K. B. Owen’s own Alchemy: “Dangerous and Unseemly”

Tags

book release, creativity, murder mysteries, support, writers

It’s Wednesday peeps, and that’s the day we talk about writing and writers. I’m pleased as punch to welcome back our friend K.B. Owen. I am humbled by her greatness and was so thrilled when she asked to stop by Social Alchemy on her blog tour. She has just published her first novel, “Dangerous and Unseemly” a Concordia Wells Mystery. Let’s give it up for K.B.!!!

Alchemy as you know, has to do with transformation. And K.B. has transformed. She went into the chrysalis of “would be” and now she is a “published” author. It’s so much hard work, and takes energy and courage, she is an inspiration to us all.

That sweet smile… hides a scheming, crafty mind

You know we’re big mystery readers here at Social Alchemy, and Kathy’s story offers up a very unique setting and time period as well as intriguing heroine, Concordia Wells. Here’s how Kathy introduces us to the world of her story:

The year is 1896, and Professor Concordia Wells has her hands full:  teaching classes, acting as live-in chaperone to a cottage of lively female students, and directing the student play, Macbeth.

But mystery and murder are not confined to the stage.  Malicious pranks, arson, money troubles, and the apparent suicide of a college official create turmoil at the women’s college.  For Concordia, it becomes personal when a family member dies of a mysterious illness, and her best friend is attacked and left for dead.

With her friend still in danger and her beloved school facing certain ruin, Concordia knows that she must act.  But uncovering secrets is a dangerous business, and there are some who do not appreciate the unseemly inquiries and bold actions of the young lady professor.  Can she discover the ones responsible…before she becomes the next target?

Don’t you just LOVE this cover?

I was lucky enough to score some Skype time with K.B. or Kathy, I had tons of questions. First I wanted to learn more about Concordia:

K.B. Owen: Concordia is named after the Greek goddess of harmony. But “harmony” only applied to her relationship with her father, who introduced her to the world of literature and the intellect. But she has always been at odds with her mother and sister, who embrace a world of fashion magazines, teas, and dances – she was never quite at ease in that sphere.  Concordia’s a square peg in a round hole, so to speak.  In the Progressive Age, upper middle class American women were still expected to follow a domestic path, make the right social connections, marry well, and secure an ideal home environment for their children.  Concordia, on the other hand, wanted to go to college and build an independent life for herself.  By this time her father – the one person who would have championed her dream – had died.  She defied her mother and did it anyway, which has put them at odds ever since.

RFH: Tell me more about her clothing, is it true she had to do all her detecting wearing a bustle?

K.B. Owen: At that time, the bustle was not as big as you are used to seeing them!  Her long skirts are more of an encumbrance during, shall we say, “active” scenes.  She does have a bicycling outfit, which feature bloomers, a shorter skirt and leggings.  Even she would admit it shows a shocking amount of leg.  Abbreviated outfits of this sort were acceptable for particular sports: golf, lawn tennis…even basketball, which was quite the rage in women’s colleges at the time.  Normally, though, Concordia wears the very ladylike shirtwaist and long skirts that were typical of the period.

RFH: What kinds of classes could a young lady take at one of these colleges?

K.B. Owen: In creating this world, I was fortunate enough to find some wonderful resources in the Smith College and Mount Holyoke course catalog archives.  Many of the offerings were based in the classics of the time: Latin, Greek, Rhetoric, Mathematics, and Moral Philosophy.  Schools often had specializations: Smith had an impressive Music Department, and I believe it was Bryn Mawr that offered an Astronomy specialty.  But some of the colleges in the south were more like finishing schools or female seminaries, offering courses in “domestic skills” subjects like child-rearing and sewing. People were conflicted about women’s higher education back then; some of the more progressive advocates wanted women’s colleges to be as academically rigorous as men’s colleges.  But there was also a demand for women to be trained in more practical, domestic subjects, too.  Many colleges offered both types of courses.

RFH: What inspired you to write a book set in this time period?

K.B. Owen: My doctorate is in 19th Century British literature, so I was familiar with the period. But I wanted to write an American mystery.  There are a lot of British series out there, but not as many set in the United States, and I felt more comfortable with American vernacular, obviously.  My mother-in-law was my specific inspiration for the women’s college setting.  After she passed away, we were clearing her desk drawers and discovered cool items from her college days. I thought it would be a fascinating setting for a mystery.  There’s also the fact that I taught college literature for nearly two decades, too, so it seemed a good fit.

RFH: And why do you write mysteries?

K.B. Owen:  My childhood reading – especially Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes – was largely responsible for that, I think!  And I never outgrew my love of mysteries.  Writing them has become a natural extension of that.  In my opinion, it’s a special genre, for a lot of reasons: the thrill of the chase, the battle of the intellect, the restoration of order, justice being done….  In an untidy, unfair world, that can be comforting.

And folks, there is more! K.B., that crafty lady, is running a contest!

