A Spark of Heavenly Fire Pre-Anniversary

Is there such a thing as an anniversary before something happens? A pre-anniversary? The first chapter of  A Spark of Heavenly Fire begins on Friday, December 2, which means the year in which the story takes place will be 2011. I didn’t specifically choose that year, but certain events needed to happen on weekends, others on weekdays, and the year ended up being 2011 by default. I never mentioned the year in the book, so it’s mostly a trivial issue. Today is the two-year pre-anniversary of the onset of the story, however, and to celebrate, all month long I will be posting outtakes of the book on my blog.

Sounds easy, right? Wrong. Somewhere along the line I deleted the computer version of the first draft (or perhaps there wasn’t a computer version. I wrote it before I had a computer). I dug out my handwritten copy and am retyping some of the deleted parts. And there are a lot of them! The original draft was over 118,000 words, the final version less than 95,000. At least 4,000 of those words were justs and onlys and thats and beginning tos, which I worked hard to eradicate, so I don’t intend to bring them back, not even for curiosity’s sake.

Still, there many scenes that I deleted in order to get to the action quicker. Like many new authors, I frontloaded the book with information that slowed the story. I kept thinking that if only people could get past the first fifty pages, they would like the book — it’s a solid story with solid characters in a disasterous situation that could actually happen. A real breakthrough in my writing occurred when I realized that no one would wade through fifty pages to get to the good part, so I needed to eliminate those pages.

Included in the eliminated pages was a substory about a real estate agent and a retired defensive back who had once been part of the legendary Bronco defense team The Orange Crush. The realtor was so sex-starved that she would do anything, even turn a blind eye when he started molesting her daughter, in order to keep him in her life and her bed. I was going to post the deleted scene here, but it’s way more graphic than I realized. Whooo! It’s one thing putting a scene like that in a book, and another to post it where anyone can take a peak. I’ve saved it, though, and perhaps one day I will find a use for it.

I also deleted many less than stellar scenes, but included a brief mention of the action in flashbacks or dialogue. It got the point across without the sludgery of the original version.

I never quite knew what to do with the handwritten draft, but I’m glad I kept it. And who knows — someday I might be so famous (or even better – infamous) and the thing will be worth a lot of money.

Read the outtakes of A Spark of Heavenly Fire on: Bertram’s Blog 
Read the first chapter of the published version here: A Spark of Heavenly Fire 
Free download: get the first 30% of A Spark of Heavenly Fire free at Smashwords
Read blurb (or buy!) at  Second Wind Publishing: A Spark of Heavenly Fire

Pat Bertram is also the author of More Deaths Than One and Daughter Am I.

The Rooming House

Janine lowered her portfolio and stared at the filthy brownstone.  Sweat coursed down along her backbone and her shoulders ached under the weight of her heavy backpack. Her dark hair was glued in a wad to the back of her neck.  A stout woman brushed past, trundled up the stairs and vanished into a dark entry hall. A whiff of something strong made Janine take a step back. Did that musty, acidic odor belong to that woman or did it come from inside the rooming house?

She double-checked the address. Yes, this was the place. She didn’t want to go in but she was out of options after her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey had revealed his new occupation, drug dealing. She’d accepted his kind invitation to put her up in the spare room in his Brooklyn apartment. But now, knowing what she did, Janine would rather be sleeping on the street and unless this place had a room, she might soon be doing just that.

The brownstone’s front door opened on a stairway flanked by two small rooms.  Janine peeked into a sitting room on the left crammed with scratched wooden tables and sagging chairs that were covered with fabric that was fashionable in the 1970s. On her right was a cubicle outside of which hung a store bought, cardboard sign that said OFFICE. A name was hand written on the bottom of the sign: M. J. Waller. Janine stepped in.

