I write southern historical fiction, local history, and I've written a devotional book. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog started out to follow my journey as a writer and a reader, but in 2025 it has been greatly expanded to include current events and politics in the United States as I see our democracy under attack from within. The political science major in me cannot sit idly by and remain silent.
Throughout 2016 I’ve enjoyed participating in the reading challenge issued by the Mint Hill Branch of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library. The year is quickly drawing to a close. I have not yet fully met the challenge, but I have four days left.
I designed the following reading challenge for 2017:
A book of poetry
A Sci-Fi book
A nonfiction book
Books by 12 authors I’ve never read
A novel set in each of the seven continents
A novel by a North Carolina author
A novel set in North Carolina
Re-read a favorite book
A book written in the 1700s
A book written in the 1800s
A book written in the 1900s
A biography, autobiography, or memoir
A book about a religion other than my own
A book that might change my mind
A book just for fun
A book that will teach me a new skill
A book that was originally written in a language other than English
A book written in Spanish (a language I haven’t studied since 1973)
A book published in 1953 (the year I was born)
A book that is the first in a series I haven’t read any of before
The second book in a series of which I’ve read the first book
A book written by an author I’ve met
A book of short stories
A book published in 2017
A book about the craft of writing historical fiction
A Nobel Prize winner
A political thriller
A sequel to a book I’ve read
2017 – My Goal and Objective
I used to set a goal of reading a book every week, but in 2017 I’m going for quality and variety instead of volume. My goal isn’t to check off every category. My reading goal is to expand into areas and subjects I might not normally consider. My personal objective in 2017 is to become less judgmental. I think reaching my reading challenge goal will enable me to accomplish my objective. It will, no doubt, be an objective I will never fully attain. I am a work in progress.
Join me for the 2017 reading challenge I’ve planned or design one of your own. Tell your friends about my blog and my reading challenge. Let’s get some conversations going about the books we’re all reading!
Everyone in the world does not have equal access to books so, now more than ever, it is incumbent upon those of us blessed to live in free societies and those of us blessed to live in countries with free public libraries and/or the financial means to have access to books to make the most of that privilege.
Until my next blog post, I hope you have a good book to read. If you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.
How important is a novel’s ending? Just as important as the “hook” at the beginning.
Once a month I write about the first line in a different novel. I must admit that I have worked harder on, done more “how to” reading about, and lost more sleep over the opening scene in my manuscript for The Spanish Coin than I have for the ending.
A good beginning “hooks” the reader’s attention and draws him into the story. A good ending leaves the reader satisfied and, hopefully, exhausted. A good ending makes the reader contact the author and ask, “You are writing a sequel, aren’t you?” The ending of a novel should either tie up all the loose ends for your main characters or cause the reader to wonder what happened to those characters later. Did they find justice, acceptance, love, or whatever they were seeking? The reader should still think about those characters weeks after reading the book. How many of us thought about Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird years later and wondered how her life turned out? Like it or not, we got our answer in 2015 when the long lost Go Set a Watchman manuscript by Harper Lee was discovered and published.
As with the writing of the other parts of a piece of fiction, there are rules to guide an author in crafting the ending.
Don’t introduce new characters
Do increase the suspense
Do surprise the reader, but do it in a way in which he can think back to foreshadowing earlier in the book
Know the ending before you write the beginning
The rule I listed last is one I need to keep in mind when I write my next book. I did not know about that rule when I started writing The Spanish Coin. I didn’t have a clue how that story was going to end. In fact, it made me exceedingly sad to see how the story unfolded. I had become quite fond of the character who turned out to be the villain.
Until my next blog post, I hope you have a good book to read and, if you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.
I try to blog a quote from an author once a month. Today’s quote is taken from Lee Smith’s autobiographical book, Dimestore: A Writer’s Life:
“For a writer cannot pick her material any more than she can pick her parents; her material is given to her by circumstances of her birth, by how she first hears language.” — Lee Smith
While working to identify my author brand recently, I came to appreciate that quote from Lee Smith even more than when I first read it and was immediately prompted to write it down in my writer’s notebook.
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Until my next blog post, I hope you have a good book to read and, if you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.
Once a month I blog about the first line in a novel. I started doing that when I thought the first line was the “hook.” I’ve learned that the hook can entail the first paragraph or even the first page of a novel, but I plan to continue to blog about the first line only.
The Risen, by Ron Rash
“From the beginning, Ligeia’s ability to appear and disappear seemed magical.” – From The Risen, by Ron Rash.
When I read that sentence for the first time, I had no way of knowing who Ligeia was or that it foreshadowed many appearances and disappearances throughout the book. The line was very clever on Mr. Rash’s part.