Contest:

How about a little mystery fun…and a prize!  Each stop in K.B. Owen’s book launch tour has a mystery question (below).  The alphabet letter next to the correct answer is what you want.  By the end of the tour you’ll have enough letters to unscramble the answers to which ROOM, WEAPON, and SUSPECT.  But it’s just for fun, so even if you just want to answer one quiz question, email Kathy with the answer at kbowenwriter(at)gmail(dot)com.  She’d love to hear from you!  She’ll draw a winner from all the entries and announce it at Karen McFarland‘s blog (http://www.karenmcfarland.com), the last stop of the tour.  What could you win?  A free ebook copy of Dangerous and Unseemly, and a $25 gift card of your choice to either Starbucks, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble!   Full details (with the story of the untimely demise of Sir Reginald “Good Riddance” Crenshaw) at: http://kbowenmysteries.com/whodunnit-play-the-book-tour-game/

Good luck!

Email Deadline: Monday, April 1st

Question:
There was a mysterious incident in Agatha Christie’s life.  In her early adulthood, she:
T) was accused of murdering her first husband
U) disappeared for 11 days and when she was found had no memory of the time
V) had charge of the hospital pharmaceutical dispensary, in which a large quantity of poison disappeared
W) was rumored to have an illegitimate child

Now that your appetite for crime and bustles has been whetted, here are all the ways and places you can RUN NOW and get a copy of “Dangerous and Unseemly” for yourself and your friends:

Amazon Kindle:
http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Unseemly-Concordia-Mystery-ebook/dp/B00BIOACIC

Paperback (Amazon):
http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Unseemly-Concordia-Wells-Mystery/dp/0988997401

Barnes and Noble Nookbook:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dangerous-and-unseemly-kb-owen/1114666776?ean=2940016372143

Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/284662

Kobo:
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Dangerous-Unseemly-Concordia-Wells-Mystery/book-Fnt2SjyHfkC8405irj-b2Q/page1.html

Scribd:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/126454100/Dangerous-and-Unseemly-A-Concordia-Wells-Mystery

Thanks K.B. for sharing your information about this lovely book. And thanks everyone for stopping by.

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Writing Matters: We Are Not Alone: WANA’s Rock!

Tags

art, Love, support, WANA, writers

Happy Birthday to all my WANA1011 Classmates

 

In the summer of 2011 I was lucky enough to attend Thrillerfest in New York City. One of the most interesting sessions was conducted by Bob Mayer, a best-selling author of many of the best “boy” books around: military thrillers. The focus of his presentation was lessons he learned in special forces, and how he uses them in his writing career. Now, I’m not big into huge institutions like the military, but I am all about learning a more disciplined approach to my writing career. When I got back home I bought his book, “Write it Forward.”

While I was on the page, I also noticed another title, “We Are Not Alone: The Writer’s Guide to Social Media.” Written by Kristen Lamb. At this point, I had set up a Facebook page, but had no clue how to use it. At the conference the buzz words “branding” and “platform building” buzzed around my brain. I bought the book and also noticed that the author was teaching a class called, “Blogging to Build Your Brand.” I was like so many people, thinking that blogs were so 2005. But as I read the course description, I was intrigued and decided to sign up.

The rest as they say, is history. There were about 100 of us who signed up for that class. And the first thing Kristen had us do was all open Twitter accounts, download the Tweetdeck and all say “hello” to each other by using a hashtag: WANA1011. None of us at the time realized that what Kristen had created was nothing short of a social media miracle. We all got to know each other, first on Twitter, and through our class emails. It was a blast, especially for me, as I’m out here in the middle of the Pacific ocean, it’s so easy to feel “left out” of the conversations going on about publishing, etc. that are taking place on the mainland.

But this cured everything. Before you know it, I started this humble little blog, and from the start, I had traffic: all my WANA1011 pals. Since then we’ve been there for each other through rejections, through self-publication trials and triumphs. I couldn’t have finished my current novel without the love and support from this very special group of writers. We are the new paradigm. As a writer, you can no longer just bang away on your book, alone, in the dark, and expect to find success. You need a team. You need moral support. You need people willing to share their experience, their knowledge of the publishing industry, and you need people who “get it” Who understand how strange and awful the whole idea of being a “writer” really is.

Today is our WANA1011 First birthday. We are all posting this commemorative graphic, to celebrate our one year of fun, support, and love. Please take a look at all these names, we are from all over the country and the world. Proving that “social media” is not just fun and games. Our relationships are real, deep, and true. Thank you so much to all my WANA peeps. You have enriched my life in so many ways. Here’s to another year of WANA love!

Writing Matters: “Several Short Sentences on Writing” and Why You Will Hate It

Tags

art, book review, communicating, hard work, noticing, thinking, writers, writing

Yes, I used a strong word in the title of this post: “hate” because in “Several Short Sentences on Writing,”  the author, Verlyn Klinkenborg quietly, simply, and very clearly cuts to the bone, every assumption you ever made about writing. Here’s a taste from the front jacket.

“Most of what you think you know about writing is useless. It’s the harmful debris of your education — a mixture of half-truths, myths, and false assumptions that prevents you from writing well. Drawing on years of experience as a writer and teacher of writing, Verlyn Klinkenborg offers an approach to writing that will change the way you work and think.”