While the woman sitting at the desk finished a phone call, Janine followed the woman’s pointed finger to a folding chair in the corner and slung her backpack to the floor. After an hour-long subway ride and several blocks of walking through the west side streets of Manhattan, she was exhausted. Only the stress of her predicament kept her on her feet; she was in New York city with no place to stay, no job and only 200 bucks in her wallet. This was not the beginning she’d planned.

To be continued…

Mickey Hoffman is author of the mystery novel School of Lies, published by Second Wind Publishing.

Please visit www.secondwindpublishing.com for more details or the author’s website: www.mickeyhoffman.com

False World by JJ Dare

The second book in the Joe Daniels’ trilogy continues where False Positive ends as Joe continues his mission to destroy those who have destroyed his life. As the world changes, Joe’s search for justice takes on a global urgency and he races to find answers before deadly answers find him. 

Beginning in a secluded town in the middle of nowhere, it is not long before Joe is traveling across the country and, ultimately, across a collapsing world on his quest for vengeance. 

The world is not what you see. 

And neither is Joe.

False World is available from: Second Wind Publishing, LLC

Excerpt from False World by J J Dare: 

Joe felt more and more like Alice in Wonderland as the day passed. 

When he walked into the Citizens’ Identity Office, his first thought was he had walked into Utopia. When the caseworker assigned to him asked him to roll up his sleeves, Joe just looked at him. 

“Identifying marks, sir,” the office jockey said. “If you’ve been in the service, you’re granted carte blanche privileges within the scope of the new laws.” 

Rolling up his sleeves, the worker looked at Joe’s military tattoos and smiled as he nodded. 

“I could tell by you’re bearing, sir, that you were either army or marine,” he said as he filled out the paperwork for Joe’s new identity card. “I’ll have you out of here in just a few minutes, sir. 

“If you’d like to register your firearms now, I could expedite that for you, too.” The worker looked sharply at Joe as he continued. “You do pack, don’t you, sir?” 

Joe laughed as he told the desk jockey, “Hell, yeah.” 

As the worker relaxed, Joe again wondered what rabbit hole he had dropped into. People required to carry firearms, military given prestige above non-military, and Texas the capital of the country. 

Well, whatever psycho civilization he had wandered into, he liked it. 

“Sir, this is your new identity card. If you lose it, you’ll be issued a new one and the old one will deactivate. All of your information is stored on a chip inside the card and in our database. As military, you already have five thousand credits, which equals roughly a dollar per credit.” 

Holding up the Joe’s new identity card, the worker continued. “As a citizen of the new United States of the Americas, you swear to uphold the laws of the military and of the government. You swear to be vigilant and to protect yourself and other citizens against those outside of our nation. You swear to be vigilant and to protect your fellow citizens should the need arise.”

The worker looked at Joe and waited. Joe looked back at him. 

“You’re supposed to agree, sir,” the worker said. 

“Oh,” Joe replied. “I agree to everything.” 

“Thank you, sir. Now, if you’d just sign your full name, Mr. Daniels, you can be on your way.”

Joe signed the papers, pocketed his new identity card, took back his guns, and left. 

In the open air, he was waiting for someone to come after him. Of all the things he had imagined might be going on in the world while he was in seclusion, this was not one of them. 

The world was not was it seemed. Now, the world he thought he had known was radically different. Climbing into his truck, he realized that, more than anything, the tattoos he wore carried more weight in this new country than anything in his pockets. 

A month ago when he had gone with Liz into the survivalists’ camp, the United States had been a country pandering to too many special interests, too many foreign countries, and too many lost causes. 

The country he had stepped back into was a far cry from the namby-pamby one he had known. It was now the United we’ll-kick-your-ass States of the Americas.

 

J J Dare lives in a small, sleepy town with family and pets. Having visited many parts of the country, Dare has woven these places into stories and these stories have been incorporated into novels. 

Writing since the age of seven, the love of the written word has kept Dare grounded in the curiousity-laden world of writers. Constantly thinking what if?, has given Dare the seed for many stories.

