Bumps In The Road ~ #LynnCrain #amwriting #LifeBumps

Hi everyone!

I know I haven’t been around last month and this month’s post is late as well. I apologize but life has decided to give me a few bumps...

Life has changed drastically for me and I am now just coming to grips to what’s transpired. Now, first, I need to explain that this isn’t a call for sympathy or anything like that but rather how to deal with those life bumps we all get. Second, things happen totally outside our control, a lot, and as writers we need to know how we’re going to overcome these challenges.

In the beginning of January, my husband of 31 years had a routine colonoscopy. He’d been having some gastric issues since he’d been diagnosed with giardia over two years ago but we just put it down to errant gut flora. Low and behold, we got a major wake up call when the doctor told us flat out he had colon cancer.

After a very stunned few days, I knew we had to get a handle on this. We saw doctors, we went to tests and did various other things to insure he received the best care possible. The worst news we received was that it was Stage IV, while the best news was it’s 100% curable with time, chemo and surgery.

I breathed a sigh of relief and immediately went back to writing and formatting a book for the print version of an anthology I was in that was set to release on February 28. Some friends of ours couldn’t believe that I wasn’t more worried and could still think about doing ‘my job’ because I’m a full time writer. Why wasn’t I catering to my dear husband’s every need? My thought was…how do you know I’m not?

For me, life is one of the things that happen no matter what your job is. It’s how you approach each and every life bump that shapes you and your career. Having been in nursing years ago and having a father-in-law who is a retired surgeon plus one of the best medical teams available, I knew my husband would be getting the best care possible. Now, I could do everything on someone else’s time table and not write but I’d be a miserable person. At that point, I would probably be useless to the one who needed me most…my husband…and that wouldn’t do.

Writing is part of the fabric of my being. I can’t survive without it. I sometimes live, breath and eat my stories because I’m so in tune with what I do. My husband knows this and because of my intimate relationship to my work, we discussed my writing and the things I had planned for this year. So far, I have three book signings and one conference lined up. Knowing just how important these things are to me, we decided that as long as they don’t interfere with his treatment, they are a go. Matter of fact, by the time you actually read this, I’ve already done the conference since it was the weekend of the 18^th. We basically made it a family trip for visiting the clan in Nevada.

Sure, there are going to be some tough times with surgery and side effects to chemo but those are things necessary to get him well. So far, he’s had two chemo treatments and I’ve gone with a writing tablet to do some work. One week, I did some class work for a Southwest Studies class and the next week I worked on blurbs, loglines and what I’d be doing for my marketing plan with the anthology I’m in. It was definitely time needed at the hospital but unwasted on both of our parts. The DH sat there and answered work email. I took a picture of him because both of us are happiest when we’re doing work or learning something new.

While we wanted to zip, life wanted us to zag. We allowed ourselves time to get used to the new dichotomy then moved on with what we needed to do to make life happy as we moved from point a to point b. It was a little different than planned and knocked us out of align for about six weeks but now we’re back better than before.

And I’m writing with a little different view on life. Please join me next month as I negotiate through life and writing!

Lynn

Check out my latest non-paranormal book, Decades of Love, on pre-order today for only $0.99. Get it quick the price will go up by March 15!

Loving Christmas ~ #LynnCrain #amwriting #TimeTravel

Hi everyone!

Hope your holidays are all you ever want. I have spent my life in quite a few different places for Christmas but the best I have ever seen is in Europe. And that’s why I wrote a story set around the holidays in Austria.

When I first went there, I didn’t know what to expect but the country grew on me. I find that I’m missing it even more this year than I thought. We had special little places to go, guhlwien to drink and friends to visit.

