I don't really believe in resolutions just because I never succeed at them.

My resolutions, much less time wasted playing games on my computer...yes, I do that.

I've deleted a blog I hang around that discusses personal problems. I find them sort of addictive to read at the same time I just shake my head and wonder why people are idiots. Or if maybe all the letters are written by either Fiction Writing 101 college students or thirteen-year-old girls.

Haven't been there in a week and I'm not going back.

And to say NO to sweets. After a badly bacchanalian Christmas season of over-eating, I'm done. I'm back to my usual sense. I promise.

No, none of these resolutions are writing related. But wasted time is time away from writing.

And being healthy is just a good idea.

I'm still writing my usual 1000 words a day.

(wow, I can't quite believe I just typed 2022!!! I remember when everyone was so worked up about 2000, that's closing in on a quarter century ago.) I suppose it means I'm closing in on old age. :(

I've tried to raise my daily writing number a few times. For example, last November...not two months ago, but a year and two months ago, I did NANO. I wrote 50,000 words in one month. Then I spent two weeks revising that fast flow of words.

So six weeks is about 45 days. That's 45,000 words. Not that much of an improvement over my usual speed and the plodding revisions were sad. I had to fix some things that were deeply wrong because my brain just didn't seem to have time to ponder what's next and I went in a few odd directions.

It was good in one way though. It helped me realize NANO didn't work for me. So...insert a sort of weak YAY here.

So resolutions. Did you make any? Have you EVER kept one? Tell me your resolutions. If you made them January 1st, you CAN'T have given up on them yet. 

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The Element of Love

Inventions of the Heart

 When you write a three book series, it's a little tricky to introduce the characters who will populate the series but keep the main romantic hero and heroine front and center, while developing the secondary characters with an eye toward setting them up for their own story.

So, Molly and Wyatt. They've very definitely played parts in the earlier books but Molly is mainly taking care of the house and cooking for everyone, for which she has a strong talent.

And Wyatt has mostly been working. While Cheyenne, his half-sister runs off in a temper in the first book, then chases after bad guys while falling in love in the second book, Wyatt has needed to keep the ranch running.

So what it amounts to is, Molly and Wyatt have been doing all the work.

Now it's their turn. I ended the last book with Wyatt getting shot. Now we start this book with him with a broken collarbone, mostly tied up to keep one arm from moving and Molly waiting on his hand and foot. Now it's everyone else's turn to do all Wyatt's work.

And Molly is getting tired of being doing everything.

And she's exhausted, and for a mild mannered woman, a very RESERVED woman, she's getting a little cranky.

There is still one day to pre-order on Baker Book House. On Sale and free shipping! Click to Buy

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Wyatt woke up to a woman in his bed.

            Very few things in his life had ever been stranger.

            She had her hand resting on his chest. Flat, right over his heart. Her head resting on his shoulder. Which wasn’t the shoulder that’d been shot. His arm was around her.

            She was on top of the covers and he was under, but it was still the strangest and most wonderful thing that’d ever happened to him.

            And he’d once watched a cow sniff a little cloud that rolled into a mountain valley, leading a horde of clouds that settled into fog.

            That fog rolling in, like little balls of fluff, that sniffing cow, that’d been the strangest and most wonderful thing…up until now.

            Molly. And boy oh boy, this was now number one and the sniffing cow wasn’t even a close second.

Molly What? What was her name? He’d hardly ever talked to her. Well, a few times. And she’d served him delicious food. She was a way better cook than Cheyenne and a fair sight better than Win. She’d patched some of his clothes, washed them, hung them on the line, he’d seen her doing it. She’d cleaned up after all of them, washed dishes. She’d kept this house running through a time of madness.

And now she was sleeping in his bed, in his arms, and it felt…right.

Most everyone around here was named Hunt. His mind rabbited around to Win marrying Kevin and then like a jolt of lightning, he remembered Cheyenne marrying Falcon. He leapt out of bed…except he didn’t.

            He tried. Realized he was all but tied up. Remembered why—his broken bone--and figured he was too late to stop the wedding anyway.

            So he just stayed where he was and watched Molly sleep. He’d done some wiggling when he’d tried to sit up and she’d slept through it so she must be exhausted. Poor thing.

            He realized that her name could be Hunt too, if he married up with her. And shouldn’t a man marry a woman he shared a bed with?

            Especially when he was so uncommonly pleased to wake up next to her.

            There were dark shadows under her eyes. His head was clear enough to remember being in and out of consciousness, fighting a blazing fever, a lot of it was blurred, but he knew whatever else was going on, whoever else was around, Molly had always been here.

            Marrying a woman he really didn’t know at all, just because he liked waking up next to her, struck him as a lunatic notion. But his life was one lunatic moment after another lately.

            Anyway, she didn’t like him much. So he set the idea aside.

Garner. Molly Garner.

            There, somehow knowing her name released him from any plans to change her name to Hunt by marrying up with her. He could remain single.

            Relief swept through him and that relief told him he’d made the right decision.

            Still, she was a pretty little thing.

Today tell me if you've ever wrote a series. How do you do it? Some series are just set in the same place but not largely populated by the same characters. If you don't write in series, why not? Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for a signed copy of Love on the Range.