 The first stories published by Dare were written for Rutger Hauer’s website many years ago. Since that time, other short stories have been published academically and in mainstream fiction. 

“False Positive” started out as an entry into a contest sponsored by CourtTV (now TruTV) in October, 2007. The initial book was written in thirty days. 

The author is still recovering. 

Although “False Positive” did not win the contest, the book interested Dare’s current publisher, Second Wind Publishing and made its debut in October, 2008. 

The next book in the Joe Daniels trilogy, “False World,” was written at a more leisurely pace and was published in November, 2009. 

The author is recovering quicker this time. 

The third and final novel in the trilogy has been started. Since the author seems to be averaging a finished book a year, expect the next installment in late 2010.

Magical moments don’t just happen in books

I had an amazing encounter with a stag yesterday. I was walking my dog, Rudy, at 6:30 in the morning. It was quiet—no other people or dogs out that early since it was a Saturday. Our destination was a meadow near my house. It’s about the size of a soccer field, and is surrounded by a creek and woods on one side and my subdivision on the other three sides.

We saw the stag the second we stepped from the paved sidewalk onto the wet, muddy grass of the meadow. Normally I would have turned around and saved my shoes—I wasn’t expecting mud—but the stag made that small inconvenience worthwhile.

He walked slowly away from us. I expected him to break into a run the closer we got—flight is the behavior I typically see in our neighborhood deer—but he never did. Instead, once he reached the edge of the woods, he turned and faced us.

Until then, I had allowed Rudy to lead me toward the stag. Rudy was not acting like the ten-year-old dog that he is: He was prancing and bounding and straining at the leash, and clearly had an early-morning deer chase in mind.

I’m not good at judging distances, but I believe I allowed Rudy to get me within fifteen feet of the stag (deer is too tame a word for this majestic animal). I got chills when I noticed that his fully-formed antlers literally sparkled in the sunlight. (My logical mind knew them to be wet, but his behavior made me wonder if he was magical.)

He stood his ground, showing us no fear. Head held high, his eyes squarely meeting ours, he might have even stamped a foot on the ground. He engaged in a subtle dance with us: As we passed him he slowly pivoted, so that his antlers were facing us at all times.

I was grateful for the leash, because for the first time in my life I felt afraid about what antlers are capable of. I didn’t allow Rudy to get any closer.

The stag won the face-off. We moved away, finally turning onto the bridge that led us over the creek and out of sight of him. When we returned, five minutes later, he was gone—much to Rudy’s disappointment. Mine, too.

I’ve always wondered why J.K. Rowling picked a stag for Harry Potter’s patronus. Now I understand why.

Lucy Balch

Love Trumps Logic

Coming soon from Second Wind Publishing

Sunshine and Joy After Rain by Sherrie Hansen

In my newly released book, Stormy Weather, several pivotal storms wreak havoc in the lives of the main characters, Rae, Luke, and Mac, both literally and figuratively.  Stormy Weather is a romance, so it will come as no surprise that it has a happy ending – the sunshine and joy after the rain, to quote the words of an old song, or if you prefer, the rainbow after the storm.

Anyone who saw “The Wizard of Oz” knows that “somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue.”  Had it not been for the tornado that hit Dorothy’s drab, Kansas world, she never would have traveled to the wonderful land of Oz, nor learned to appreciate her precious Auntie Em’s love, or that there’s “no place like home.”

Like everyone, my life has had many bittersweet moments. The very day my first book, Night and Day, was released, I had surgery to remove a recurrence of skin cancer and ended up with a 4″ scar on my neck that left my head cocked to one side for about three weeks. One of the proudest and most exciting moments of my life; and I looked and felt so terrible that I wasn’t able to celebrate or promote the book until some time later. On top of that, the recession had finally come to the Midwest, and I was tense and worried about the repercussions to my business and those of friends and family.

