“Quirky horror stories with tasty recipes”

As her website, CaroleFowkes.com, attests, Carole is the author of quirky horror stories with tasty recipes.  That’s a peculiar combo.  Carole also writes Sci-Fi-Murder-Mysteries and Outlandish Fantasies with a touch of Romance.  More peculiar combos.

My personal favorite of Carole’s short story collections is titled Out of Character.  This contains two of her bizarre fantasies. Both stories are about writers, which may be why I like them so much.  Very Fun!

The first story, Out of Character, centers around a novelist who is writing a gritty murder mystery. She’s caught off guard when her villain decides to make her his next victim.

Next comes a recipe for Bacon Cheese Scones that is so good I’m drooling right now just thinking about it.

The second short story is Idea Man. Bestselling author, Lucinda, has writer’s block. Her fast-talking, mafia-like muse shows up wearing a thong bathing suit. He offers her a plot she can’t refuse. What lengths will a highly successful novelist go to overcome her writer’s block?

So Carole, do you have a wacky muse like the guy in Idea Man?  How do you come up with such quirky plots?

My husband is sometimes my muse, but he doesn’t wear anything even resembling a thong.  My ideas always start with ‘what-ifs’.  For instance, a family member was trying to drop out of a weight-loss program, and I thought what if there’s more to dropping out than breaking a contract.  That was the basis for a story called A Losing Contract.  Another idea came from watching plastic bags blow across a parking lot.  I thought what if those bags weren’t just innocently flying through the air.  The story from that is called White Bag.  I think you get the idea.

Idea Man is about writers block.  Do you ever get writer’s block? If so what do you do really about it?

I have had writer’s block at times.  A fellow writer and friend once told me when that happens, just work through it.  It does help.  So does eating massive quantities of chocolate brownies.  Another thing I’ve found is to be patient and let my thoughts free-flow.  That works best for me in the shower for some reason.  I also talk out the story with my husband or a friend and that helps me see where I want to go.

I have to say, both recipes in this book are fabulous and food seems to feature heavily in your stories.  I read that you are also a food and restaurant reviewer. Do you consider yourself a ‘foodie.’ 

I love the thought of food, the anticipation of eating, and then talking about it afterwards.  I’m more of a ‘sweetsie’ than a ‘foodie’ though, because I love candy, cakes, cookies, ice cream, and cupcakes, primarily of the chocolate variety.  I’m in heaven when I find a bakery or an enticing dessert counter in a restaurant.  My fantasy is climbing over the counter and stuffing myself silly before the police arrest me.

These drool-worthy Bacon Cheese Scones are unbelievably delicious. Where did you learn to cook?

I learned the basics from my mother who was a phenomenal cook.  I remember her pie crusts.  I have yet to make one as flaky as hers.  My first forays into baking were less than successful, like when I greased the cookie sheet so much that my chocolate chip cookies actually fried in the oven.  Ugh!  Bless my father.  He actually ate those greasy discs.

In Out of Character, the author’s husband tries to offer plot suggestions.  Does your husband ever risk offering you advice?

Oh does he!  He has a much more practical mind than I do, so his suggestions are often of a pragmatic nature.  At the same time, he’s also a kind man and prefers happier endings than are in many of my stories

 Thanks for visiting with me today. I look forward to reading your next story.  Care to tell us what you’re working on now? Or is it a secret?

Thank you.  No secret at all.  I’m working on three stories.  One is about a con man trying to get out of Hell.  Another is a sequel to my novella, Deranged Seating, and the third story concerns a man who learns it’s not good to take food from a stranger.

Enter the Bizarre World of Author Carole Fowkes is a post from: Kathleen Baldwin

Some time ago my publisher sold the rights to The Highwayman Came Waltzing to a Japanese Manga Publisher. I’d not seen a copy until I stumbled across it online the other day. I thought you might have fun seeing it in manga form. I’d really like to look inside to see how they translated it into drawings, but so far, I’m having trouble ordering a copy from Japan.