The Risen is a coming of age story of two brothers who grew up in Sylva, North Carolina in the Appalachian Mountains and the secret one kept from the other for decades. I don’t want to spoil the story for you, so I’ll just leave it at that. If you haven’t given this North Carolina author a try, please do so.
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Until my next blog post in a few days, I wish you a good book to read and, if you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.
On July 22, 2016 I blogged “10 Things I’ve Learned about Twitter.” Since then, I’ve learned 11 more things.
Twitter should come with an owner’s manual or a teenager to teach those of us in our 60s how to use it.
I’d still rather be working on my southern historical novel than writing Tweets.
Twitter continues to be maddening and takes more of my time than I want to give it.
Some days it seems like Twitter is really just a contest to see who can accumulate the most followers.
I grow weary of trying to improve my follower : follow ratio.
There are some things I’d like to Tweet about but I have to be conscious of my author brand.
The older I get, the more I believe I must show my authentic self if I’m going to project my true brand. (Yes, #7 conflicts with #6.)
It’s amazing how many followers from Australia I can pick up by Tweeting in the middle of the night in the USA.
I recently read that you have to manually cut and paste another person’s Tweet in order to retweet it – as well as adding “RT” and the original Tweet author’s username. Who knew? I thought that’s what the “ReTweet” button was for. Hence, the importance of #1 above.
I’d been on Twitter for months when I learned that you need a “header image” as well as a profile picture. How are you supposed to know that since. . . well, please refer to #1 above.
Any link you paste into the Tweet box is automatically shortened to 19 characters. I would have known this months ago if. . . well, please refer to #1 above.
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Until my next blog post in a few days, I hope you have a good book to read. If you are a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.
Once in a while, I come across a line that I especially like in a novel I’m reading. I like to showcase one of those sentences in a blog post once-a-month. It’s my way of illustrating how good writing doesn’t just happen. Sometimes my attention is grabbed by a phrase or just a word in a sentence. When this happens, I make a note of it in my writer’s notebook.
Redemption Road, by John Hart
“Tapping on the door, Elizabeth waited as fabric whispered behind the screen, and her mother appeared.” — Redemption Road, from John Hart
My “Take” on this line
It wouldn’t have occurred to me to write “as fabric whispered behind the screen,” but the phrase John Hart crafted paints an audible picture. I know exactly what Elizabeth heard as she waited after tapping the door.
What you can do
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Until my next blog, I hope you have a good book to read. If you are a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.
I read three novels in November. The first one was The One Man, by Andrew Gross. Some of you are probably familiar with some of the thrillers he wrote with James Patterson, but I was not aware of his writing. I can’t remember how I heard about The One Man, but the premise intrigued me. I look forward to reading more of Mr. Gross’s books.
The One Man, by Andrew Gross
The One Man is a gripping historical thriller. I’m drawn to historical fiction, but most of the historical novels I’ve read do not fall into the category of thriller. The One Man is a real page turner. It is set during World War II as Hitler’s Germany and the Allies were both trying to develop a bomb the likes of which the world had never seen.
The premise of the book is that only two men in the world know how to separate Uranium-235 from Uranium-238. One of the men is German. The other one is a Jewish physicist being held in the Auschwitz concentration camp. He is “the one man” the United States needs if the Allies are to win the war. But how could the United States possibly get anyone out of Auschwitz? They needed to find “the one man” who could pull it off. If you want to go on this nail-biting ride, I recommend you read The One Man. In case you enjoy audio books, this one has excellent reviews as the narrator is Edoardo Ballerini.
Ruin Falls, by Jenny Milchman
I read Ruin Falls primarily to fulfill a category on the 2016 Mint Hill Public Library 2016 Reading Challenge. Having enjoyed reading Jenny Milchman’s Under the Cover of Snow several years ago, I selected another book by her in the category, “read something by an author who has the same initials as you.” In Ruin Falls, two children of a couple mysteriously disappear in the middle of the night from their hotel room. Were they kidnapped or did they runaway? Ms. Milchman weaves a story that points out how our lives can be ruined by things that happen to us and how we don’t know other people as well as we think. The title is a bit of a play on words leading up to a suspenseful encounter at a waterfall called Ruin Falls.
The Risin, by Ron Rash
The Risin, by Ron Rash was the other novel I read in November is a coming of age book. It follows the lives of two brothers from Sylva, North Carolina. Sylva is a small town in the Appalachian Mountains and just a few miles from Western Carolina University where Ron Rash teaches. One brother is a well-respected neurosurgeon, while the other one is a ne’er-do-well. One of them has a closely guarded secret from their teen years in Sylva in the 1970s – a secret kept from the other brother for decades.
In closing
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Until my next blog post in a few days, I hope you have a good book to read. If you are a writer, I hope you also have some quality writing time.
