My Story, My Way ~ An Indie Adventure: 2013-03-24

Saturday, March 30, 2013

EXCERPT FROM ALL FOR SPILLED BLOOD ~ R. ANN SIRACUSA

ALL FOR SPILLED BLOOD

Fourth novel in the Tour Director Extraordinaire Series

An international youth convention, art smugglers, and terrorists trying to recruit young computer geniuses and a national art treasure.

Harriet Ruby, tour director extraordinaire, and her fiancé and favorite spy, Will Talbot, travel to Russia undercover as tour directors for the US delegation to an international youth conference. Harriet tackles her first covert assignment to investigate smuggled artwork while Will’s mission is to locate and destroy a group of terrorists recruiting young computer experts.

The temperature had dropped, and nasty gray clouds hung low and heavy over the city, as if the heavens prepared to rip open and weep for us in advance.

Oh, man. Get a grip, Harriet. Maybe hunger had made me delirious. Or my grim mood might be inspired by the fear that I could soon lose nearly all the things I cared about in life. Even inside the car, the cold wind seemed to chill me and set my teeth chattering.

Minute by minute, we moved into unfamiliar territory with no more famous monuments or charming European architecture to distract me. While it didn't seem we'd traveled far from the historic center, and although we were still near the Neva River, the industrial area around us appeared unkempt and ominous. Not a part of St. Petersburg the causal tourist visited.

The day grew darker the further we went, and I expected Vitaly to turn on the headlights. The crush of pedestrians had disappeared from the sidewalks, leaving them abandoned to silence and an occasional soul battling against the wind, anxious to be out of the weather.

Behind me, Charlie grunted. "So once they've got the chips, are they gonna let us walk out of there? I had the impression they didn't want us to know who they are."

I turned as much as possible in the cramped quarters. "You're catching on. They don't want you to know, but if they think you're still in the game and still need you to do something, they might let you off the hook." Liar, liar! Not going to happen. They might walk out, but they wouldn't get far.

No way did I intend to suggest these terrorists would be happy to eliminate all of us in one diabolical stroke. And whatever they had planned would look like an unfortunate accident. "After all, they're supposed to give you instructions for the next steps, so they must want you to do more to make this fire sale happen."

Vitaly raised one eyebrow a smidgen, as though he knew bullshit when he heard it. He glanced at the address again, slowed the car, and turned at the next corner. From there, I spotted an unfamiliar bridge spanning the Neva River and along it were crowds of people. In spite of our location, we were not that far from one end of the parade route.

The car crept forward for several blocks before our driver pulled to the curb a block from our destination and stopped. All conversation died an instant death, and we sat in silence, listening to the hissing and popping noises made by the cooling engine.

Gray, undistinguished four- and five-story structures, leftover relics of the Communist regime, lined both sides of the deserted street. The sidewalks made of paving stones were broken and worn, the street full of potholes. If the storm broke, they would soon overflow with rainwater.

Nervousness made my skin itch with anxiety in spite of the cold and humidity. I glanced around, imagining Russia when outsiders were segregated and not allowed to mingle. When the government paid unemployed people to stand around in threes to observe the actions of others and to report any unusual behavior.

"I don't like this place," SD finally whispered, again sounding her age.

Neither did I. "We'd better get out of the car before the whole neighborhood knows we're here. We'll have to play it by ear."

"Don't talk when we get out," Vitaly warned. "That's the building over there. David, can you lead the way from here?"

"Yeah, I think so." He opened the car door and got out.

The rest of us followed, clumped together, as clingy and silent as cobwebs. The closing doors clicked as they latched, thunder in this silence. All my unspoken fears choked together in a lump in my throat.

Sienna Dawn grasped my hand. "I'm scared."

We trailed behind David, who turned every few seconds for signals from Vitaly, who was bringing up the rear. Why did he insist on being behind everyone? The fine hairs at the base of my neck bristled with trepidation.

We followed the sidewalk to the end of the building, then turned down an alleyway, hugging one wall as we negotiated our way carefully across the rough asphalt scattered with occasional bricks and other debris. The penetrating cold of the spring storm wiggled its way inside my jacket and seemed to take up permanent residence in my body. I pulled my coat tighter around me with one hand and wished I had gloves to keep my trigger finger warm.

At the end of the alley, we came to a fence around a small open space between the buildings. At a sign from our Georgian guide, David pushed on the unlatched gate. The metal squeaked and groaned, as though unused to the abuse of being opened.

The place seemed too deserted. My free hand patted the gun in my pocket. The gate emitted a desolate clunk as Vitaly eased it shut behind him.

The fence enclosed a small public garden of sorts. A little park surrounded on four sides by old buildings which, at first, appeared to be warehouses. I'd thought we were in some old industrial area, but the park made me wonder if this could be residential.

Not a very cheery place to live, for sure. I stared up the sides of buildings to the dark holes in the façade that were windows. In this light, they seemed covered on the inside by black paper. A sliver of light appeared around one of them.