Two other times in my life come to mind as well… on my wedding day, almost 6 years ago, my back was out, and I was so stiff and sore that my friend had to lift my feet into the car to drive me to the church. Due to another medical condition, I was in excruciating pain during much of our dream vacation to Scotland 3 years ago. The term “grin and bear” it took on a whole new meaning.

These incidents are nothing compared to the heartbreak many of you have endured or are going though right now.

Yet, much as these temporary storms may have marred or impeded my enjoyment of some of the most precious and pleasurable days of my life, as always, clouds do dissipate, sunshine reappears, and joy is to be found on the other side of the rainbow. My husband, the pastor, is quick to add that a house built of the solid rock of Jesus Christ will withstand the worst of storms.

Is there a time in your life that you’ve experience joy in the midst of a storm? Sunshine after the rain? A rainbow so unexpected and lovely that you find yourself thinking the fray was almost worth it just to have experience that one blessed moment in time?

You’ll have to read Stormy Weather to experience the moment when Rae’s worst nightmare coincides with an event so profound that it will change her entire life.

I hope, as you read about what happens to Rae, that your faith will be restored – that you will be able to see through the wind and rain and sleet and snow that’s pommeling you to the blue skies on the other side of the rainbow, to experience the sunshine and joy awaiting you there.

It’s Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving can be taken so many ways:

 1)                  A day to be truly thankful for the blessings you have received;

2)                  A day off work, before a second day off work (a/k/a Black Friday), which leads into a weekend – thus a 4 day weekend;

3)                  A day to eat as much as you want and worry about the calories tomorrow;

4)                  Football;

5)                  Family and friends. A day to get together and enjoy the company of your loved ones;

6)                  Parades;

7)                  A day of rest before waking at 3:00 a.m. to participate in Black Friday shopping.

 So, what will I be doing this Thanksgiving? Well, I will cook a few things and then head to my mother’s where the rest of my family will eventually gather.  What I won’t be doing is writing. It is a day off to be with my loved ones and a day to be thankful and a day to eat. That would be 1, 3 and 5 of the above. 

This year I have a ton of things to be thankful for.  Always at the top of my list is my family. I have a wonderful husband and three terrific kids. I was blessed with awesome parents, and the best brother and sister anyone could ask for. Then, there are their children and so forth. I have a fantastic family and I hope you are blessed with any equally wonderful family.

I have roof over my head, food in my kitchen, and some really great friends.  My first book was published this year, Loving Lydia, with a second one due out soon, Pure is the Heart.

I am sure I have a lot more to be thankful for but they are not coming to me at the moment.  What about you? What does Thanksgiving mean to you? Is it one of the seven above, or something else entirely different?

If you are around tomorrow, join me at http://amydetrempe.blogspot.com where I will be interviewing Mike Simpson, owner and founder of Second Wind Publishing.

Mmmm . . . turkey . . . and free books.

By J.B. Kohl

So a year ago . . . October 22, 2008 to be exact, Eric and I crossed the last ‘t’ and dotted the last ‘i’ of One Too Many Blows To The Head and began sending it out into the world to make friends and maybe find a home.

Publishers tended to shy away from such an unusual collaboration– a book written in two first person narratives by two people who have never met? Would it work? Would people read it?

I’m thankful and proud to say that Second Wind took a chance on us. And One Too Many Blows To The Head isn’t the only book being sent out into the world right now. We are honored to share the spotlight with JJ Dare and Pat Bertram.

JJ Dare is the author of False World, the second title of the Joe Daniels trilogy. Dare is sponsoring a contest for a book giveaway. Scare her real bad in fifty words or less and you could win a free book.

Pat Bertram’s new release is Daughter Am I, a story about a girl, her inheritance, and the danger she finds herself in when she starts poking around in the past.  Bertram is sponsoring a treasure hunt on her blog. The prize: the one and only proof copy of Daughter Am I.