Those of you follow my blog are probably growing weary of reading about author brand. I feel your pain! After today’s post, I look forward to blogging about other topics. Thank you for bearing with me as I went through this necessary journey and soul searching in preparation for what I hope will be the publication of my first novel in the next couple of years.
A Reductive Phrase or Sound Bites
On her company’s website, http://www.bluemooncommunications.com, Theresa Meyers defines a sound bite as “a reductive phrase that encapsulates more than the words contained in the phrase.”
She says an author must “boil down” his or her message points to “a one liner that will be used in every interview, every speech, every talk you give.”
I needed to ask myself why I write southern historical fiction. It’s what I’m naturally drawn to. It’s like all my life experiences have pointed me in this direction. But Ms. Meyers nudged me to go three more steps. I had to verbalize why people read southern historical fiction, what makes it sell, and why people seem to be gravitating toward it. As if that weren’t enough, the task was to come up with one phrase or sentence that would answer all of those questions.
My thought process as I pondered those three questions: I think people read southern historical fiction, buy southern historical fiction, and gravitate toward it because The South is a state of mind. It is a place and feeling that its children cannot easily define or explain. It is unique due to its history. It is at once looked down upon and held in a place of fascination by the rest of the country. It is a place that one cannot begin to understand without having lived there, or perhaps without having been born there. It is probably the most misunderstood place on earth.
My conclusion, in one sentence or phrase: Southern Historical Fiction touches the heart.
My Author Brand Story
If the following five paragraphs might sound like I’m bragging, that’s not my intention. It is my understanding that an author brand story is a writer’s statement of what qualifies him or her to write what they write. The next five paragraphs are my author brand story.
My 40 years of tracing my various family lines back to the colonial days in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia as well as collateral family lines back to the pioneer days in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi has served to reinforce and strengthen my knowledge of and history of The South (i.e., the southeastern states in the United States of America.)
I have done extensive local history and church history research and writing. Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong era. I identify with people who lived through the American Revolution, though I doubt if I would have had the physical fortitude to survive that period in our nation’s history. My studies have given me a profound appreciation for the hardships endured and sacrifices made by that generation of Americans that laid the foundation for the country and freedoms we enjoy today. Their blood runs through my veins and the red clay soil of the North Carolina piedmont is in my soul.
I am detail-oriented. Living my entire life in North Carolina and most of my life on land that has been in my family since the mid-18th century gives me a strong sense of place.
Having lost my first and second careers due to my health, I need to prove to myself and others that I can still contribute to society. I have been a writer all my life – just an unpublished one until recently.
My background, education, and desire to write historical fiction make me uniquely qualified to pen southern historical novels.
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Until my next blog post, I hope you have a good book to read and, if you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time. Thank you for coming along on my journey as an aspiring novelist.
My post last Friday covered questions 5-9 on Kimberley Grabas’s “Brand Story Worksheet” found through https://thebookdesigner.com and on http://YourWriterPlatform.com. (In fact, I mistakenly gave Theresa Meyers credit for that worksheet. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Grabas, Ms. Meyers, and to my blog readers for my error. I republished the corrected blog post on November 28, 2016 at 10:22 pm Eastern Standard Time.) Using this worksheet was a beneficial exercise. It wasn’t easy or quick, but it was something I needed to do in order to figure out my author brand.
Question 10 on the worksheet prompted me to start making a list of the actions I will take “to create loyal and meaningful relationships with my readers.” The types of things on my list include setting up a way for people to join an e-mail mailing list on my website, writing a newsletter, researching how other authors have done this, and make myself available for personal appearances and even Skype with book clubs. The personal appearances and Skype will have to wait until I actually have a novel to publicize.
Brand Story Worksheet – Question 11
Question 11 addresses an author’s need to associate with other writers. The Queens Writers Group, of which I was a member after completing Judy Simpson’s fiction writing course at Queens University of Charlotte in 2001, disbanded upon Judy’s death. I have not joined another writers group. I probably should look for another group to join, as well as joining the Charlotte Writers Club and the North Carolina Writers Network. To date, money has stood in my way.
Brand Story Worksheet – Question 12
The 12th question on the worksheet asks, “How does your brand story position you for future growth as a writer?” I think my story positions me to write southern historical novels in addition to the manuscript of The Spanish Coin – whether they be stand stand-alone books or sequels to The Spanish Coin.
Writing a Brand Story & Strategy
After answering the 12th question, the instructions are to write one’s brand story, concentrating more on how you say it than what you say. You’re supposed to think about how you’ll incorporate your story into your marketing plan – every aspect of that plan. This was a daunting task but, once I settled into it, my story and strategy came together fairly easily. I reviewed my responses to the 12 questions on Ms. Meyers’s worksheet, and my story quickly jelled. I will share my story and strategy on my blog on December 2, 2016.