The story is set in Regency England. It’s about a group of impoverished women who play Robin hood to the suffering families on their selfish Uncle’s estate.  Hard to imagine that in comic form.

Click this link to view it on the Japanese version of Amazon.

The Highwayman Came Waltzing as a Manga is a post from: Kathleen Baldwin

There is one immovable, immutable, indelible trait that all natural born writers share.  In times of deepest stress or incredible joy, we write in our heads.  Despite the entire world collapsing a writer cannot help but observe details that will make the story live on.

Natural born writers catalog sensory data. They store emotional reactions and poignant bits of dialogue as events unfold around them.  This happens out of no conscious effort on the writer’s part.  It just happens.  No matter how nightmarish the experience, no matter how spiritually elevating, how tender, or loving, or awe-inspiring, no matter how devastating or painful – writers record story details.

You, who are writers, think back to an early memory.  Delve for an experience when you were five or six years of age.   It’s all there, isn’t it?  The scent of oil and pine as the Christmas tree dries under the hot blinking lights.  A taffeta dress and tulle slip scratching your legs as you climb up on Santa’s lap.  You remember staring at this fat stranger in red, wondering why your mother is so insistent that Santa Claus is real when clearly his beard is fake.  One good pull and…

Now, try recalling a traumatic event.  I’ll use my mother dying in the hospital as an example. I was thirteen.

I still remember the blue veins pulsing in her too thin wrists as I sat beside her bed.  Nor can I forget the cloying smell of medicinal sweat that permeated the hospital despite the biting ammonia with which they mopped the tile floors everyday.  And meatloaf. Why is it hospitals must always stink of meatloaf and medicine?

My mother’s eyes were as faded as the afternoon sky as she turned to me on that last afternoon, both of us knowing she would not be there for my first kiss or my first broken heart. She looked so desperate to say all the things a mother wants to tell her daughter.

What last words, I wondered, would she find amidst the fog of pain and drugs?  Speech battled with the morphine.  Morphine won.  It clouded her eyes and rendered her sightless.  My mother reached for me, scrabbling for my hand like a frightened child, terrified of the tigers that inhabited the pale yellow wall across from her bed.

That’s how, at thirteen, that scene etched itself in my head.  Because of that experience, and others, I know how to write a death scene.

Stress is not your enemy.   If you are a natural born writer every trauma is being recorded for future use.  Every major event in your life is subject to the scrutiny of your writer’s mind scouring it for story riches.

Here’s the flip side of this coin.  Here comes the golden nugget of this article, because if you are a writer you already knew everything I just said, didn’t you?

The real payoff is this:  when you are facing painful stressors in life, death, suffering, divorce, illness  - WRITE.  You are writing anyway – in your head.  Snatch fifteen minutes between meeting with your lawyer or the funeral director and write.  Or even if you simply can’t do that, know you are writing in your head.  It keeps writers sane amidst insanity.  It’s how natural born writers make sense of their world.

The worst thing that could happen to a writer is too placid an existence.  The richest material, the most gratifying lines you will ever write are born from your deepest traumas and your most extraordinary joys.

Natural Born Writer – The Telling Trait is a post from: Kathleen Baldwin

I enjoyed speaking in Tucson to the Saguaro Romance Authors. Eve Crook sent me a fun limerick for Pantsers.

What a fabulous group they are – very well organized and extremely supportive of one another.  It encouraged me to see that kind of camaraderie among writers when so often the tendency is to be somewhat competitive.  I’m a firm believer in the idea that a rising tide lifts all boats.  Your success is helpful for me, and mine is good for you.  Witness the wonders JK Rowlings’ success did for reading – and for book sales.  Her tremendous success did all writers a favor. She broadened our reader base.  She restored the love of reading to hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised readers. So let’s encourage one another to greater heights.

Success is good for all of us.