Eric Beetner, soon to be proud father of not one, but two beautiful daughters, is also hosting a contest. Prizes: newest thrillers from Second Wind.  Answer a question based on the central theme of each book, wow him, and you win.

And since I love a good contest and a great story, I want you to try to wow me as well. Give me a story about a flawed character, any flawed character who is in need of a second chance or a “do over”. Click here for full information.

Rules for my contest were posted earlier, but here they are again:

1. 500 words or less (I already said that but I’m saying it again)
2. Prose should be lighthearted and humorous. It’s the holiday season and I don’t want to get all suicidal.
3. Material needs to be original (That goes without saying, of course.)
4. Deadline is December 15.
5. Send story to jbkohl@jbkohl.com

First Place gets a signed copy of One Too Many Blows To The Head and a signed copy of The Deputy’s Widow. Second Place gets a signed copy of One To Many Blows To The Head.

Both winners will have their material posted on my blog, “Toeing and Typing the Line.”

But wait, there’s more! I love meeting writers. I love hearing about other writer’s methods for work. Winners will be presented with a guest appearance on my blog to give us the lowdown about writing habits, methods of success, opinions on writing, aspirations, etc.

So do you think you’ve got what it takes? Huh? Do ya? Do ya?

That’s all I’ve got. I’m heading back to my bowl of Chex Mix and dreaming of pie. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving folks!

J.B.

Sweet release

Time to celebrate, people. Our book, One Too Many Blows To The Head, is out and burning up the Amazon charts. We also share the spotlight with two other excellent Second Wind thrillers, False World by JJ Dare and Daughter Am I by Pat Bertram. Below you read all about the myriad of ways to win a free copy of each of these books. Why would an independent publisher just give away books? Because we’re that confident you will be back for more.

For our book, it is at the stage where people are getting through it and I’ve gotten some very kind emails and personal comments calling it “very engrossing” and a “page turner”. Yes, I know people who speak like book reviewers apparently. Jennifer and I just did our third interview this month. The train is rolling down the tracks.

And yet in the middle of this momentum I am hopping off the train and catching a plane to China. We got our travel dates and consulate appointments to complete the adoption of our second daughter. Exciting news but it is hard to leave my new “baby” back here in the states all alone. Oh, we’re taking our first daughter – I’m talking about the book.

Good thing I have a co-parent across the country ready and able to care for the little one while I’m gone for three weeks. Jennifer will have to hold down the fort and keep the hype building on the book.

Once I’m back though – look out 2010! One Too Many Blows To The Head is only going to get bigger.

Here’s how to win free books:

I am having a Free ebook giveaway of the latest thrillers! Tell us an experience based on one of the new releases, and you might win that ebook. Click here for information.

J.B. Kohl invites you to “Tell Me About it. Maybe I’ll Give You A Book.” Write a 500 word short story about a flawed character. Click here for information.

JJ Dare is sponsoring a “False World” Story contest. All you have to come up with is 50 words. Click here for information.

If writing isn’t your thing, Pat Bertram is having a Treasure Hunt! Click here for information.

Writers Write

In her Introduction to Bird by Bird, Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott writes that seeing oneself in print “provides some sort of primal verification: you are in print; therefore you exist.” How nice to know I’m not the only writer seeking verification.

I’ve learned, over the past few years, to enjoy more the process of writing, even if I still look for “verification” or approval for my work. Part of the creative process is validation for one’s work―even God seeks approval of his creation. If a publisher offers to publish me, they are saying they see merit in my work, even it that merit, from their perspective, is monetary.

If a writer wins an award for his or her work, he or she is receiving approval―not so different than a ballplayer who receives a standing ovation from the home crowd for hitting a walk-off homerun. More than one ballplayer has said they’d play for nothing for the chance to stand in Yankee Stadium, baseball’s biggest stage. If a ballplayer doesn’t aspire to the major leagues, he will settle for the minors or find another career. If a writer doesn’t write for publication, chances are they will never see their work in print, or they will settle for self-publication.

