Guest Post

HAVE A BOOK TO PROMOTE? Lyrical Pens welcomes guest posts. Answer a questionnaire or create your own post. FYI, up front: This site is a definite PG-13. For details, contact cjpetterson@gmail.com cj

Sunday, December 25, 2016

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

cj Sez: From my house to yours . . .


I pray your celebrations are filled to the brim 
with the love of family and friends.




The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.

                                                                                                            Numbers 6:24-26


Marilyn Johnston
(aka cj petterson)

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Introducing author Khristina Atkinson.

cj SezToday, I’m excited to introduce another author from the upcoming MysteryThrillerWeek annual event scheduled to take place on Facebook in February.

Remember to mark your calendars: During the week of February 12-22, 2017, about 200 authors in the mystery/thriller genre and every sub-genre, me included, will participate in blogs, readings, takeovers, and, drum roll here, giveaways. I think you’ll have fun connecting with favorite authors and reaching out to meet new ones, like this one:

Say hello to Mystery Thriller Week author Khristina Atkinson  

Today, Lyrical Pens is featuring Khristina's hopelessly, completely, MADLY in love, book one in her “Lovin’ Lawmen Series,

Khristina says the historical romance (and mystery) is set in her paternal grandfather's home state of Kentucky, and the story starts in 1876 in Bardstown, Kentucky. 


Here’s the gist of hopelessly, completely, MADLY in love . . .

Lexi Donovan leaves home to visit her grandmother when her crush, Cooper Grayson, returns to Bardstown, Kentucky.  He immediately asks her father's permission to court her after she's already accepted an engagement ring from her best friend, Silas Reilly.  Silas hasn't yet found the courage to speak with her father, Heath.  He's a brawny man with a fiery temper, who's extremely protective of his only child.
Lexi comes back to town with a new husband, Luke Weston, and is about to deliver the wonderful news he's going to be a father when a shot rings out.  Is one of the men who claim to love her trying to murder her husband?

Find it on Amazon…it’s free right now on Kindle Unlimited. Can’t get a cheaper gift than that…for yourself—what the heck, for several of your BFFs.    


Okay, you-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj    
PS: I’m going to publish a quarterly newsletter with writerly tips, tidbits, and etc. Drop me a note at cjpetterson@gmail and I’ll put your name on the list…early subscribers will receive a gift so also include a home address. AND another gift goodie: More than Friends, a 6-book bundle of novels for hours of R&R, available until Feb 2017. Click on Amazon to go directly there.

cjpetterson@gmail.com
Deadly Star -- Amazon Print / Kindle  / B&N print and Nook / KOBO
Amazon Central Author Page:  http://amzn.to/1NIDKC0

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Exciting times ahead . . .

cj Sez: The next few weeks of Lyrical Pens will be an exciting time for me. I’m thrilled to feature fellow authors from the upcoming MysteryThrillerWeek annual event scheduled to take place on Facebook in February.

Reminder to mark your calendars: During the week of February 12-22, 2017, about 200 authors from around the world who write in the mystery/thriller genre and every sub-genre, me included, will participate in blogs, readings, takeovers, and giveaways. Ten days to have fun connecting with some of your favorite authors and reaching out to read the work of new authors…like this one:

Say hello to Mystery Thriller Week author Armaan Dhillon 

Today, Lyrical Pens is featuring Armaan’s A Nazi War Criminal in India, a story filled with mystery and international intrigue

Armaan describes his story this way: “The book is about a Nazi war criminal, Alois Brunner, who was Adolf Eichmann’s henchman. How he fled from Syria and made his way to India. The main story starts in India.”

The Amazon blurb says:
 - Just after the end of World War II, Adolf Eichmann’s best man, Alois Brunner, fled to West
Germany, then Egypt and finally lived in Syria with the help of the government in return for the torture techniques the Nazis used during their Reich. 

But did he actually die there? Simon Wiesenthal claims that he died there when the civil war started but the location of his grave was unknown. There is no substantial proof for his death! And chances are that Simon Wiesenthal assumed his death due to the on-going Civil War even though they claim source who told them about his death was genuine. What if Alois Brunner never died and in-fact fled to India with the help of his contacts in the Syrian Government to avoid the Civil War since danger to his life increased.

