke coiling above the treetops across the river in the direction of the Georgia bayous and Corpsewood Manor. Bayou or bogs, fire in the uncut cypress and pines bodes a sense that the river is no barrier to the fire that threatens his ancestral home, Moccasin Hollow. Neither are the bodies later found in the burned mansion of Corpsewood Manor. Craige wastes no time in helping his ex-SEAL buddy Lt. Graysen MacGerald who is now Head of Buckingham Homicide Investigations by unofficially investigating the bodies and an exquisite dragonfly brooch found in the mansion with a reputation for evil, hauntings, and mystery.

 

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EXCERPT

 

 

Spinner and Craige dodged the potholes and bayou-puddled sorrowful drive that was already weeded-up with pieces of blackened 2x4s and tumbled rubble. Nestled among old cypress and giant hardwoods, the scorched ruins of a once-elegant time and place cast a brooding haunted ambiance. A lonesome tangle of police tape fluttered around one blackened trunk, while wads and scraps of yellow plastic flurried here and there among the blossom of mushrooms and cinders snagging on bushes and heat-brittle weeds among the char and ash clinging to seared limbs of dead shrubs. Except for half of one lonesome brick chimney, come next season, the surrounding marshes and scrubby undergrowth and vines would reclaim the scarred skeleton that once was Corpsewood and leave a burial mound of vines and voracious pitcher plants.

 

Spinner said, “I want to check that shallow ravine that follows along the north side of the drive. Looks like an overgrown gulley draining toward the river. Be an easy approach to the house without being seen.”

 

Craige said, “Dogs would've spotted them unless they’d been baited or poisoned.”

 

“Bogs won’t hold many tracks.” As the green underbrush swallowed Spinner, he called over his shoulder, “If they came in by river, I might get lucky in the mud along the riverbank for any trace of a boat being pulled up and beached.”

 

“Watch out for moccasins on those overhangs,” Craige called back to him. “If you come up on a weedy dry knoll of brush, sticks, and leaves above the water, leave it be. You don’t want to rile a mama gator guarding her nest. A twenty-footer may look cumbersome, but those big ones can move fast.” Craige stepped over chunks of tumbled cement and distorted rebar where a foundation had been an outside kitchen wall. One windowpane hung lopsided but intact in its section of wall that had collapsed outward into the soft dirt of what had been a flower garden. Sunshine peaked through to splash a glass pane angled among the ruins.

 

Beyond the foundation was a rose garden, trampled blossoms crinkled with burnt petals, broken stems buried amid tumbled bricks, crumbled mortar, and stinking charred timbers. Craige picked his way around the corner of the kitchen. He stopped at the front of the garage with its oily smudges, where the two autos had once parked. A few sooty cement blocks had tumbled from the corner of the garage. The wall had obviously been added as an afterthought. None of the square hollowed-out cement grabbed his attention until he noticed the broken end on one wasn’t smoked-seared or stained. The fire hadn’t touched it. The end had been broken off after the fire, but it wasn’t the inside hollow that grabbed him. It was the small wrapped yellowish-brown brick protruding from inside. CTU R&S ops had come across too many caches of potent hash oil and loose dry kief for him not to recognize it. He leaned down, touched nothing, saw the wrappings had been torn. The heady smell wrinkled his nose. Along one side of the package, he noticed a smattering of scattered pallid crystals. Neither the powder nor the brick with any ash or cinders; what he was seeing came after the fire. The brick looked as though it had been hurriedly pried open, an empty space inside where something had been removed. Someone had known where to look for whatever it was that was taken—someone not interested in the stash.

 

 

Amazon link

 

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

 

Hawk MacKinney began writing mysteries for his school newspaper, served in the US Navy for over 20 years, earned two postgraduate degrees with studies in languages and history, taught postgraduate courses in the United States and Jerusalem, authored professional articles and chordate embryology texts on fetal and adult anatomy, and is well known for his works of fiction. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel, was nominated for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction and the Writers Notes Book Award. Both his CAIRNS OF SANCTUARIE science fiction series and the MOCCASIN HOLLOW MYSTERY series have received worldwide recognition.