Not that we don’t have those things here…we do…but there it was magical. And to share some of that magic with you, I want to share a part from my story, Her Magical Vienna Christmas. It is in the Holiday Magic anthology and it’s available at all major ebook venues. Don’t forget to get your copy today! Here’s the setup:

Cryptographer Elizabeth “Lizzie” Camden is more in tune with numbers, cyphers and puzzles than she is with the real world. When her job takes her back in time to 1874 Vienna, she’s more than surprised to find Michael Sondervan there as well. She hadn’t seen him since college when he broke her heart.

Michael has always regretted the way things turned out between him and Lizzie. When he needs someone to figure out the cryptic warning, he knows he needs the best. And Lizzie is the best. Giving her a magical Vienna Christmas in the bargain, he hopes will bring them together and prove his love to the only woman for him.

I loved writing about Lizzie and Michael as the rediscover their love for each other, for history and the life they plan to have. Vienna is a wonderful place to write about and I love revisiting it again and again. Here’s an excerpt from this wonderful story:

Even with the snow falling, the Graben was a hub-bub of activity. Although the shops didn’t look that different on the outside from what existed in her reality, she knew they would be totally devastated in World War II. It wasn’t until much later, in the 1950s, that they would finally be allowed to stand on their own when the last Russian left the city. So much history and she was privileged enough to see it.

Lizzie gripped Michael’s arm when she saw police beating starving people and even children. Some of them appeared so pathetic as she looked at their rag-tag appearances. Their clothes were hardly warm enough for a cold winter. She tugged fiercely toward one of them but Michael held her in place.

“Look at me,” he whispered in her ear. When she turned, he kissed her again. “Remember this is how people were, not how people are in our time. We have come a long way.”

She nodded and kept her eyes on the ground in front of her. Finally, they turned off the main thoroughfare and down the side street of Jungferngasse, then again down a little path. Hidden away from the street was a small bookstore.

“This appears to be the place. Shall we go in, darling?”

She smiled as he pulled the door open for her. Inside there were many bookshelves and even books stacked on the floor. Lizzie managed to push herself in, though the fit was tight right at the door. Picking up a tome or two, she was surprised to see originals of some titles. Even then certain books in mathematics or physics were treasures. Gently replacing one of the books, she waved her hand in front of her face as the dust rose. It looked as if some of these hadn’t been dusted in weeks.

Proceeding to where she suspected the proprietor might be, she continued to gaze around to see if anything else caught her eye. Maybe his having a page from an Enigma machine code book was just a fluke regardless of what Derrick had told them. Turning around, her astonishment grew as she didn’t see anyone minding the store. Turning to Michael, she heard a thump behind her, much like a fist connecting to flesh. The feverish whispers in German made her lift her finger to her lips and point in the direction of a door.

This anthology is available now and along with my great story, you’ll be getting four other wonderful Christmas heart warmers.

I’d love to wish you all a happy holiday season. Please join me next month!

Lynn

Writing Full Speed ~ #LynnCrain #amwriting #NaNoWriMo

Before we start, I want to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving in the US. This is the week we truly remember everything we’re thankful for…and yeah…Black Friday may be one of those!

As you can tell, it’s National Novel Writing Month for many writers, including many here. While we’re all talking word counts and getting things done, it might surprise some of you to find out I’m already at my 50,000 word goal.

I’m sure some of you are thinking ‘Wow’ but you really shouldn’t as any of you can do this. See, I write full time. If I don’t produce things don’t get done, blogs don’t get posted and I feel my life isn’t going like it should. So I write nearly 5000 words daily on my good days and we’ll talk about the bad ones at the end.

On good days, I get up, grab my cup of Joe and sit down immediately at my computer. My first couple hours are weeding out emails and Facebook posts. If I have time, I will put some tweets in HootSuite to go out but I know if I don’t get to writing right after those first two hours, the day might be lost. And that’s because I love the internet. I love to surf, research, watch TV and do otherwise mundane things that would never normally catch my attention.

I’m like the dog in the movie Up. You know, the one who would be talking to you and suddenly he’d say ‘squirrel’ and off he’d go. The first thing I have to focus is myself on the task at hand. I normally leave open the story I’m working on. Or rather 3 stories I’m working on. Right now, that’s a time travel and two paranormals. Yeah, I’m one of those people who get bored easily, so I’ve always got more than one project going.

