Summer Book Signing at Lonergan Park, North Syracuse NY - June 29th

Can you feel it? Summer is almost here! What's better in summer than an outdoor fair?

I hope you're ready for food, entertainment, crafts, and vendors, because the Lonergan Park Craft and Vendor Event is coming up fast. On Saturday, June 29th from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, you can visit over seventy crafters, vendors, and food stands in North Syracuse's biggest outdoor craft event of the summer.

The Wandering Wordsmiths will have several local authors at this event, offering books in genres ranging from romance to mystery to science fiction. We hope to meet you if you're in that neck of the woods on June 29th. If you can't make it, worry not: the Wordsmiths will be traveling all over New York through December (and we're happy the snow is still a way off, too)!

Happy Reading!

Living History: The Civil War at Waterloo, NY's Memorial Day Celebration

Living History: Civil War Reenactment

Today, I want to share with you a few tidbits from my time at Waterloo, NY's 153rd Commemorative Memorial Day Celebration. You may or may not be aware that Waterloo, NY is the official birthplace of Memorial Day, when we honor fallen soldiers and servicemen and women. Among the festivities was Living History at Oak Island, a Civil War reenactment camp. I was unable to attend most of the events there because I was busy at my book signing, but there were activities all weekend at this encampment. As a history buff, I would have spent the entire time there if I could!

Civil War Ingenuity

I had a long talk with reenactor Raymond Ball of the reenactment group Co. A of the US Regular Engineer Battalion, who explained that during the Civil War, engineers were perhaps the most important facet of the army and one of the major reasons the Union won the war. Without their knowledge and efforts, getting wagons, cannons, horses, and soldiers across the often difficult terrain would have been impossible. The engineers solved problems such as getting troops across gorges quickly (in one case, building an entire bridge fit for a train engine in as little as six days!), or working out how to get a cannon into firing range on swampy land (answer: a floating platform!).

A Moving Office

The engineers needed a place to work out the problems of terrain and equipment. The first thing that caught my eye was a travel desk in the engineers' tent. If I ever need a portable desk, I'm getting one of these!

There were many other things to see at the encampment, but I had to cut my visit short and return to my book signing. If you'd like to see some of the other photos, visit me on Facebook!

FIRE now available in audiobook!

I'm thrilled to announce that FIRE, Book Two in the Elemental Series, was released today in audiobook! What a great way to start the summer. I hope you love Ethan as much as I do. As the resident hothead among my Elemental characters (pun intended), Ethan has a long way to go before he's ready to fall in love. Here's a little bit about the book.

 

FIRE by Nicki Greenwood (The Elemental Series, Book Four)

Is love worth the risk of getting burned?

Ethan Sutter is good at running, but he can't outrun himself. Rootless and reckless, he prowls the country, able to abandon everything except his hated Fire Elemental power. Then he lands in Pickering, Vermont, out of gas and out of options, and meets New Age curio shop owner Gypsy Ronan, an even bigger misfit than he is.

Gypsy knows Ethan is trouble. However, none of her tarot cards or tea leaves could have prepared her for their undoubtedly dangerous mutual attraction. More shocking still is the discovery that he possesses an incredible power, and he wants her help getting rid of it.

Ethan needs a normal life. He's sure a woman like Gypsy couldn't be part of it, but she sets his blood smoldering. Gypsy knows there's more to Ethan than he admits, even as she fears for her heart.

Listen to an audio sample here:  https://www.amazon.com/Fire-The-Elemental-Series/dp/B07S67644H

Memorial Weekend Book Signing in Waterloo, NY

I'm very excited to be part of a huge craft and vendor fair coming up May 25th-26th in Waterloo, NY. There will be dozens of local and commercial craft artisans and vendors, as well as The Wandering Wordsmiths, a group of Central NY authors writing in many different genres. We'll be there all weekend signing copies of our books and meeting with the public. Come and ask us about the writing life!

This is the 20th annual show in Waterloo, NY, the birthplace of Memorial Day. It's going to be a weekend full of fun, crafts, food, music, parades, and excitement. For details, check out the Facebook event page for the fair: https://www.facebook.com/events/872311246477064

Hope to see you there!