 

 

Website

 

 

Goodreads

 

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GIVEAWAY

 

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The tour dates can be found here

 

Lucky Chance by RC Welch (VBT, guest post, excerpt, and GIVEAWAY) GFT

It is my pleasure to share a guest post from author R.C. Welch, who tells us...   

   ELF: What do you think is the strongest attraction about the genre(s) you like to write in?

RCW:  I would define my preferred genre as southern fiction.  I have been influenced by writers such as Flannery O’Connor, Pat Conroy and Ferrol Sams to name a few whose activity spans a reasonable period of time.  I find my place in the southern United States, as I was born in Georgia.  In addition, my experience in life attaches its formative origins within that particular geography and about and around the lives that populate that land.  I would say, at least for myself, that I find a similarity with many of the Native Americans with whom I have become acquainted over my lifetime.  Regarding our discussions, the land upon which they were born and within which they have known their heritage is regarded as a spiritual force in their lives.  I find this same feeling to be present in me, as well.  Although I have lived the last thirty years in North Carolina, each and every time I return to my homeland in the state of Georgia I feel the enveloping warmth of a sense that I would call, home.  To be more precise, when I cross the bridge that spans Lake Hartwell on Interstate 85 headed south, I feel the embrace of familiarity and welcome.  I suppose that in my case, and perhaps, my recognized and secret colleagues, of this particular writing genre, must feel this same attachment to the land upon which we were born and raised.  Out of that foundation I can write my stories.   

I also like to think that I am a fairly well-read and well-traveled gentleman.  I try to incorporate my extended experience with the world with my knowledge and imagination of a local color.  I blend trauma and tragedy with happiness and joy.  I can speak the language of the city and the dialect of the country.  I can find a clever story through the tending of my mother’s garden.  I can develop compelling scenery from a Saturday float upon one of our southern rivers.  I can devise struggles and suffering around a holiday dinner.  I can pose questions about faith in the midst of a Sunday sermon.  And, in all those scenarios and many others, I can develop characters that are engaging, and inspiring in whatever emotional capacity that flows within the scene.  All those notions compose my tool bag for writing in the genre and flair of my secret mentors.  However, in answer to the question posed above, the strongest attraction to this preferred genre is the southern human character, with whom I am familiar, to whom I am loyal and dedicated, and about whom my audience may relate with compassion, excitement, misery, praise, disgust, or any other emotional component that is interesting, fascinating and compelling.

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Lucky Chance

by RC Welch

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GENRE: Fiction

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BLURB:

Golf, love, life—Jack Weatherlow is more than familiar with all three. Is life a series of coincidences or is it linked by a greater thread? Returning from the brink of destruction, Jack lets his participation in recovery, his work at the hotel, and his close relationship with his wife, Samantha, guide him through some of life's most important questions and lessons. What do we do when opportunity knocks at our door? Is it fate that brings us together with those we love most? What constitutes a family and what obligations do we have to those around us? Through his relationships and experiences on and off the green, Jack discovers many of life's lucky chances.

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EXCERPT

I believe that my mother saw me as an offensive predator. That depiction is also a product of natural, but highly convoluted, logic. Inside my childhood home, typically accepted roles tended to become wildly skewed from commonly accepted norms. Such a thing seems to follow, when the rules of engagement are based on upon illusion, rather than truth and honesty. I had a legitimate mother, who was an adult, but she was, in equal measure, an unpredictable and unmerciful tyrant and fiend. I thought I saw my mom enter my bedroom at night, but I always engaged with a monster, instead.

Reconciling this sinister conundrum installed a type of internal courtroom scene in my heart, mind and soul. I visit that court of inquisition quite regularly, and I have done so, throughout all remembered life. I stand trial for crimes relating to common actions and simple decisions. The charges I face are modest. I am accused of being less than I might have been. The verdict is, always, guilty. The sentence is humble. I don’t think very highly of myself. That courtroom is the second distinction which hails from childhood days with my alcoholic mother.

