What if you’re driving along an isolated, forested road and discovered a body?
What if that victim was injured, still alive? What if the man wasn’t even human?
Thus begins storyteller Laura J. Kaighn's epic science fiction series centered about an unlikely pair of characters: one a human woman from 1999, the other a Vesar warrior from 2105 AD. This is their journey - through time and space, across alien worlds and despite the prejudices their many differences pose...
The G.A.V. Pompeii, a jack-of-all-trades spaceship, serves the Galactic Alliance –a community of three races: humans, Tloni and Vesar. In this first installment to the Vesar Warrior Legacy, the Pompeii’s crew must stop the Orthops from changing history, even if it means single-handedly traveling to the alien race’s homeworld. Their mission: to prevent the giant insects from constructing and using another time machine.
After Vesarius is accidently thrust back in time to Earth of 1999, the Vesar warrior meets a school teacher who rescues Vesarius and helps him return to his universe of 2105. But when Dorinda is subsequently trapped in that future, the pair’s adventures together truly begin. Join Vesarius and Dorinda as they travel into galactic turmoil!
Laura J. Kaighn, of Lady Hawke Storytelling, has been writing and sharing her stories since childhood. Her favorites deal with nature, both human and wild! Combining her loves of science, animals, astronomy and her own American Indian heritage, Laura naturally found herself writing her first science fiction novel back in 1991. Little did she realize, at the time, those efforts would lead to a complete series of ten volumes!
The Vesar Warrior Legacy is the result of Laura’s dedication to story, character and conflict. May Vesarius’ and Dorinda’s journey, dreams and desires make a positive impact in our world today...
On April 16th, check out the official book launch party at the Book Asylum Bookstore and Café in Blackwood NJ, from 1-3pm. Along with an open reading and book sale, there will be prizes for science fiction fans. Laura will test your knowledge in a fun quiz. On April 23rd, there’s the 2016 West Deptford Township Book Festival at the Riverwinds Community Center in West Deptford NJ, from 10am- 4pm. For Laura's summer storytelling program, check out here website here.
Warrior Heart: Book One of the Vesar Warrior Legacy is now available through Amazon and B&N.com! Keep an eye out for Warrior Spirit, Warrior Trial, and Warrior Fury, books two through four of the Vesar Warrior Legacy, coming soon!
It never ceases to amaze me how a song can lead to a story idea. But, it’s not every song, just the ones that resonate with me in some emotional way. Sometimes, this has led to idea overload when I’m forced to avoid listening to these sources of inspiration until my imagination slows down.
My first novel, A Beautiful Girl, was inspired by The Story of Beauty by Destiny’s Child. Every time I listened to that song, I thought that someone ought to write a story based on its words. I didn’t realize I’d be the one writing that story many years later and finish the first draft in two months. This book of hope has touched the lives of the many people who have read it so far and continues to do so.
The birth of Love’s Intensity was a bit different. Soon after my father’s death, I began listening to Latino music. The story didn’t form until I saw yet another version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. (Can there be too many? I don’t think that’s possible, but it better be well done.) Is it any wonder there’s salsa, family drama, and sword fighting in this story? Oh, and don’t forget about forbidden love.
By the time the idea for Billiard Buddies came along, I’d discovered Colbie Caillat and couldn’t get enough of her Coco album. Combine that with an appreciation for Billiards and strong female characters, out came a delightful story worthy of a cup of your favorite hot beverage and a comfy sofa.
If It Kills Me, a story currently in contract, barely preceded Billiard Buddies with the discovery of Lucky, sung by Colbie Caillat as a guest on Jason Mraz’s We Sing album. When I heard Jason’s song If It Kills Me, I was hooked after only the first listen and the plot fell into place.
Another bonus is that I find it easier to edit a story if I replay the song that inspired its birth. Scenes fly onto the page on the wings of sound. I’m merely writing what’s dictated to me by the characters acting out their lives in my mind. Music not only inspires me to write, it’s the lifeblood of the stories I share with the world.
What song will inspire my next story?
About today's guest-blogger:
Cassandra Ulrich was born on the beautiful island of St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands, located east of Puerto Rico. Living in the tropics fueled her imagination and daydreams. For years, she wrote poetry and entered competitions. However, only many years later did she discover joy in writing stories longer than a few pages.
She published her first young adult novel, A Beautiful Girl, in April 2011. The inspirational novel has already touched many hearts ranging from teens to adults. Her second novel, Love’s Intensity, is a teen paranormal romance and was released on July 11, 2013. Her third, Billiard Buddies, a New Adult romance novella, was released on May 24, 2014. In June and August 2014, she also released two poetry books, “Real Purpose: You Are Special” and “Life Experienced,” written while in high school and college.