My Author Brand Map
Although I had trouble translating my love for geographic maps to an author brand map, here’s my first attempt. It looks more like a chart than a map. The important thing is for my map to make sense to me, even if it does not look like anyone else’s author brand map. I didn’t have an example to follow, so here it is. I hope you can read it.
My attempt at an Author Brand Map.
Author Message Points
Theresa Meyers wrote in her “Message Points” article on http://www.bluemooncommunications.com/white_papers/message_points.htm) that in order to attract media attention today, authors must find their message points. She wrote, “Three strategies will interest the media the most:
Identify a problem. . .;
Point to an opportunity. . .; or
Explode a myth. . .
“Of these, Meyers continues, “exploding a myth gets the best response. . . . When pitching a producer or editor, in thirty seconds or less you need to hold up the myth and then shoot it down.
“Research has shown an audience will remember no more than three key message points. Everything you say, everything you speak about, needs to connect back to those points.”
Ms. Meyers then asks 13 questions for the aspiring author to answer in order to “come up with three statements that you want to repeat over and over again as part of your brand.”
My Three Message Points
?
?
?
As you can see, this part needs some work!
A Place to End This Blog Post
This seems like a good place to end today’s blog post, since I’ve run out of answers.
If you feel led to Tweet about my blog, Pin one of my posts on Pinterest, or comment about it on other forms of social media, I thank you for helping me get the word out about my writing. You’ll find social media icons below.
Check out my blog on December 1, 2016 for the possible “reveal” of my three message points, my “sound bite”/reductive phrase or sentence, and my author brand story, and my strategy going forward.
Until that next blog post, I hope you have a good book to read and, if you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time. Thank you for coming along on my journey as an aspiring novelist.
This blog post contains a correction in the first paragraph. Otherwise, it is a reblog of my last blog post on November 25, 2016. I apologize to Kimberly Grabas, Theresa Meyers, and my readers for my error.
In my last blog post, “More Thoughts about Author’s Brand,” on November 22, 2016, I ended the post with comments about the first four questions on the 12-question “Brand Story Worksheet” written by Kimberley Grabas (not by Theresa Meyers as I mistakenly stated) and found through https://thebookdesigner.com and on http://YourWriterPlatform.com and the promise to “work my way through the remaining eight questions on the worksheet, I’ll start drawing my author brand ‘map,’ and I’ll do some research on ‘message points.'”
Question 5
The fifth question on the worksheet prompted me to consider how what I have to offer in my writing is different from what anyone else can offer, and how I will make an emotional connection with readers. That’s what I was supposed to do but after evaluating my lifelong love for the history of the geographical area in which my historical mystery manuscript (The Spanish Coin) is set (the northern piedmont of South Carolina and the southern piedmont of North Carolina) I forgot to address the emotional connection with my readers. Nevertheless, this exercise has helped me know that this is where my writing needs to be geographically. I guess it boils down to the old saying, “Write what you know.”
Question 6
Perception as a writer is addressed in the sixth question. To answer it, I had to imagine how my ideal reader would perceive my writing and how she or he would describe my work. I have concluded that I want my ideal reader to describe my work as “spot-on” historically and beautifully-written. I want my ideal reader to say my work my books are “real page turners” with memorable characters that they remember years after reading my books. I want to be perceived as an honest writer.
Question 7
The seventh question asked what people are saying about my writing. I was encouraged when I remembered how people raved about the local history column I wrote for six years for the weekly Harrisburg Horizons newspaper. Also, I received compliments on my short story, “Slip-Sliding Away!”
Question 8
Emboldened by my reflections on question #7, I jumped into the next question; however, it was not so easy to answer. It was about signals my brand sends. This is going to require more thought, since I’m still trying to determine what my brand is and how to project it.
Question 9
The ninth question also addressed things that I don’t have yet since I am still figuring out my brand. I have a website, business cards, and a head shot, but I didn’t know until last week that my website and business cards should match or at least blend. The head shot I had made to appear on the back cover of my vintage postcard book, The Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, is not on my website. The purpose of the ninth question is to prompt me to make sure everything I do is a positive reflection of my brand.
What’s left to do
That leaves three more questions to be addressed, as well as the writing of my brand story and strategy, my brand story map, and my message points. I’ll see how much progress I can make on those items before my next blog post in a few days.
If you feel led to Tweet about my blog, Pin one of my posts on Pinterest (yes, I know, most of them don’t have a photo to Pin), or comment about it on other forms of social media, I thank you for helping me get the word out about my writing. You’ll find social media icons below.
Until that next blog post, I hope you have a good book to read and, if you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time. Thank you for coming along on my journey as an aspiring novelist.
Janet's Writing Blog 