The chickens and the eggs - Kandy Shepherd

One of the simple pleasures of my life is eating newly laid eggs from our little flock of chickens. There is nothing quite like the taste. And the enjoyment is even greater knowing our “girls” live a happy, mostly free range life.

Beautiful eggs courtesy of my chickens

 We didn’t set out to keep chickens. In fact, had never had anything to do with them. When we bought our little farm in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia the lovely woman we bought it from had chickens in a secure, custom-built chicken coop known in our valley as “the chicken Hilton”. We gladly inherited them.

The girls enjoy scraps from the kitchen and the garden

 The girls are Isa Browns a French breed of hen. They’re friendly, smart and lay lots of eggs. At the moment we have nine. The number varies as free range comes with risk of predators such as foxes, eagles, and (shudder) snakes. We lost two recently to eagles which was very sad. Otherwise they live until they “drop off the perch” from old age.

They're friendly and curious

 Because the girls are so prolific we enjoy eggs cooked every way—my favorite being simple soft boiled. Quiche, egg custards and meringue are often on the menu. My doctor says not to worry about outdated cholesterol scares and enjoy the health benefits of eating protein rich eggs. We certainly do.

Determined to share Howard the horse's food

 I love all our animals but have a special fondness for our chickens for providing us with eggs. When I collect the eggs, I always thank the girls for their wonderful gifts.

I haven’t written a chicken-keeping heroine into a story yet, but who knows when I might. Have you ever had anything to do with chickens? Or done something you never expected you’d do? I’d love to read your comments!

My most recent book Conveniently Wed to the Greek is a May 2017 release from Harlequin Romance in North America; Mills & Boon Cherish in the UK; and Mills & Boon Forever Romance in Australia and New Zealand.

Kandy Shepherd is a multi-published, award-winning author of contemporary romance and women’s fiction. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her family and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

Visit Kandy at her website www.kandyshepherd.com

Connect with Kandy on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram

SaveSave

Talk to Me, I'm Listening

by Joanne Rock

One of my favorite things about being a writer is the ability to live multiple lives. Readers, of course, know what this feels like. Movie goers and actors experience it too. We step into another character’s shoes in a story and get to be someone else for a while.

It’s a gift I enjoy, whether or not I’m ever quite as good at it as I want to be. I’m perpetually in pursuit of my “best” story, continually trying to write a perfect book. Or at least, a wonderful book that readers everywhere love. But I always enjoy the fact that each book touches someone. Hopefully a lot of someones. I receive letters from readers on most everything I write, and I’m deeply touched to think a story of mine has inspired someone – usually someone who is not a writer by nature—to pick up a pen and put their thoughts on paper to communicate with me.

And while I’m fortunate in that I’m able to craft a story into words on paper, the harder part for me is finding the right story to tell. Choosing the right details for the right characters. Being honest to those characters and letting their story be about them and not what I think it’s supposed to about.
As I get older, I think that the secret of this craft –the deepest secret of the storyteller—is the ability to listen. I can read books on the art of storytelling all day long and it only improves what I do by small degrees. The most important thing that I can do to improve my storytelling is to listen to the people and the world around me, to absorb the stories and the minor details of day to day life and filter them in a way that readers can identify with.

It sounds easy, doesn’t it? Loaf around in my artist’s beret, order coffee at the café, read the paper and chat it up with the locals. Except that there’s more to being a writer than just retelling a tale. It’s the little things that make it come alive. The man at the coffee counter can tell me he’s a world-class fisherman and travels around the world on his boat, but it’s his habit of scratching his nose that lets me know he’s lying through his teeth to impress me.  The woman next to me on the plane can tell me about her three successful adult children, but I know it’s that fourth one she skips over who worries her most. Our stories are in what we don’t say as much as what we do, and that’s where storytelling is most interesting.

Being quiet lets me see those things. In my youth, I was occasionally accused of being aloof or stand offish and I know that’s because I was simply a writer in the making—listening more often than speaking. I try to be cognizant of that because it’s also important to be and not to just live in my head all the time. But I also don’t try to be the life of the party when well-meaning people suggest I be more social. I have made peace with the fact that observing life is not only a pleasure for me, but also a gift for an artist. A decade ago, I would have felt presumptuous saying as much. These days, I’m really proud.


If I’m quiet, it doesn’t mean I’m not having fun. I’m just taking it all in. Making sense of the world in my head. And, with any luck, writing about it in a way that is authentic and yields stories that are meaningful. If I’m quiet, I’m just preparing for my next role, my next character, and hoping that you’ll be able to seamlessly slide into someone else’s shoes for a while as a reader because I got my story just right.