The South Jersey Writers' Group will be holding a free open house Thursday, April 21st at 7 PM, at the Barrington, NJ VFW Hall, 109 Shreve Avenue. Light refreshments will be served.
"This is a great opportunity for writers, and those interested in writing from beginners to advanced levels, to meet and chat with our members," said SJWG President Krista Magrowski. "Additionally, several of our members who are published authors will discuss their journeys from idea to publication and what belonging to the writers’ group means to them. If you’ve ever written anything, or thought about writing anything, this group can help you hone your craft. We look forward to meeting interested wordsmiths from the South Jersey area."
Founded in 2006, the South Jersey Writers' Group has grown to more than one hundred members. A supportive community of local writers in all genres, members come from a variety of backgrounds and levels of experience. The group offers monthly meetings with professional speakers, critique groups, open-mic events, write-ins, blogfests, workshops, retreats, and more.
Readers are on Facebook. Build relationships with them for lasting online benefits. Ask questions and have them share answers to pull engagement to your site. On average it takes ten impressions from people who like, have heard about or bought your book, to make a sale. Word-of-mouth through social media and other sources is most valuable to prompt interest and keep it going. Too bad we can’t really control it.
Experiment only with small amounts of money. Paying to boost Facebook posts for advertising your book isn’t too beneficial. E-commerce is. Remember, Facebook controls your author page. If you do boost your posts, don’t do it to an existing one. Create a new post and make sure it’s a good one. Kelly is experimenting with targeting her audience for specific posts, narrowing her audience to get the most for her money. She’s still not sure if this works on Facebook.
Facebook ads for authors are good for branding but are a long term investment, and creating them can be difficult. Try different visuals for promoting your book, and make sure they’re sized correctly on the page or ad. Faces tend to be very eye-catching. Some graphic design sites are free, like Canva. Blurbs, reviews and endorsements are great as headliners with your book cover. Compare your book with similar authors. Ex. “If you liked…, you’ll like my book.” A ‘Buy’ button on Facebook’s ad manager isn’t as desirable as the ‘Learn More’ button. A ‘Learn More’ button gets interaction from more people.
An audience member asked about other social media. Kelly uses Twitter for real life feed, but communicates with male friends more on LinkedIn. Instagram draws mostly a young audience and women. People use Instagram on their phone to view feed because it’s pictures with only some text. Facebook and Instagram rely on visuals, which draw more attention than text, so Facebook beats Twitter in its success to promote book sales.
Touching on website design, Kelly suggests thinking visually and owning your pictures to build a website that’s unique to you. Wix and Weebly are simplistic programs for designing visuals. Squarespace is a bit harder to use. Camera+ is for smart phones. GIMP and Freeware are like Photoshop. Photoshop Elements and PicMonkey are two other options. Unsplash and iStockphoto are downloadable picture options, but taking your own pictures is best. For further help with web design check out blogs like: Amy Porterfield and Sarah Von Bargen.
Kathryn Craft shared in discussing dialogue. It should do multiple things. Go beyond suggesting context by adding subtext that shows the emotional reality of the character. Everything has context and subtext and feeds into the conversation. Janice Gable Bashman said, “Listen to what’s not being said.” Scenes and the sequels between them are now done at the same time. Use dialogue to continue the story and layer it with action. The situation comedy "Frazier" is an example of great dialogue. The two brother characters are very alike, yet their dialogue uniquely distinguishes each.
Dialect can be done in different ways. Janice handled this in her book by simply referring to a character’s accent. Some authors start with dialect and then continue the story without it. Keith Strunk said pacing and cadence of dialogue allows readers to pick up a character’s accent.
Kelly’s tricks to learn good dialogue:
1. Listen to award winning radio commercials
2. Watch Aaron Sorkin shows
3. Read screenplays
4. Write down what you hear from people
As the meeting broke up, Keith videotaped volunteers for the Liars Club Coffeehouse Video. We gave our names and explained why we write. Keith’s prompts calmed my nerves before I spoke. He let me view and listen to myself for assurance that I wasn’t too bad. I left the meeting happy about myself, writing and other writers. Sadly, the Coffeehouse won’t meet in March.
There is so much talent in the South Jersey Writers Group, and as we've mentioned in the past, so many bloggers. And many of these bloggers produce content on a fairly frequent basis, so we thought it would be a cool idea to highlight some of each month's more intriguing and interesting blog posts and present them here.