Alois Brunner comes to India with a new identity and settles down in New Delhi in a locality where he meets a college student (Rohan) and befriends him. Does Rohan finds about his real identity? Rohan’s only trust is his best friend Dhruv! Or maybe one Indian Army officer comes into play to get Rohan out of trouble. What will happen in the end? Who ends up getting manipulated in the whole event?

Look for it on Amazon…it’s free right now on Kindle Unlimited. “Free” makes for a great gift for yourself and for several of your friends.    


Okay, you-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same. And be sure to stop by on Wednesday to read about MTW author Khristina Atkinson's latest novel.

cj 
PS: I’m going to publish a quarterly newsletter with writerly tips, tidbits, and etc. Drop me a note at cjpetterson@gmail.com and I’ll put your name on the list…early subscribers will receive a gift so also include a home address.

AND another gift goodie: The More than Friends 6-book bundle of novels for
hours of R&R is available until Feb 2017 cover
cjpetterson@gmail.com
Deadly Star -- Amazon Print / Kindle  / B&N print and Nook / KOBO
Amazon Central Author Page:  http://amzn.to/1NIDKC0

Sunday, December 11, 2016

Getting to be the season . . .

cj Sez: During any break in the action (shopping, decorating, wrapping, cooking), December is a month of reflection for me. What did I do this year? What did I accomplish? Or not.

Mostly, the month delivers a mixed bag of cherished memories. The following is from a short memoir I wrote for the anthology Christmas is a Season 2008, published by Linda Busby Parker’s Excalibur Press. To be clear, there are four kids in this story: My sisters Phyllis and Sonja, my brother Eric, and me. I was the only cranky one. Here is an excerpt from “The Blue-Eyed Doll.”

Christmas in Detroit was totally different from Christmas in Texas. There were no relatives to join us for Christmas in Detroit—my mother’s family remained behind in Texas, and my father’s remained in Sweden—and because Daddy wasn’t working, there was neither money for a bountiful smorgasbord table nor any money for toys. After many long and hushed-voiced conversations between my parents, Daddy added our names to a list of needy children. Although he couldn’t give us gifts, he was determined to find a perfect Christmas tree. He spent hours walking from tree lot to tree lot. He had two requirements. The tree had to be cheap, and it had to be a sweet-smelling, short-needled balsam, because his family in Sweden never used common long-needle pines as Christmas trees.
Late one night, shortly before a nearby tree lot closed for the season, Daddy paid fifty cents for a tree with a crooked trunk still holding onto a few limbs, but the tree showered needles to the floor with each touch or the least shake. We decorated our tree with multi-color construction-paper chains, red cranberry strings, and four of Daddy’s work socks. Mama and Daddy pronounced it beautiful.
Just before dinner time on a Christmas Eve so cold that the snow crunched underfoot, three smiling men in dark, thick, woolen coats knocked on the front door. One carried a cardboard box filed with government surplus food and the other had two armfuls of gifts wrapped in red and green paper.
Inside one package with my name on it was a beautiful doll with blue eyes and long, black lashes, curly blonde hair and a blue dress. It was the only doll I ever got for Christmas, and I hated it. I hated it because, suddenly, like I believed the strangers did, I saw myself as poor. The doll stayed in its box until Mama gave it to a neighbor girl several years later.
Before that first Christmas in Detroit, I had never thought of myself as needy or poor. Even when I was walking barefoot through our cotton fields in Texas, wearing a dress Mama had stitched by hand out of a flower-printed feed sack, I felt sheltered and loved, lacking nothing. That blue-eyed doll changed my perception of myself and my family and changed how I felt about Christmas for twelve more years.
My nineteenth Christmas was my first-born’s first, and I decided Christmas needed to become magical again. I spent weeks buying food and preparing desserts for my own family smorgasbord—minus the lutefisk which, happily, I couldn’t find that year in Detroit. On Christmas Eve, my mother brought her cardamom rolls, my father fixed his Swedish fruit soup, and my siblings brought friends and appetites. We read the Christmas story, exchanged small gifts, sang carols, lobbed wrapping paper balls, and giggled like kids. I re-discovered the family Christmas of my early childhood. On Christmas morning, Santa surprised my husband by filling one of his socks with an orange, an apple, a chocolate bar, a quarter, and a handful of walnuts.
Over the years, I’ve replaced the cotton work socks with velvety monogrammed Christmas stockings that Santa fills with gift cards and Godiva chocolates, but today, the only things missing from my re-claimed Christmas memories are those wonderful Swedish dishes that only my mother and father could prepare to perfection.
Having a child of my own opened my eyes to my father’s great love. I had to become a parent myself to understand the sacrifice of pride it took for him to publicly acknowledge his family as needy. It was my father’s way of ensuring that his children’s Christmas was more than just another date on the calendar. Now, when I remember my first Christmas in Detroit and the blue-eyed doll, I see those gift-giving strangers for what they really were—my father’s Magi.