**I know you all love to step into a character's shoes as much as me! What character are you loving lately? Someone on television, a film, or in a book? Share with me on the boards today and I'll give on random poster a copy of my upcoming Harlequin Superromance, NIGHTS UNDER THE TENNESSEE STARS. And don't forget to keep an eye out for my upcoming co-authored release with Catherine Mann, THE WEDDING AUDITION!

Fun in the Sun

by Anna Campbell

The writing life tends to be fairly solitary most of the time (which is actually one of its appeals for me). It's you with your characters and your story in front of a computer or a notebook or whatever your medium of choice is when it comes to getting down those ideas. So it's always great fun to catch up with some of my writing mates and get out and about.

Recently my critique partner Annie West came up to see me on Queensland's Sunshine Coast and for a few days we really lived the high life.

Of course we did a lot of work too. We always do when we get together and it's been the sort of year where we've only managed one other session together, so we had a lot to catch up on personally and professionally.

You can see what I mean about work and high life coinciding in this picture of French champagne (a birthday present I'd saved) and our notebooks out and ready for any inspiration lurking in the bubbles to strike.

It did strike! 

In between all our book natter, we did some lovely walks. It's spring here where I live and the weather was just gorgeous.

I hope you like the picture of the pelicans along Pumicestone Passage. They're among my favorite birds - so full of personality. And they're the most beautiful fliers.

We also managed to see a dolphin. I've been living here permanently nearly ten years and that's the first time I've seen one in the bay. Lovely! He hung around for ages, just lazily popping and down as if to say hello.

The photos of Annie and the one with the sea in the background are from a lovely lunch we had at a very nice local restaurant. We always try to celebrate a recent publication from one of us and in this case, we were toasting the success of Annie's REBEL'S BARGAIN which is out next month from Harlequin. It's a corker of a read so we popped a few champagne corks to wish it on its way to the world!

By the time Annie left, I had a book or two plotted and a whole stack of writerly mojo to carry me forward to our next meeting. I hope it's soon!

So what have you been up to lately? Any celebrations on the horizon?

My Life's Soundtrack

by Anna Campbell

Recently on Facebook there was one of those things going around where people tagged their friends to list ten things. I find these endlessly interesting - and almost invariably surprising. So I thought I'd break out of the Facebook ghetto and ask my Tote Bag chums the same question.

This particular meme doing the rounds was naming ten albums that have stayed with you. That doesn't particularly mean your favorite albums, but the ones that had some influence over you - or at least that's how I took it.

Inevitably, a lot of the records I picked (and I'm old enough that most of them actually WERE vinyl) went back to my childhood/teens and include some records my parents played a lot when I was a wee gel.

Here's my top 10 as of today (it's slightly different to the one I posted on Facebook but that's the nature of these things, isn't it?).

1. Swan Lake Ballet - Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic

2. Station to Station - David Bowie

3. Rubber Soul - the Beatles

4. Standing on a Beach (the Singles) - the Cure

5. Beethoven's Greatest Hits - various CBS artists

6. Les Miserables - Original Stage Cast

7. The Sound of Music - Soundtrack

8. The Glenn Miller Story - Soundtrack

9. My Fair Lady - Original Stage Cast

10. Lawrence of Arabia Soundtrack

So clearly my tastes run to classical and musicals with a bit of classic pop thrown in. Yup, that pretty much describes it, with a few movie scores as runners up.

It's been great fun to revisit some of the music that's influenced me. And even more fun to look at those album covers. Talk about a trip down memory lane! 

Now it's your turn. And if you want to put in a line or two about why you made your selections, I'd be very interested!

Oh, and by the way, if you don't follow me on Facebook, you can find me at:

https://www.facebook.com/AnnaCampbellFans

I'm pretty active there and I regularly do giveaways! 

Looking forward to seeing your music lists!

Kitty companions – by Kandy Shepherd

 Some writers work in cafes or noisy parts of the house where they feel part of the world. Not me. I need to be by myself to write—away from noise and distraction so I can draw deep from my imagination and escape into the creative zone where the words start to flow. I like a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the closed door. And none of that music that other writers find so inspiring.

Alfie helps keep the printouts of my drafts from blowing away (actually he just likes the box!)

 That solitary, writerly existence could get lonely. Not so with cats for company.

Ivy supervises from a stack of books waiting to be filed

 There’s nothing three of my cats like better than to be with me—on my lap, on my desk, on a chair or floor nearby. As I write—often very late into the night—I’m never short of feline company.