Please give a click and a read, and we hope you will like the samples enough to become regular readers. Check them out!
Dawn Byrne recollected a story about her green 1970 Chevy Nova in her post “Not So New Nova.” Spoiler alert: It wasn’t so reliable.
Joanne Costantino’s maintained the same group of girlfriends for over forty years, which is beautiful and impressive. There’s nothing like a day away from the family laughing with the girlfriends to recharge one’s batteries. She tells the story in her post, “Happenstance and God Giggles.”
Jennifer M. Eaton keeps very active over at her blog writing advice to help fellow writers learn from her mistakes, as well as reviewing books. Particularly helpful, considering she is quite accomplished despite having a full time job and a family, is her post answering the question: “How the heck do you write all this stuff?”
We hope you liked this month's selections from SJWG member blogs, and will not only read more at their respective sites, but also come back here next month for more. Don't forget to 'Like' the South Jersey Writers at Facebook, 'Follow' us at Twitter, and check us out on Pinterest. Thank you!
Jonathan began with information on the Writers Coffeehouses. There are nine active ones and more are popping up in the US, and other countries. It started with this group that now meets in Willow Grove. When thanked for starting the Coffeehouse, Jonathan reminded us that the Liars Club started the Coffeehouse, and that he is just a part of the Club. He shares hosting duties with the Coffeehouse in San Diego, where he now lives. “Community matters to writers,” he said, after exchanging familiar and sincere greetings with us. His fondness for our group showed in his face and words.
Questions for Jonathan matched the subject of how to get the word out about your book once it’s published: Blogging in your genre can be the grass roots in promoting your work. Subscribe to other blogs who read yours to making connections with potential readers. Goodreads and LinkedIn are a must. Reach out to writer conferences that do your subject and genre; you’ll meet people who can be helpful. Your writer’s platform on social media and how it’s maintained brings awareness of your book to audiences. Synching up your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts makes posting content easier. Starting a conversation is vital for your audience to make a connection with you. “The author is the brand,” said Jonathan. But don’t promise things that cost you a lot. If people are interested in you, they are more likely to buy your book.
Jonathan suggested multi-platform to promote anthologies. They don’t sell well, but anthologies can engage readers and get audiences interested in you and your other work.
Interviewers don’t always read your book, so give them a cheat sheet of questions to ask ahead of time. Making it easy for them, can make you popular to work with. Give one or two takeaways, that aren’t your plot, to make a memorable engagement with potential readers.
To learn how to do a podcast or book trailer, watch and listen to them. Trailers should be one-minute long, with strong production. After Jonathan had to end his Skype visit, Keith took advantage of the computer to show Kerry Gans’ trailer for her book, “The Witch of Zal.” Keith and Kerry had both worked on it. Donna is also a resource for making a trailer. Check out the one for her book, “Joshua and the Lightning Road.”
Two terms new to me: LookBook, where actors are put into your characters’ roles; and sizzle reel, which requires voiceovers and is expensive because so much goes into it. But the most interesting take away for me, was Jonathan’s advice to read out loud your edited, polished work. Listen to the polished voice of it. Study it, analyses it and contrast it with your original draft. This can help with your next work.
As always, Jonathan shared information on the current markets and trends: Graphic novels, the original ones that don’t feature superheroes, targeting girls are much in demand; pitch yours like a regular novel. Cross genre works are still hot. “I’m seeing a bit of a decline in memoir,” said Jonathan. But real life fiction is huge. Horror is starting to build in mainstream audiences.
Don’t be too specific with your plot when agents ask for summaries of books not yet written. “Be interesting but vague,” said Jonathan. He also highlighted the importance of having an agent: “If it wasn’t for my agent, I wouldn’t be in California.”
March 7, agent Marie Lamba is doing a First Page Workshop and answering questions on a panel for the SCBWI in Eastern, PA.
May 20-22 is the Pennwriters Conference in Lancaster, PA. Jonathan and Kathryn will be keynote speakers and Donna will present workshops on craft and marketing.
Kelly Simmons took suggestions for next month’s Coffeehouse. She’ll be leading it, and selling her new book, “One More Day.” The trailer for it is cool.
Remember, no matter how many Sundays are in a month, the Coffeehouse always meets the last Sunday of each month from noon to 3 PM, unless a holiday gets in the way. It’s worth the trip over the bridge and through the city for us South Jerseyans. Three hours of shop talk and cohering with professional and upcoming writers is an exhilarating experience. And, my favorite, it’s FREE.