I spoke to these generous writers on my favorite topic: The Secret Life of Pantsers.  One author there, a plotter, suggested I change the name of the workshop to The Secret Life of Pantsers… and Plotters, because I offer so many tools and ideas that are useful to plotters, too.   because of her I began to realize that my workshop is more about understanding how we operate creatively and why. She’s right, it may be a bit limiting to say it is only for Pantsers, although I think they struggle more with the writing process, which is why I developed the workshop.

One of the Saguaro writers, Eve Crook, sent me this delightful little limerick for Pantsers.  I loved it so much, I begged her permission to share it with you:

The Pantser

by

Eve Crook

Three cheers for the writer, the pantser,

The quintessential romancer.

She knows what the price is–

At moments of crisis

Her muse will provide every answer.

Love it. Thanks Eve!

Limerick for Pantsers is a post from: Kathleen Baldwin

In Honor of Jules Verne’s 183rd Birthday.

Jules Verne is one of the top five most translated authors in the world.  Yes, Yes, Everyone knows he was a brilliant writer, educated in law and the sciences, a visionary.

But Wikipedia makes this speculative, almost rude, comment about him:  “His interest in writing often cost him progress in other subjects.”

Hhmm, interesting comment.

Annoying comment.

As a writer, that darned comment sticks in my craw,

grinds my gizzard,

and altogether snarls my tail feathers.

Possibly because of the truth in it.

Jules Verne paid a price to be a writer. What might he have accomplished had he turned his inventive genius to science instead of writing?

I’ll bet you he would’ve been just as great.

We’ll never know.

We do know this – he inspired young people to become scientists, explorers, inventors and engineers.  He dreamed possibilities, wrote them into fascinating stories, and others turned his visions into realities. Still, Jules Verne paid a price – the same price all great writers must pay.  He gave his time and his heart to it.

Devoted to his writing.

The Literary News, March, 1890, quotes Jules Verne:

“I am now at my seventy-fourth novel, and I hope to write as many more before I lay down my pen for the last time. I write two novels every year, and have done so regularly for the last thirty-seven years. I do so much every morning, never missing a day, and get through my yearly task with the greatest ease.”

Prolific!

He also wrote many short stories, poems, plays, and even opera lyrics. He did finish another fourteen novels after that 1890 quote.We are all familiar with 2000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of The Earth, but he wrote at least 88 novels. Fifty-four of which are still in print. Check out Jules Verne’s author page at Amazon.

Dedicated Professional.

“I must tell you that I am very severe on myself,” Verne said. “And that I correct and correct. The function of whetstone was never more rigorously performed by any author on his works than by me on mine. I will show you one of my manuscripts and you will see that in every line there are numerous erasures. Then I copy and correct again, and then I recopy. I often copy six or seven times before sending my copy to the printer, and then when my proofs come in I always find a quantity more corrections to be made.” [ibid, emphasis is mine.]

Skilled Craftsman.

And a bit of a perfectionist, or so we can gather from that last comment. I’ve read that he liked to travel to countries he was writing about so he could make certain his novels had an authentic feel. It was amidst one of his Paris excursions that Jules Verne was shot.

Shot, crippled, but not out of the game.

Jules Verne’s nephew, was mentally ill. In modern terms, Gaston was paranoid. Despite that, Jules Verne treated him in a kind fatherly manner. In 1886, while Verne was traveling in Paris, Gaston burst in on his uncle in a state of high agitation, shouting that someone was following him. Verne tried to assure him this was not the case, but his hysterical nephew picked up a revolver and shot him. He missed with the first shot, but hit Verne in the foot with the second bullet.  Gaston was subsequently placed in an asylum and spent the remainder of his life in and out of mental institutions.

Jules Verne was unable to travel after the shooting incident, but he continued to write two novels a year.  He continued to inspire scientists, explorers, and engineers.