He even asks you to think about typesetting. The book is written without the usual form of paragraphs. On purpose he breaks up his own sentences, adding line breaks, and setting certain phrases off by themselves. It doesn’t even look like any other book you read.  And he truly does ask you to think about how you write. In fact he asks you to think, and observe, how you think.

“The central fact of your education is this:

You’ve been taught to believe that what you discover

by thinking,

By examining your own thoughts and perceptions,

Is unimportant and unauthorized.

As a result, you fear thinking,

And you don’t believe your thoughts are interesting,

Because you haven’t learned to be interested in them.”

 

You mean all that time spent in college, I was being trained to not be interested in my own thoughts? He goes on:

“There’s another possibility:

You may be interested in your own thoughts,

But they don’t have much to do with anything you’ve

ever been asked to write.”

I agree with him here, and can recall so many class papers, articles, and even news stories that I was paid to write, which I had no interest in the subject and simply dashed off the words just to get the thing finished and turned in on time.

Now Klinkenborg links our un-interest in our own thoughts to our un-interest in what we notice around us:

“The same is true of what you notice.

You don’t even notice what you notice,

Because nothing in your education has taught you that

what you notice is important.”

And if you do notice something that interests you,

It doesn’t have much to do with anything you’ve ever been asked to write.”

 

Who many writing teachers have you come across who is courageous enough to tell you that your education is so lacking that what you think and what you notice is not important? Not many. Then he serves up the saving grace:

“But everything you notice is important.

Let me say that a different way:

If you notice something, its’ because it’s important.

But what you notice depends on what you allow yourself to notice,

And that depends on what you feel authorized, permitted

to notice

In a world where we’re trained to disregard our perceptions.

Who’s going to give you the authority to feel that what

you notice is important?

It will have to be you.

The authority you feel has a great deal to do with how

you write, and what you write,

With your ability to pay attention to the shape and

meaning of your thoughts

And the value of your own perceptions.”

 

I don’t know about you, but it took me years of struggle and of self-doubt and even after getting a degree in Journalism, I still wondered if I could ever “be a writer.” Because of all the baggage that goes along with our perception of who a writer is and what a writer does. And as Klinkenborg says, I am the one who has to finally decide, I have to give my self the “authority” to feel that what I notice and what I think are important, and your job is to learn how to communicate that importance to your reader.

And now that you have the authority to communicate what you notice and what you think, he walks you through countless observations on the process of noticing, asking the question again and again, what do you notice? He asks you to practice noticing and that “…it requires a suspension of yearning and a pause in the desire to be pouring something out of yourself. Noticing is about letting yourself out into the world, rather than siphoning the world into you in order to transmute it into words.”

Noticing is about “letting yourself out into the world,” I love that because he so turns the idea on its head. That as writers, we are to be absorbing life, to turn it into material. “Practicing noticing will also help you to learn about patience. And the nature of your mind. Noticing means thinking with all of your senses. It’s also and exercise in not writing.”

In a world where everyone is telling you to write fast, produce more, tweet this, post that, more, more more. Klinkenborg is asking you slow down and examine yourself, he’s asking you to take the time to focus on one thing, to really see the world around you, and to notice yourself, to question what it is you notice and why it popped out at you, why is it special to you?

And this is a lot of hard work. I told you, you would hate this book. I was curious and looked up the reviews of this book posted on Amazon. I laughed when I saw they ranged from five stars to one, with not much else in between. This revealed a lot about the reviewers, the one star reviewer show said, “a lousy read and doesn’t give particularly useful advice.” Here’s someone who is unwilling to examine how he thinks, and how that influences what he writes.

And I would disagree, the book is filled with many useful exercises. But they are not easy. They are not “five grammar mistakes everyone makes.”  They are more like drills, this is what he has to say about grammar:

“You don’t need to be an expert in grammar and syntax
to write well.

But you do need to know the difference between transitive

and intransitive verbs.

Between active and passive constructions.

The relation between a pronoun and its antecedent.

All the parts of speech.

The different verb tenses.

The nature of participles and their role as modifiers.

The subtleties of prepositions — the hardest part of

speech even for native speakers of English.

You need a toolbox of rhetorical devices, like irony, hyperbole,

And the various kinds of analogy.

You need an ever-growing vocabulary — and with it

the awareness that most words carry several meanings.

You need to look up even familiar words every time

you have a doubt.

And especially when you don’t have a doubt.

That is, very often.

That is, every time you write.”

I’ll be honest I don’t know the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb. I don’t look up words often enough, and prepositions and prepositional phrases still stump me. And it goes on. And it is fascinating, and I love this book. It is a great reminder that no, there are no tricks, no shortcuts, no magic formula to becoming a better writer. It takes lots, and lots, of boring hard work. This book is not for everyone. It is not for the wannabees. It is not for the writer looking for a quick fix. It is for creative souls who are willing to hunker down and work hard.

And which category do you fall in? How does it feel when someone questions you? Questions your thoughts and how and what you notice? I’d love to hear your reaction to this one. I better sign off and go look up some verbs. Thank you so much for stopping by.