Many times that’s a good thing since I tend to finish projects quickly and need something to move on to. But I digress. The fact is that once I’m focused, I write fast. During the time I’m doing my email, I’m also looking at my calendar to see what’s planned for the day. For writing, I put just that down unless I’m under a heavy deadline then I will list the story.

When I open the story, I will review what I did yesterday, go over things that might not have meshed the night before, making notes as necessary for later editing. I do NOT edit when I write. That takes way too much of my time and will get me second guessing what I’m doing with the story in the first place. Writers are their own worst enemies and other than minor corrections, the story needs to get out to critique quickly.

Once I start writing, I can theoretically do 2100 words an hour because I type 35 words per minute. It’s more like half that amount, especially when I’m concentrating on some good plot points. Now, I know some of you are saying you can’t do that. I’m here to say…YES…you can.

Let’s face it, writing is a hard gig and things like NaNoWriMo helps us through motivation techniques. Mainly, they just have a way of getting our butts in the chair to write. I don’t know if it’s the thrill of competing or just the fact it’s a concerted effort by a lot of writers. We have a companionship that most people don’t share.

Writers are solitary by nature. Each of us in our offices with only our social media to remind us there is a real world out there. With NaNo, we get together even though it’s virtually and we talk and we plot and we do sprints and lots of things we don’t do on a normal basis. It motivates us and gives us a high unlike anything we’ve ever felt before.  

On those bad days, I’ve mentioned, I get off track and maybe I’ll watch a movie all day. Or do Facebook. Or help with an election. Or a thousand other things that keep me away from my goal. Somehow, I’ve lost my motivation and if I don’t find it quickly, it could be lost for a while. Like when my father died and I didn’t write for nearly four months. Or during my move from Vienna back to the States, another 4 months as we tried to figure out where we were going to live. Or how about the election, which had me paralyzed for four days before I could start thinking positive things.

Yes, those are all life events and sometimes one does need time to figure it out. However, I’ve now got some things in place to help me over those humps and make sure they don’t take longer than a week. First, I limit my social media exposure. I don’t know about you but things there can get me going and upset and geez, why do I ever read it sometimes, I wonder. It has its purpose and I just need to remind myself sometimes to not make it so ‘real.’ Second, I start listening to music. Lots of music. There is nothing in the world that motivates me more than an good song. Third, I’ll watch some of my favorite romantic comedies like Notting Hill or While You Were Sleeping as they remind me of what I’m doing and why. Last, I will read and remember I write well and do okay.

So, I bet you’re all wondering just what the secret to fast writing is…right? Well, the big secret us writers aren’t telling you is there is no secret. Writing has to be a passion and a priority to write. If you want to write fast, it has to be the only priority for the time you’re writing. And with the right frame of mind and motivation, you too can write 2100 words an hour.

All you need is to think you can. And you will.

See you all next month with some Christmas cheer! I’d be happy to hear from you, so don’t forget to leave a comment and you’ll be thrown into my monthly drawing for a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate. See you next month! 

Lynn

The Amazing World of the Paranormal ~ @oddlynn3 #LynnCrain #ParanormalRomantics

Hi everyone ~ this is my very first blog post here at Paranormal Romantics and I’m very happy to be here. First, let me apologize for being late. I have lost a day somewhere in there and thought today was only the 16^th. If you look at the blog, you can tell I added my bio and my book cover…all in anticipation of the 17^th’s blog post…and here I almost missed it! Bad me!

I need to let you all know that I write everything from super hot contemporary to hard core science fiction but the worlds I love best to do are those in the paranormal realm. There is nothing more magical than building your own world then making things happen in that world. I love all sorts of things that go bump in the night and have written books about vampires, shifters, paranormal hunters and investigators and even time traveling detectives intent upon saving our world as we know it.