When I finished Backstop: A Baseball Love Story in Nine Innings, I embarked on a journey to find a home for it. When I commenced this project in June 2007, I never considered that I’d have a third draft of a 75,000 word novel in eight months. But here I am, 20 months later, looking forward to launching this new work (my best to date) with Second Wind Publishing, even as I continue laying down words for my current novel―perhaps my most ambitious to date. I’m enjoying the creative process of this new endeavor―but I never forgot Backstop. He agreed to tell me his story only after I promised him I’d do my best to see his story in print. So I continued to submit, even continued to revise from time to time the result of feedback I’d gotten from a variety of sources.

Writers fall into two categories: artists and mercenaries. The latter write with the idea of profit, and indeed, the publishing industry (yes, it’s a serious business, but so is baseball when you look at the bottom line―and fiction, like sports, is but entertainment) seems to reward the mundane formulaic while eschewing literary art.

Science fiction writer Piers Anthony won’t start a project unless it has first been sold by proposal (he can afford to―most publishers and agents won’t accept a proposal from an unknown; they usually require a completed manuscript). Romance writers know their formula and write as if by rote.

Writing magazines abound and tomes have been written to help writers achieve publication; most advise “know your audience.” In other words, identify a market and write to it. But what about those of us who read a novel to learn something of the author, not just to learn what he knows about us as part of a demographic?

And what of the art of writing?

Former major leaguer and sports journalist Red Smith once said, “Writing is easy. I just open a vein and bleed.” In If You Want to Write, Brenda Ueland writes of author authenticity: the type of book that rarely graces the bookshelves of bookstores today because the writer listens to the experts, and so they’re put off, defeated before they even start, by the fear that no one will publish it. How dismal the literary world would be today had Tolstoy considered that his audience might be put off by all those Russian names.

My own work has been lauded by more than one critic for having a distinctive voice as well as for richness of language. It has also been turned down by more than one publisher and agent for those very same reasons. Still, I wish to hold onto that “voice.” I will never write formula just to see my name in print. I don’t write for an audience; I write with the hope an audience may find me. I may never be a best seller or receive great acclaim; I may never win a Pulitzer or a Nebula, or any other award, but I take great pleasure in Second Wind’s recognition of my work, enjoying (as Anne Lamott writes) the primal verification, or approval.

What I am (DNA) never changes. Who I am (a writer) never stops changing. Therefore, at the end of my life I want to look back at my body of work and recognize who I was at individual moments in my life. To write any other way would be to write merely for publication, which in a sense is, I suppose, approval of a different kind. Call me maudlin, but that’s not who I am.

―J. Conrad Guest, author of Backstop: A Baseball Love Story In Nine Innings

New Releases From Second Wind Publishing. Let’s Party!

SecondWind Publishing is pleased to announce the release of three new thrillers: One Too Many Blows To The Head, by J.B. Kohl and Eric Beetner, False World by JJ Dare, and Daughter Am I by Pat Bertram.

What is more exciting than three new releases from Second Wind Publishing, LLC? Four new contests!

Eric Beetner is having a Free ebook giveaway of the latest thrillers! Tell us an experience based on one of the new releases, and you might win that ebook. Click here for information.

J.B. Kohl invites you to “Tell Me About it. Maybe I’ll Give You A Book.” Write a 500 word short story about a flawed character. Click here for information.

JJ Dare is sponsoring a “False World” Story contest. All you have to come up with is 50 words. Click here for information.

If writing isn’t your thing, Pat Bertram is having a Treasure Hunt! Click here for information.

What is more exciting than four new contests or three new releases? Two great games to play! Click on the photo to find the game.

And what is more exciting than four new contests, three new releases, two great games to play? One free download! Click here to get a free download of the Second Wind Publishing Mystery Sampler ebook.

If you prefer to read online, click on one of the covers above to read the first chapter of the novel.