Creative Stretching

I'm sure you've heard it said that in order to get yourself out of a creative slump, it can be helpful to try something different. For many writers, that involves exercise, getting outdoors, or a switch to a different creative medium like painting. I am fortunate in that, so far, I haven't had many "slump" moments on my current WIP, however, I do "burn out" a little from time to time. I've done many of these "gear switching" techniques, and they do work, often sending me back to the computer with fresh energy.

What Works for You?

I have been wanting for some time to learn a musical instrument. I tried the recorder. It felt clunky in my hands. I tried guitar. The strings feel foreign, and I don't care for how they wear on my fingertips. But piano seems to work for me. I love piano music. The keys feel natural to me. I like the sound it makes. Music is as much a sensory activity as painting, and I find myself enjoying it. This week, I bit the bullet and purchased a reasonably priced digital piano.

For most of my life, I have refused learning an instrument partly because I hate the songs they teach in the books. I am not a fan of folk music, and if I never hear another rendition of "Comin' Round the Mountain" or "Hot Cross Buns," it'll be too soon. I want to learn songs I love to play, especially in the beginning when I'll be playing them over and over to learn the notes. I think I've finally hit on the right book.

I do enjoy classical music, and one of the first songs this book teaches you is Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."  Day one, and I'm already playing a recognizable song I've always admired. Just as a teacher is only as good as how well they get you to understand a topic, a reference book is only as good as how accessible its information is to the student.

I came back to my New Adult WIP ready to polish off the scene I was writing, and I am excited about it and my budding new skill. It's good for a brain to stretch its limits, and you're never too old to learn something new. Wish me luck!

Finishing the Book

Writing is hard, as any writer well knows. My current work in progress is a New Adult fiction story, the second in a series I began seven years ago.

Seven, you say? What in the name of word processors took you so long?

Book One: The Problem Child

Well, the first book took me about six years to write. I'm sort of grateful for that, because it took time to build the characters, their quirks, and their world. Since these books are not (yet) bound to a publisher, I have the luxury of time to "marinate" everything. This is A Good Thing. Book One began in 2012 with an idea, which then became A Character and His Problems, which then acquired a writing soundtrack and a planning style that was, at the time, new to me: storyboarding. Storyboarding is what screenwriters do to map out a movie. It divides the story structure into three acts. This loose structure appealed to my hybrid pantser-plotter heart. I could change things and move them around, which I did, to best fit my story. I fitted out the corkboard in my office with string to separate it into four sections, which I then filled with index cards for scenes and plot points. (Check out Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. Highly recommended for those who enjoy movies and who also write fiction.) I gave myself a goal of one page per day, often exceeding that, but it was tough going, nonetheless.

Book Two: The Independent Child

Storyboarding did not work for Book Two.  I began this one about a month after finishing the first book, fresh off the success of reaching The End. That was around a year ago, but I'm already more than halfway through the book, which is more than I could say for Book One. This book, however, has a mind of its own. While I do have a writing soundtrack, and most of the characters already existed, it simply refused to bow to storyboarding. I had to come up with a new way to "plot" the structure, while leaving my pantser side enough room to play and stay intrigued with the story. This led to link diagramming, which I discovered through a friend who uses the writing program Inspiration. This is a study tool tailored to visual thinkers, and offers multiple ways to lay out of a project. They refer to link diagrams as "webbing," a visual way to show how different parts of a concept are related to one another. I tend to be a hands-on thinker. The physical corkboard and index cards in my office present a more useful way to map a storyline than something only accessible via computer. While I don't use the software, it did offer me a different way to plot a book that keeps my pantser-plotter brain happy. My corkboard now looks like something out of a crime drama, with cards all over the board, color-coded, minus the red yarn that would connect everything. Book Two likes a minimum of 100 words per day, and usually goes well over that.

Whatever Works

Moral of the story? Finish the damn book, however you can. You can write with or without music, with or without a plot, storyboard or link diagram or fully outline. What you can't do in trying to finish a book is not write. Anything else that gets you to The End is fair game. I have done all of these things in the process of writing nine and a half books, and none of them is wrong. If you are a writer, just write, using whatever method helps you, and know that the method can change from book to book. Happy Writing!