           

Nevertheless, I learned to defend myself inside my home. I developed a dependable set of tactical engagement routines. Most of the time, they are stored away like cleaned guns, quiet and harmless, but they are also ready for loading, and aiming, and firing when needed. Sam is attempting to discourage the practice of opening my arsenal. I actually love her for that, and quite fittingly, I feel the scorch of shame whenever I begin to jingle the keys to my heirloom gun cabinet.

Amazon link

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Summer is in full swing - folks are hitting the golf course by day, and reflecting on life as the sunsets go later into the evening. In the spirit of golf and life, Charlotte-based Warren Publishing has released Lucky Chance, a thoughtful and moving novel by businessman, golfer and public speaker, R.C. Welch.

Lucky Chance is a 346-page soft cover book that addresses some of life’s most thought-provoking and insightful dilemmas and lessons through the lens of Jack Weatherlow. A golfer, husband, and alcoholic in recovery, Jack returns from the brink of destruction, and through his recovery, work, and relationship with his wife, Samantha, he attempts to find the answers to some of life’s most important questions. What do we do when opportunity knocks at our door? Is it fate that brings us together with those we love most? What constitutes a family and what obligations do we have to those around us? Through his relationships and experiences on and off the green, Jack discovers many of life’s lucky chances.

Inspired by his love of golf, business, and storytelling, Welch wrote Lucky Chance to give readers insight into a character he loves, and connect certain apparent similarities in life between obviously different circumstances.

“Lucky Chance is a wonderfully crafted novel, rich with narrative originality, and emotional and philosophical depth,” added Mindy Kuhn, President of Warren Publishing. “It’s a fantastic, unique read for anyone who enjoys reading about sports or love, but also for those looking to delve into the truly intricate and complicated questions of life.”

R.C. Welch holds graduate and post graduate degrees from two universities, and is honorably recognized in various circles of the business world. He is also an accomplished golfer, storyteller and public speaker. Lucky Chance is an expression of his innate and unique gifts. He currently resides in Winston Salem, NC.

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Off Season: A Novel of Healing by E.S. Ruete (VBT, guest post, excerpt, and GIVEAWAY) GFT ADULT title

It is my pleasure to share a guest post from author E.S. Ruete, who gives...

Advice for writers

by

E.S. Ruete

Write at the same time every day. I have friends who say they need to set aside a whole day to write, but they never do. One day very quickly becomes some day becomes hardly ever becomes never. But four o’clock – or whatever your chosen time is – rolls around every day.

Then pay attention to what to me are the four elements of good writing; voice, story telling, mastery of the idiom, grammar and syntax, in that order.

                                                                                                 

Voice is what turns words into conversation, dry black-and-white markings into something that carries the reader along. Listen to what you’re writing. If you don’t trust yourself to hear it in your head, read it out loud. If it doesn’t fall trippingly on the tongue, reword it.

Then you need to tell the story – even if it’s only the story of what went on during an experiment or the story of how to assemble a piece of furniture. All the good word usage and sentence structure in the world doesn’t help if you don’t know how to take the reader from point A to point B. As an associate editor of Group Facilitation I reviewed and ultimately rewrote an article that had flawless sentence structure and word usage, but all the sentences and paragraphs were just thrown down as they occurred to the author. They didn’t tell a story until I rearranged them.

It’s important to use some common sense when you employ the idiom. Nothing destroys my confidence in what a person is saying like misuse of the idiom. For example, how many people say “out of pocket” when they mean “out of touch, unavailable, out of the office, off the grid”? They are reaching for a hip phrase because they don’t want to sound pedestrian. But “out of pocket” means you had to pay for it and didn’t get reimbursed. You might or might not have been out of pocket when you were out of the office, but the phrases are not interchangeable. We think in language; sloppy use of the language shows sloppy thinking.

Grammar and syntax come last for me. The rules of writing are to help the writer avoid constructions that trip up the reader and get in the way of understanding. I think to a great extent they are replaced by voice. If I can hear what I’m writing and it sounds good, the writing is probably not going to offend too many English teachers.