Our destination, perhaps.

SD was right—the place was scary and did little to inspire confidence.

We exited the garden through another gate that groaned the same way as the first, rounded the corner of the building, then stopped against the wall. Eerie silence enveloped us. The heavy atmosphere sucked up the shuffling of our feet. One of us drew in a deep breath, and it sounded like a windstorm.

Still taking his cues from Vitaly, David led us around and over piles of broken bricks, pipes, and construction materials strewn about. From the look of things, someone was in the process of replacing plumbing pipes. The wet ground squished around our shoes, and we slipped and slid through the mud. When we came to an open trench filled with slush, Andy took Sienna Dawn's arm and helped her over it, leaving Carla and me to leap across unassisted.

So much for age before beauty.

Breathless Press Buy Link

Amazon Buy Link
https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-allforspilledblood-1078454-149.html
http://www.bookstrand.com/all-for-spilled-blood

Friday, March 29, 2013

Last Friday of the Month Recipe - Sausage and Rice Casserole

My husband and I make very few casseroles, but this Sausage and Rice with all the veggies is one of our favorites and tastes even better the next day.

Plus it's easy and pretty darn quick.

We use rice cooked in a rice cooker, but however you cook your rice will work. This is not a fussy recipe.

Ingredients:
8 cups of cooked rice
1 lb of sausage, use your favorite, either ground or link
2 cans of mushroom slices, drained
2 green bell peppers copped large
4 or 5 stalks of celery cut 1/4 to 1/2"
1 onion chopped coarsely
16 oz (usually 1 can) chicken broth
EVOO, Canola Oil or Veg Oil, your choice
Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:
Cook the rice and let it sit while the rest is being prepared.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

I saute the veggies along with a turn of the oil bottle, it doesn't take much oil :)

After the veggies are slightly transparent (we like crisp veggies) I add the sausage and canned mushrooms and cook until sausage is done.

Then I add the rice to a large lidded pan, stir in the veggie/sausage mix and add the can of chicken broth. (For easy clean up, I spray the pan with cooking spray.)

Put in the oven until hot, about 20 minutes and enjoy your favorite beverage while it's heating through and the flavors are blending.

Set the table and enjoy.

The dish is filled with veggies, along with just the right amount of rice and protein.

Yum.

Hope you enjoy.

~LA

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

THE MYSTERY CHARACTER IN YOUR NOVEL ~ SETTING

Please join me in welcoming R. Ann Siracusa to My Story, My Way. Just wait until you read her post on Setting As A Character!!

Ann is involved in many activities, but her two favorite are traveling the world and writing fiction. This talented author combines those passions into novels which transport readers to exotic settings, immerse them in romance, intrigue, and foreign cultures, and make them laugh.

Today, she is retired from a career in architecture and urban planning where she was multi-published in professional non-fiction categories. She lives in San Diego, California, with her husband and writes full time. Her first novel, a post WWII mafia thriller, was published in 2008. She now writes for Breathless Press who has published the first four of a five-book romantic suspense series, one sci fi romance, and two short stories.

Her latest book, All For Spilled Blood will be Saturday's excerpt.

An international youth convention, art smugglers, and terrorists trying to recruit young computer geniuses and a national art treasure.

Their marriage plans hit a snag when Will locates a long-lost cousin with startling news about his heritage. When the artwork being smuggled has particular significance to one of the terrorist sympathizers, their missions entangle and begin to unravel, leaving Will at the mercy of terrorist kidnappers and Harriet holding the bag.

Breathless Press Buy Link
Amazon Buy Link
https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-allforspilledblood-1078454-149.html
http://www.bookstrand.com/all-for-spilled-blood

Setting As A Character

You've done character profiles for your hero, heroine, antagonist, and secondary characters. You've plotted your novel. You're ready to go. But wait! Have you overlooked that mystery character?

Who's that?

Your setting, of course.

When I e-mailed Leslie Ann about guest blogging, I said I'd write about St. Petersburg, the setting for my most recent release All For Spilled Blood. "Great," she replied. "Setting is another character."

Absolutely! That stirred the juices, and I decided to blog on using your setting as a character in your novel.

SETTING OF THE NOVEL

Without place, the characters are just there without reason to act or care. Setting is not only the time, location, and circumstance of where the story takes place, but the social milieu which shapes values and the characters. Nathan Bransford sees three important traits in a novel:

● "Change Underway: The best settings are not static, unchanging places that have no impact on the characters' lives. Instead in the best worlds there is a plot inherent to the setting itself: a place in turmoil, or a place that is resisting change but there are tensions roiling the calm, or the sense of an era passing in favor of a new generation."

● "Personality and Values: A great setting has its own value system. Certain traits are ascendant, whether it's valor and honor, justice and order, every man for himself, or it could even be a place where normal values and perspectives have become skewed or inverted…There's a personality outlook that throws us off kilter and makes us imagine how we'd react if we were placed in that world."