Tabitha prefers to be on my lap as I type, but a nearby chair will do as second choice

 Of course my kitties can become a distraction. Like when the one who always wants to sit on my lap squeals in protest when my back starts aching and I lift her off. Or when two of them start to argue in escalatingly loud cat voices for possession of a prized cardboard box.

Ivy tucks herself neatly nearby behind my computer, sometimes I don't know she's there 

And my fourth cat? She’s primarily an outdoor cat who loves to go for walks with us around our farm and into the surrounding bushland. Sometimes during the day she appears at my window sill as if to urge me outside for some much-needed exercise. Being a natural-born procrastinator, that's often just the excuse I need to down tools!

Cindy makes sure I get off my chair and get some well-needed exercise

 What about you? Do you have a pet that keeps you company when you’re at home? When you're concentrating on a task do you need quiet or thrive on music or chatter?  Please make a comment, I’d love to hear about it!

I have one copy of my debut book for Harlequin Romance The Summer They Never Forgot to give away—either a mass market paperback or via an Amazon gift voucher for an e-book

Please include your email address in your comment if you want to be included in the draw (and let me know if you prefer print or e-book.)

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction.  The Summer They Never Forgot is Kandy’s first release from Harlequin Romance in the US, the UK and Australia. Watch out for The Tycoon and the Wedding Planner in July 14.

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com

Heaven Scent

 by Anna Campbell

Who is this handsome smiling lady, you may ask.

It's my grandmother, Rosetta Campbell. She looks like she's up to mischief, doesn't she? No surprises there!

Recently I found myself remembering a stack of little things about my grandmother who passed away at the age of 102 a couple of years ago. That was thanks to a workshop I did at a writing retreat outside Melbourne on the power of the senses.

One segment of the workshop was specifically about the power of scent. The girl running the workshop had brought along a stack of old perfume bottles and somehow the combination of smells shot me right back to my primary school self.

Gives you some idea of the power of fragrance, doesn't it? This was as if I'd been airlifted back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. I was my prepubescent self again (now, that's scary!). They say smell goes straight to the most primitive part of our brain - the bit that's still basically lizard. Clearly I am harboring a very fragrant gecko in my head!

These photos are bits and pieces from my current makeup drawer. What I really wanted as an illustration for this blog was a picture of those little purple pots of rouge that Coty used to make. I think my grandmother must have mainlined them. Not only that, she never threw any out, no matter how little rouge was left in them. So when I went through her cupboards at her big old wooden house looking for goodies for my dressing-up fetish, her old makeup came out in bundles.

She also never threw out a perfume bottle so the moment I caught the mixture of scents at this workshop, it was like she was still with me.

The other thing she had in droves was stubs of Revlon's Fire and Ice bright red lipstick. There actually was a stage in my life (you have to forgive the fashion faux pas of the mid-80s!) when I too wore Fire and Ice. And I was most disappointed when it was discontinued in the mid-90s.

Between the rouge and the scarlet lips, I must have been the oddest-looking little girl in Australia but, hey, I was having fun.

I think cosmetics back in the day must have contained much more perfume. I certainly didn't get that overpowering miasma when I opened my bathroom drawers as I did when I found my gran's old stuff. On the other hand, were I to have a grand-daughter, she wouldn't get that immediate memory of my presence from a drift of scent. 

This burst of sense memory awoke a wave of other memories. My parents worked together on our farm so my grandmother spent a lot of time babysitting my brother and me. Rosetta and I were both card-playing fiends and she loved to put on her old records. I was a seriously ungroovy primary school kid too - no rock and roll for me but I knew all the words to Richard Tauber's greatest hits and Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas. Rosetta always made the punishment fit the crime when she came upon me with catlike tread!

By the way, a check of these photos indicates that Rosetta isn't the only one who keeps lipstick stubs!

Thank you for letting me wander down memory lane. Do you have any specific memories associated with smells? Have you ever found yourself completely transported back into your past by a fragrance?

And so Starts Another Year

As the end of the year rolls around, and this is my last blog of this 12 month series, A Year in the Life of an Author, I find myself planning for the future.

Most people think ahead to the next year as to what needs to get done. My 2013 is already planned and has been for nearly a year. I'm speaking at the Midwinter ALA meeting, the Southern California Romance Writer's conference, and again at the Orange County RWA meeting in June. I'll be at the RWA National conference in Atlanta in July, and there are few trips down to Portland and other places in between.

In addition, I have a book due in February, a book coming out in March (AND THE MISS RAN AWAY WITH THE RAKE) and another in November (IF WISHES WERE EARLS). And in amongst all that, there will be another book to plot, plan, write, revise and finish. And if you been reading my blogs throughout the year, you also know that will mean copy edits, page proofs and the other necessary parts of bringing a book to publication.