And what is [written] well and what is [written] badly – need we ask Lysias, or any other poet or orator who ever wrote or will write either a political or any other work, in metre or out of metre, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?

– Plato, Phaedrus

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Off Season: A Novel of Healing

by E.S. Ruete

ADULT title

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GENRE: Fiction

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BLURB:

Dottie woke up wondering where she was and why she was so cold. The first thing she noticed was that she must be outside – she was lying on cold ground and snow was hitting her in unusual places. That’s when she noticed the second thing. Her skirt was pulled up past her waist and her panties were gone. Damn those bastards. It started to come back to her.

Dottie is now on an odyssey; a journey not of her choosing; a journey of healing, integration, and reconciliation that will involve her partner, her friends, her enemies, her church, her whole community. And her rapists. As she fights her way through social stereotypes about rape and rape victims, she also finds the strength to overcome society’s messages of who she should be and lays claim her true self. But the memories, the loss, the anger – and the fears – never go away. No woman chooses to be raped. I asked Dottie why she chose to tell me a story of rape. She said that millions of women, hundreds every day, have stories of rape that never get told. She told her story because she could. Because she had to. Because maybe people would hear in a work of fiction a Truth that they could not hear in any other way.

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EXCERPT

Mostly what Dottie remembered is that they kept giving her choices. Blood or vaginal exam first. Left or right arm for the blood draw. Keep her clothes or change into the comfortable, impersonal sweats the SACC counselor had brought. Should they call her church. She tried to appreciate what they were trying to do. But I’m so tired, she thought, and still a little cold and god my headache is getting worse. And all these decisions don’t help. Didn’t I hear something on NPR about decision fatigue? Or something like that.

She remembered a book from her youth. The Captain. The new skipper of an ocean-going tugboat couldn’t handle all the arbitrary decisions, so he just alternated “yes” and “no” answers. It seemed to work for him. She tried it.

“Do you want soup?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want coffee?”

“No.”

“Do you want us to call someone at your church?”

“Yes.” Damn!! Did I just say that? I love those judgmental bitches, but they’re the last people I need to see right now.

She wasn’t doing much better when Mandy showed up and said all the wrong things. How could this happen? Why weren’t you more careful? Are you sure you weren’t at some level asking for it?

“NO! Why the hell would I ask for this? I don’t even like men!” SHIT! shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. She just outed herself to her church. She had a feeling the rape was going to start all over again.

The book is $0.99 during the tour (please check price before purchasing)

 

 Amazon

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

E.S “Ned” Ruete is an author, speaker, group facilitator, women’s rights activist, LGBTQIPA+ ally, lay preacher, guitar picker, and business analyst. He is the author of Seeking God: Finding God’s both/and in an either/or world and Lead Your Group to Success: A Meeting Leader’s Primer.

Now retired, Ned lives in Niantic, Connecticut with his second wife. He continues to offer pro bono group facilitation and facilitation training to schools, churches, community groups and not-for-profit organizations. He has led strategic planning retreats for United Action Connecticut (UACT), Fiddleheads Food Co-op, and ReNew London. He is actively involved in LGBTQIPA+ advocacy and annually attends and presents sessions at the True Colors Conference. He is a member of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) formerly served on the Association Coordinating Team (ACT, the IAF Board of Directors). He was associate editor of Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal and has contributed articles to Group Facilitation, The Facilitator, and other publications on group facilitation and management consulting.

Off Season is Mr. Ruete’s first fiction work

See his consulting products at MakingSpaceConsulting.com

and his books at MakingSpaceConsulting.com/Publish

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Of The Divine by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (VBT, guest post, excerpt, and GIVEAWAY) GFT

I have the pleasure of sharing a guest post from author Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, who shares how one of her hobbies affects her writing...

AAR: One of my hobbies that twines in an interesting way with my writing is my love of cooking— or just more generally my love of food.

When I was writing Cooper in Token of Darkness, I went on a baking kick. Did I need to experiment with making pastries and apple tarts to write the few scenes Cooper spent working in his uncle’s bakery? Absolutely not, but doing so gave me a yummy insight into my character.