In the next life, I hope to sit down with Jules over a nice cup of tea and tell him what a magnificent inspiration he is to me. I admire his professionalism. I want to emulate his dedication to craft. Most of all, I love his unerring devotion to just doing it. He embodies my axiom: that which we persist in doing, we tend to do more of, and get better at doing. [See: Where Do Ideas Come From]

Happy Birthday Jules Verne!

Love you babe! Pencil me in for tea on the first Thursday after I crossover.  Thank you for blazing the trail for Sci-Fi writers and setting a sterling example for all of us on what it means to be a professional.

Jules Verne – Writer Who Paid The Price! is a post from: Kathleen Baldwin

How would two of our favorite authors, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, fare as writers in today’s world?  I have confidence they’d cope surprisingly well with technology and the added demands of promotion in today’s marketplace?  Let’s pretend Charles and Jane are contemporaries and very close friends.  Observe as they wrestle with the challenges of the modern writer.

Six Things Jane Austen & Charles Dickens Never Did:

1. Tweet, Twitter, or otherwise Twerp. In their day a twit was a silly foppish fellow. But here they are immersing themselves in social media:

@PickwicksGhost have you noticed Lord Mackleberry is a complete twit.
@LaFemPen what do you mean, my sharp-tongued girl? Does he twitter excessively?
@PickwicksGhost No, silly boy. The dimwit posted lovesick folderol on Sally’s FB pg. He failed to notice his wife friended Sally just last wk?
Dickens scratches his chin and types: @LaFemPen What is this FB of which you speak?
Jane sighs and thumps the keyboard. @PickwicksGhost Really Charles? Really? What is facebook? I’m LMAO right now.

2. Set up a home office network.

Dickens fumbles behind the CPU. “Where in blazes does this router cable go, Jane darling?”

“For pity’s sake, Charles, read the manual. Can’t you see I’m knee deep in cow-patties trying to set up this confounded printer?”

3. Purchase promotional pens, bookmarks, postcards, or other give-away goodies.

“Jane! Come here. Look at this nifty coffee cup available at cafepress? We could put the cover of your latest book on it and give them out to booksellers in appreciation of them hosting our signings.”

“Hhmm.” Jane reaches across his keyboard, grabs his mouse, and scrolls down the page.  “Lovely thought, Chuck dearest, but at $7.99 a pop any profit we make at the booksigning will quickly be eaten up.”

“Jane, Jane, ever the pragmatist.” Dickens shakes his head. “Stop your scrimping and think of the goodwill it would foster. Oh, and BTW, I love it when you grab my mouse.”

Jane walks out of the office muttering, “I do not scrimp.”

4. Booksignings. Did Jane and Charles do booksignings in their day? Doubtful, but they would now and lines would be out the door and around the corner.

Jane tried to be genteel about her writing career, so probably not. However, she did sign a few books for her close friends. Recently a copy of Emma she’d signed and presented to dear friend sold for £325,000 which is well over 500K in U.S. dollars.  BBC NEWS

Dickens wrote many of his stories for newspapers. So, it is unlikely that he hung out in a bookstore to do signings, but he did autograph a few more books than did Jane, and under similar circumstances – as gifts to friends. A signed copy of The Old Curiosity Shop is currently offered for sale at $135,000.

Picture our beloved Jane Austen at a booksigning, her pen poised on the title page:  “To whom would you like the book signed?”

Avid Reader: “To your most devoted fan and bestest-bestest-ever friend.”

Austen rubs her temple slightly, cranes to look at the four hundred people standing behind her most devoted fan, and smiles patiently: “And does my bestest-bestest-ever friend have a name?”

5. Blog.

Perplexed, Dickens frowns at his newspaper. “What in the name of blueberry pie is a blog?”

Jane brushes her feather quill against her cheek. She misses quills, and keeps one beside her Mac. “Could it be a bog in which there are many fallen branches? Thus, a log filled bog?”

“I suppose.” He shrugs.  “Can’t think of what else it would be. Treacherous place if that’s what it is. You stay well away from any blogs, Jane, my love.”