● "Unfamiliarity: Most importantly, a great setting shows us something we've never seen before. Either it's a place that most readers might be unfamiliar with and have never traveled to, or it shows us a place that we are all-too-familiar with, but with a new, fresh perspective that makes us look again."

The setting may establish the mood of the novel, as well as serve as a character that helps the protagonist achieve his or her goals, or as the antagonist working against them [e.g. a novel where the protagonist's goal in climbing Mt. Everest and the setting does everything it can to prevent that with wind, falling rocks, breaking ropes, and so on].

So, your setting is definitely a character in your novel. Whether it's a primary or secondary character depends on the kind of novel and what the author wants. But choosing the correct setting is just as important as the other components of the novel. It can assist the reader to experience the drama and feel the moods and emotions of each particular scene, as well as the novel as a whole.

Sometimes settings are such that the story couldn't take place anywhere else because of the mood, physical features, social values and customs. Think about what makes your setting unique.

Author Susan Meissner writes:

"We are wired to assign value to places. That's why home is so sweet, Yosemite is so beautiful, Paris is so romantic and a moonlit beech is so calming. It's also why dark houses scare us, crumbling cliffs intimidate us, and foggy moors depress us. Places communicate something to us. A spider doesn't care if it makes a web in a dark, musty cellar or under a chair in an opulent ballroom. But we care!"

You can set a novel in a place you've never been and pull it off, but having been there is better. Physical presence gives you a sense of how the location feels, tastes, and smells. You hear the background sounds, feel the rhythm and pace. These things are often hard to research. Even if you've never been to the location where your novel is set, thinks about those characteristics of place.

While setting may not be the same as mood and atmosphere, the reader's emotional response to the time and place of the setting, each setting has its own unique mood and atmosphere. And the more familiar you are with the sense of place, the more you can use it to assist or hinder your protagonist, which will add depth to your novel.

Doing research in advance allows the author to pull those in as details that affect and further plot without stopping in the middle to look things up, or going back later to add them…and then forgetting to do that.

A few things to look at include: Weather and climate, slang and language, particularly if the setting is foreign, the appearance at different times of day and in different seasons. You may even want to find out of the location is on daylight savings time…and that's not just for the US settings. What places in the setting are particularly scary/dangerous and peaceful/safe, map and satellite pictures, topography and physical characteristics.

Susan Meissner also suggests, as part of your research, that you look at the location's newspaper on line and check out "real estate ads, the society page, obituaries, and the restaurant guide." You can get a good sense of what the city or town is like. Personally, I'd throw in reading the police blotter or equivalent, too.

SETTING OF EACH SCENE

I was intrigued by Author MaryLu Tyndall's list of six ways the setting can help or hinder the protagonist in achieving his/her goals in general and in a scene. It's worth the time to read her article. (See Resources) Here's a recap of her points.

● The setting as a friend / a comfortable, relaxing place where protagonist can reflect, or a safe place to hide from enemies.

● The setting as an antagonist / introduce conflict, trouble, thwarts protagonist's plans.

● The setting as a mentor / a place to learn or make discoveries, a place to prepare to take something on.

● The setting as a shadow for protagonist / a shadow reflects the deepest flaws of the character / a setting that opens the character's eyes to his/her own flaws.

● The setting as a model of what the protagonist wants to be / a setting that fosters qualities to which the protagonist aspires.

● The setting as an example / a setting that either assists or hinders the character in the particular scene.

There are important roles of the setting of each scene.

ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA

St. Petersburg is a beautiful city founded by Tzar Peter the Great in 1703. Although created to be as much like other contemporary European cities as possible, nothing is really old by European standards, and the buildings themselves take on some of the special expansive qualities typical of Russian architecture.

I didn't know, when I went there in 2004, that St. Peterburg is called the Venice of the North. It was originally constructed on ten islands on the north side of the Neva river delta. Today the city spreads over more than forty islands and has 342 public bridges of all sizes, types, and designs. It’s impossible to walk more than a few hundred meters without crossing a bridge. The canals and the morning fog give the city a very romantic and picturesque mood, as do the white nights when the sun goes down at 1 am and the rest of the night is like twilight until the sun comes up at about 3:30 am.

The Tsar expected residents of the city to move around during the summer months by boat on the canals. In the winter, when the canals are frozen, they were expected to use the canals with sleds. I guess that didn’t work out. After Peter’s death, they started building bridges. The first permanent bridge of bricks and stone across the main branch of the Neva was constructed in 1850.

The Russian people are integral to St. Petersburg as a setting. I found them friendly, helpful, and often outgoing…but serious. Yes, they do laugh and smile, and they know how to have a good time, but in the shopping center or along the streets, most of them seemed to go about their business with unsmiling intense expressions, as though they take life very seriously. The older ones rarely step out of the box of their responsibility, seemingly conditioning from prior times.

If you read All For Spilled Blood, you will see how I use the setting as a character in the novel.