I love the lore and ideas that are steeped within the paranormal. It’s amazing many of our fears come from our original superstitions against things we didn’t understand. Things like werewolves and vampires and even things like wendigos can all find their basis within the history of human kind.

The idea of vampires have existed for millennia going as far back as Mesopotamia but the current phenomena as we know it has only been around since the 18^th century. It comes mainly from Europe and come from the verbal traditions of the many ethnic groups of the area. They were thought evil beings who preyed on the living to get their sustenance while at the same time passing along their evil. In many areas, it became so pervasive that there were public executions of people who were thought to be these beings.

Werewolves have also been around for a long, long time. Some early sources of their existence remain in the works of the Roman Petronius (27-66) and the European Gervase of Tilbury (1150-1228).  It mainly came about as people tried to come to grips with their new Christian faith and the folklore of their area. I could write a whole paper on the specifics as there is so much documentation as to when this phenomena came to be. Unfortunately, it was lumped together with the witch-trials and there were many people who were persecuted or killed if someone in power thought they were a werewolf.

Wendigos are much more interesting as they actually arose from Algonquian folklore right here in the new world. It is associated with cannibalism, murder and insatiable greed. The monster can have characteristics of a human or a spirit who has possessed a human. This creature also has a modern medical equivalent called Wendigo psychosis that some indigenous communities see as environmental destruction and insatiable greed to get money. It is a very interesting phenomena.

But I love things a little more closer to home. One of my current works-in-progress is about a psychic paranormal investigator with the touch, meaning psychometry, who is pushed into the world of paranormal. Serenity Donovan is without the training her mother would have given had she lived. But since she doesn’t, she has to learn for herself. In wanting to know the character, I’ve been writing her diaries and short stories from the time she was left alone until the first novel occurs. She has a sexy ghost for a side-kick and I can’t wait to introduce everyone to this character. The first month of her diary and short story will be available November 1 on my series blog, The JR Chronicles. Here’s a little sneak peak of both:

January 2009

1 ~ Mom always said I should take notes and I guess today’s the day I start. I miss her. I miss her telling me what to do, how to handle JR and…well…just everything. Not much of a way to start a new business, is it?

2 ~ Second day and the phone hasn’t made a sound. Did Mom have to wait this long?

3 ~ I’m telling you. I’m going crazy. I mean who wouldn’t in my position. I have been studying for this since I can remember. And that’s not all I can remember. The number one thing on that list…meeting Jasper Ryan or JR for short depending on my mood…I mean, it’s not every day a girl meets a ghost and then gets told he will always be her partner. Geez…I was only nine when I first saw him…glad I never told my Mom then. I’m sure she’d be smacking me on my head for thinking he’s hot now. Actually more than hot. How about incredible?

4 ~ Other than drooling over JR again, da nada. How many ways can one say nothing?

Spring’s Pesky Imp

I’m sure you think this is about the season. It isn’t. It’s all about the imp who was terrorizing those who waited for the Vegas bus in the town square of Spring, Nevada.

Spring should have been a ghost town by now but with its proximity to Sin City and the mountains still loaded with silver, it had managed somehow to limp into the 21^st century. Today, strewn amongst the historic homes, there were tract houses along with the inevitable mansions of the wealthy, none of whom were famous beyond the borders of Nevada. Many casino execs didn’t want their families in the city and came to Spring to live their idyllic dream in a small town.

But today isn’t even about the imp. It’s about my ability to make it go away, leave the fair people of my hometown to their own devices and therefore, none the wiser, for the supernatural event happening in their midst.

And finally, here’s the logline for the first novel in this series called Angels and Demons ~

A mystery, a ghost and me…how much fun can one girl have?

What do you all think? I’d be happy to hear from you, so don’t forget to leave a comment and you’ll be thrown into my monthly drawing for a $25 Amazon Gift Certificate. See you next month!

Lynn