Jane taps her chin thoughtfully. “On the other hand, perhaps a blog is simply an euphemism for an inebriated condition – reminiscent of your stumbling home after a night of singing and bragging about your latest bit of writing to Forster and your other cronies down at the pub.” Warming to her line of reasoning Jane sits up straighter. “Thus one might say, Oh look there’s Charles. He is well and truly blogged.”

Unruffled by her condescension, Dickens grins. “Well, I’ll be blogged, my dear. You might just have something there.”

Miffed that Charles was not properly chastened for last night’s behavior, she sniffs. “Whatever this blog thing is, we both ought to steer clear of it.”

“I agree,” says Charles, shaking out his newspaper, making a solemn vow to find the nearest blog as soon as possible and have a proper go at it.

6. Give workshops.

Or did they? Dickens lectured at the Athenæum Club and spent an awful lot of time with his buddies discussing and arguing about writing at his favorite tavern. One might call these weekly get-togethers a workshop of sorts, albeit a workshop with ample refreshments all ‘round.

And while Jane never formally presented a workshop, I suspect she held a few hush-hush gatherings in a back parlor, a very exclusive group of ladies in the neighborhood who thought they might, someday, want to pen a novel under a man’s name.

All in all, I think Dickens and Austen did rather well, don’t you?  They would cope because they were both brilliant and adaptable. That’s precisely what today’s writer must do — adapt to the changing marketplace.

Six Things Charles Dickens & Jane Austen Never Did is a post from: Kathleen Baldwin

Writers are often asked, “Where do your ideas come from?”
Having studied the psychology of creativity in college, participated in research, taught creative theories in workshops and classrooms, etc,  I could give you a list of technical answers that would include explanations about brainwaves, neural pathways, and early childhood development.  But today, I decided to point in a different direction – one not often discussed:

New ideas appear as a result of our having acting upon other ideas. In other words, the creative act itself produces children.

You’ve heard the saying,”she has a fertile imagination.” Ponder that.  I suspect it means this: she creates; therefore she spawns more ideas upon which she can act or create, which leads to even more ideas.  Fertile.  Experience bears this theorem out. When I write a story, more story ideas flow into my mind. The more graphic work I do, the more inundated I am with artistic images. When my friend quilts, she gets more ideas for quilts. When a musician works out a new song, he gets ideas for another new song.

WHY? If you’ve attended one of my workshops you’ll remember I explained that our brains are highly responsive to repetitive acts. Repetitive acts reinforce neural networks, so that the act can be repeated with more efficiency.  A more basic way of explaining this is to say– that which we do, we tend to do more of, and get better at doing.

So, my dear friends, whatever it is you want to do, as Shakespeare said, “Act well the part.” Creativity [idea production] is like so many other things in our lives; we get good at it by doing it. You can read about riding a bicycle, but you only get good at it by hopping on and turning the pedals.  Generating ideas is the same way, DO IT, act on an idea, and you will beget more ideas. Act on those, and ideas will become more plentiful and better.  There are things we humans do to short-circuit this marvelous process, sabotage ourselves, but we will discuss that another time. For today, let’s just look at the positive aspect of idea production.

If you want to write. Write. Ideas will come. We live in an amazingly fertile universe – it overflows with life and ideas. It is almost as if the master creator is searching for someone who will act upon ideas so more ideas can be funneled to that person. I believes this so much, that I’m not worried about where my next story idea will come from, I’m more concerned about whether I will live another hundred years so I can fit all the ideas into books. The irony is, if I lived an extra hundred years I would need two hundred more, because the minute we act upon those visions we have already been given, more ideas arrive.
Fertile.

The real question isn’t where do writers get our ideas? The question is how can we possibly write all these ideas in one lifetime?

Check out Ruby Slippered Sisterhood – Sharon blogged about New Years Resolutions for Pantsers, and she very kindly quoted moi.

Where Do Ideas Come From? is a post from: Kathleen Baldwin