If you haven’t already, write down your special memories … they’ll escape you if you don’t.

I’m in the process of starting a quarterly newsletter, more like a flyer filled with info tidbits—name to be determined. This is a huge learning curve for me because I haven’t worked with anything like MailChimp before. I’m praying for patience and an open mind. Do please send me a note at cjpetterson@gmail and I’ll make sure you receive a copy when I get it up and running. Prizes will be awarded to early sign-ups. 

cj Sez: Thanks for stopping by. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same. And the More than Friends bundle of six romance novels is still available for under a buck on       Amazon 


cjpetterson@gmail.com
Deadly Star -- Amazon Print / Kindle  / B&N print and Nook / KOBO
Amazon Central Author Page:  http://amzn.to/1NIDKC0

Sunday, December 4, 2016

“Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice.” Margaret Atwood

cj Sez: There once was a saying that writers should write what they know. Well, you can put that fairy tale to rest.

   Remember Agatha Christie? English-born Christie was a home-schooled child, studied vocals and piano as a teenager, took up nursing in her early twenties, and published her first murder mystery in 1920. How about J. K. Rowling? Rowling, another English-born author and a single mother on welfare, said she got the idea for her fantasy Harry Potter series while riding on a train. The mothers of both women encouraged them to read and applauded their childhood writing efforts. Christie and Rowling are just two examples of successful authors who wrote what they wanted to read. But both women were avid readers before they were successful writers.

   The best advice a writer/author can get is to read, read, read…

“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.”  William Faulkner

   You can start by reading books, magazines, whatever you can find in the genre you’d like to write. Imitate your favorite author at first. When you’re satisfied that you understand the rhythm and pacing of the genre, then you will develop your own writer’s voice and write your own story. 

   Writing what you love to read and writing what you know are not mutually exclusive. It’s the “only” inference of that adage that’s wrong. Writers naturally bring some parts of what they know (about people, places, events) as well as their imaginations to their manuscripts. They bring their writer’s “voices” as well. That’s what makes the story uniquely theirs.

   I think author John Floyd offers great insight into that in his recent SleuthSayers post (http://bit.ly/2g5RnDt). He says his stories are drawn from his life experiences, but he’ll “inject them with steroids” by asking “what if.” 

   “What if” is the question to ask when the action slows down and your character needs to face a new challenge to keep readers turning the page (and John’s short stories do that extremely well).

   I find the following quote thought-provoking and think I want to take up the challenge. How about you?

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”  Haruki Murakami

  Okay, if you undertook the NaNoWriMo challenge, I hope you succeeded beyond your expectations. (Congratulations) If you missed by a few words, there’s always next year. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj
Here’s a freebie for Christmas . . .

Free on Kindle Unlimited.  Cntrl Click on the name above or this URL:   http://amzn.to/2fWVZvk

And I’ll send a free print copy to the first three people who leave me a comment.

The anthology includes one of my childhood memories, called “Dancing with Daddy” and written under my maiden name of Marilyn Olsein.

The joy of Christmas often gets lost in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. For many people, fond memories of a childhood Christmas can bring back that special feeling. This book collects tales written by adults remembering their favorite Christmases of the past. This heartwarming collection evokes the true spirit of the season—the perfect gift to rekindle the true magic and wonder of the season. 
cjpetterson@gmail.com
Amazon Central Author Page:  http://amzn.to/1NIDKC0
Choosing Carter  -- Kindle  /  Nook  /  Kobo   /  iTunes/iBook
Deadly Star --  Kindle  / Nook  / Kobo