So if I have my year all planned out, then what am I planning? Believe it or not, 2014 and 2015. I already have events on the calendar for those years. Yes, my life gets planned out years in advance. There is a comfort to that, (Huzzah for the work!) a bit of panic, (Yikes how am I going to get that all done!) and the inevitable fears that life will step in and muck it all up. But I have to do it. I have to come up with a reasonable guess as to when I will be able to complete three more books in the next two + years.

With kids, a husband, a house, a family, and that one thing we all have: LIFE, I just make the best guesstimate I can (factoring in all the elements that go into writing a book) and march forward. Sometimes it works, other years, not so much. In those instances I either have to haul on the hip boots and wade through it or even sometimes find myself crawling along at a whimper. But do it I must.

So for 2013, I have chosen a word to guide me and a word to challenge me to rise above my doubts and fears: COURAGE.

Debbie Macomber and Christina Skye told me I was taunting the powers-that-be to chose that word, I was just asking for life to present the need for courage. I laughed, realized they are probably correct, but am sticking to it. COURAGE it is.

So with COURAGE in hand to tackle the world in 2013, I challenge you to find a word that fits, that will broaden your outlook and buoy your heart into taking great big striding steps into 2013. And 2014. And even 2015.

Kandy Shepherd - Setting the Scene

How important is setting to you in a novel? As a reader, I’ve always enjoyed books set in different parts of the world. I’ve probably learned more from novels than I have from geography or history lessons!

I love to travel, and visiting places I’ve read about in books is one of my favorite things to do. Visiting new places also inspires my own writing—and helps me get the details of the setting right. How lucky we writers are to be able to travel and count it as research!

What kind of hero or heroine would live in a house in this amazing setting? Mendocino, California.

 I just returned from a trip to California, that turned into a fact-finding mission for my stories. We started off in Anaheim for the Romance Writers of America national convention, which was as fabulous as always.

An artistic water stop outside the Mountainsong Galleries in dog-friendly Carmel-By-The-Sea.  I like writing dogs in my stories--could this inspire a scene?

Then we set off on the road trip. We visited Santa Barbara (what a beautiful town!); the quaint Danish village of Solvang; charming Cambria; Carmel (my third visit); then drove north to visit friends in Shasta County via San Francisco.

The car he or she drives can help define a character. I love this one parked at Carmel-By-The-Sea. 

We drove on  the coast-hugging Highway 1 to make the most of the awe-inspiring scenery (when it wasn’t shrouded in fog, that is!) Point Reyes, Elk, and Mendocino were highlights.

This was the view from our room at the Greenwood Pier Inn at Elk, California.  I'm sure I'm not the first writer to be inspired by this delightful place with its magnificent views and beautiful gardens.

 It always amazes me the things can catch the writerly imagination—from the house a character might live in, to the work they do, to the pets they might have, or quirky details that can add life to a story.

This pony grazing in a field of daisies in the Fall River Valley, California, might be just the horsey character I need for one of my stories.

On this trip, I found just what I needed for the story I am currently writing—but I won’t jinx myself by telling you about it just yet. I also found a whole lot of inspiration for new characters and new stories.

This tells me the person who set this scene near their front door has a warm and welcoming heart - the kind of heroine I want to write.

We finished up in the beautiful Fall River Valley to stay with our friends who farm wild rice. They also produce a delicious chocolate bar made with puffed wild rice and Belgian chocolate. The crunch and flavor the wild rice adds to the chocolate truly is a taste sensation.

Wild rice growing in the Fall River Valley, CA. I love wild rice whichever way it's cooked but its particularly toothsome added to chocolate!

 Is there a setting you particularly like in a book, movie or TV show? Or one you don’t like? Have you visited a place you’ll never forget? I'd love to hear from you!

My friends produce this chocolate from the wild rice grown in their valley. I'm hoarding my bar, but I don't know how much long I can hold out until I eat it!

Please leave a comment to be in the draw to win one of three bars of Fall River Wild Rice Dark Belgian Chocolate that retail for $4.50 each. I'm sorry, but this prize can only be sent to addresses in the USA. Be sure to leave your email address with your comment.

Kandy Shepherd writes fun, feel-good fiction. She is the author of The Castaway Bride (set on a tropical island in the Pacific); Something About Joe, (set on the harbor in Sydney, Australia); Love is a Four-Legged Word and Home Is Where the Bark Is (both set in San Francisco.)

Visit Kandy at her website

www.kandyshepherd.com