After all, everyone eats, and what we eats tells a lot about us.  Does someone only eat chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, and frozen broccoli? Or is their diet rich with stuffed grape leaves, kebabs and rice pilaf? Do they keep kosher, or do they survive on a steady diet of Mountain Dew and Doritos? Each combination tells us something new about a person (and by extension, a character). I find I often start craving the foods my characters talk about

During my last year’s NaNo novel, I randomly combined ingredients I knew were available in the area (I dedicate a lot of time to determining the agriculture and thus local foods available in areas) to create a made-up dish popular on one of their holidays. It ended up being a pink spread including soybeans and red beets, served either sweet (with honey) or savory (with garlic and onion).

Then, being me, I experimented with making it. Thankfully, I have a fabulous partner who tolerates my experiments, which is good because this is far from being the weirdest food experiment I’ve ever attempted. In the case, she not only ate with me but made suggestions on how to improve the fictional dish next time.

There are other, non-food experiments and adventures I’ve done as part of my writing. When writing Midnight Predator, I learned to pick locks and braid and use a bullwhip. My 2013 NaNo involved a mostly-subterranean complex built in a series of caves, and I ended up exploring Howe Caverns in New York. For the Mancer trilogy, I’ve spent time in Salem, whose maritime history is part of the inspiration for the capital city. In short, if there is a way I can experience something my characters do, I’ll go for it… but that isn’t always feasible or advisable, especially given some of the horrific things I put my characters through.

Generally speaking, food is safer. And (usually) tastier.

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Of The Divine

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

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GENRE:   FICTION/Fantasy

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BLURB:

Henna is one of the most powerful sorcerers in the Order of Napthol, and her runes ’s runes tell her that the future of Kavet is balanced on the edge of the knife. The treaties between Kavet and the dragon-like race known as the Osei have become intolerable. The time has come for the royal house to magically challenge Osei dominion. Prince Verte, Henna' lover, is to serve as the nexus for the powerful but dangerous spell, with Naples--an untested young sorcerer from the Order of Napthol--a volatile but critical support to its creation.

Amid these plans, Dahlia Indathrone’s arrival in the city shouldn’t matter. She has no magic and no royal lineage, and yet, Henna immediately knows Dahlia is important. She just can’t see why. 

As their lives intertwine, the four will learn that they are pawns in a larger game, one played by the forces of the Abyss and of the Numen—the infernal and the divine. 

A game no mortal can ever hope to win.

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EXCERPT

  

The pride of Osei abruptly turned and dove. Serpentine bodies large enough to lift ships from the sea plummeted. They changed shape so close to the ground that the wind from their wings smacked the plaza like a hand, rattling or knocking over the light carts and tables the early morning merchants set up to display their wares. Henna squinted her eyes against the grit that smacked her face as the Osei landed with enough force to shatter their bodies had they been human.

People in the plaza scattered, scrambling away to hide in the shelter of surrounding buildings, but Henna couldn’t make her muscles move as the Osei queen looked around speculatively.

The creature had skin like liquid silver and eyes like barbed steel. As she crossed the plaza directly toward Henna’s frozen form, Henna recognized her. She was the only Osei queen who ever left her own territory to visit another Osei House.

The Queen of the First House, the Royal House of the Osei, was standing in the Kavet marketplace.

Henna felt all the blood drain from her face. Maybe farther. Was she bleeding onto the cobbles? Into the core of the earth?

“You know us,” the queen said. “That is convenient. You will inform the rulers of this land that we require their immediate presence.”

Buy link:

 

 Amazon

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes wrote her first novel, In the Forests of the Night, when she was 13 years old. Other books in the Den of Shadows series are Demon in My View, Shattered Mirror, Midnight Predator, all ALA Quick Picks for Young Adults. She has also published the five-volume series The Kiesha’ra: Hawksong, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and VOYA Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror List Selection; Snakecharm; Falcondance; Wolfcry; and Wyvernhail.

 

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