AND ON SALE NOW! \

THE ACCIDENTAL GUARDIAN

BOOK #1 OF THE HIGH SIERRA SWEETHEARTS SERIES. 

ON KINDLE ONLY FOR $1.99. 

A Man with a Past Brothers in Arms, book #2

It was fun but I hope I did it alright. 

I've written one other character with amnesia and before long at all I just flat out gave her her memory back. It was just too HARD to remember to forget.

You don't really realize it until you start writing it, but a character spends a lot of time with internal thoughts. And in ways large and small those internal thoughts are concerned with who they are. How something is affecting them.

Sure sometimes they think things like, "When I was married to Betsy, I'd've never said such a thing." Or more mildly, "He'd decided to never marry again. Losing Betsy had hurt too much."

You can't do that with amnesia. No worrying because you were frightened by a barking dog as a child, nearly struck by lightning as a teenager, lost your parents in a flood as a young adult.

Nope, none of that, because YOU CAN'T REMEMBER ANY OF THAT HAPPENED.

You need to re-write, revised, regularly, specifically looking for oops moments when a character is acting as they normally do which includes, tiny moments of memory, the things that make a person who they are.

And that act of memory is so fundamental to writing...backstory...internal conflict...fears and joys and strengths and weaknesses. We are trained to write all of that into a character. Well forget it. My recommendation is frequent and very specific revisions looking for a character remembering or reacting based on a memory.

A bigger issue, how does having no memory affect your personality. ARE you afraid of dogs? ARE you afraid of lightning storms. Would you be? Seriously, how deep does a fear or phobia go? If you can't remember almost getting struck by lightning, then are you unafraid? I really couldn't quite decide. On this one, I just went with my own approach but I tried to be consistant about it.

Anyway, my hero Falcon Hunt isn't afraid of anything, so that doesn't apply. 

He was a fun character to write because he talks like a Tennessee hillbilly. I'd never done a book with that strange, unique accent before and I enjoyed it. 

An example of how Falcon talks from the opening of A Man with a Past:

When a man grows up in wild country, huntin’ food, eyes wide open for trouble, he knows when he’s being watched.

And that man there, back’a him weren’t out lookin’ for a place to have a Sunday picnic.

Falcon’d fought shy of a dozen towns and wanted no part of Independence, Missouri. Ceptin’ he didn’t know where in tarnation he was going and to his understanding this was his last chance to figure it out.

So he went ridin’ right smack into that beehive of a town on his old rawboned mule to find out how to get to Wyoming. And a man commenced to following.

To a lot of men, it might be right hard to spot a single man on these crowded streets full of shops and freight wagons. Everywhere he turned people swarmed.

But staying alive wasn’t easy in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee, where a man could find a way to die near every time he turned around. And yet here Falcon stood, as tall and rawboned as his mule, proving he was a tough, savvy man and he didn’t intent to trust to luck with that man on his tail.

He intended to trust to skill.

Falcon was fun to write. His main enduring skill is his utter trust in himself to take care of himself and anything else that cropped up. He had a skinning knife and his old single-shot rifle. And he has the wilderness. He can cloth and feed  himself and he isn't one speck worried about doing it.

Have you ever written an amnesiac? Have you ever wanted to? Have you ever tried and gotten so tired of the stumbling blocks you just give your character their memory back for your own sanity?

Today I'm giving away a signed copy of A Man with a Past. Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing.

A Man with a Past

Falcon Hunt awakens without a past, or at least not one he can recall. He's got brothers he can't remember, and he's interested in the prettiest woman in the area, Cheyenne. Only trouble is, a few flashes of memory make Falcon wonder if he's already married. He can't imagine abandoning a wife. But his pa did just that--twice. When Falcon claims his inheritance in the West, Cheyenne is cut out of the ranch she was raised on, leaving her bitter and angry. And then Falcon kisses her, adding confusion and attraction to the mix.

Soon it's clear someone is gunning for the Hunt brothers. When one of his brothers is shot, Falcon and Cheyenne set out to find who attacked him. They encounter rustled cattle, traitorous cowhands, a missing woman, and outlaws that take all their savvy to overcome. As love grows between these two independent people, Falcon must piece together his past if they're to have any chance at a future. 

AND A SALE!!

The Accidental Guardian is currently on sale in in Kindle for $1.99

Be careful when you click that the sale is still on. I noticed the NOOK book version has returned to full price so I suppose it's about over!

 I spent five days at a writer's retreat 

(Yes, I know how to spell writer!!!)

Next is Nebraska author (like me) Kathy Geary Anderson.

Cathy just had her first book release, The Trouble with Jenny, and it was so fun to talk about!

She's working on the next book already.

Our fifth writer was Iowa author Shari Barr. She left a day early and as you might predict, I didn't get my camera out until she was long gone. But she had fun writing and then off she went, something about a daughter getting married in the near future.

And we had a guest come by one day. Iowa author Erin Stevenson. 

Her latest book is Sisters Ever After, book #1 of a new series.

I wrote as many words as I could for five days, two of them mostly travel days, and got 13,000 words down. 

I finished one book and began another.

I took so many pictures! But I won't subject you to all of them.

There was a pioneer village with old buildings pulled in 

to surround the restored Fort Dodge.

This is the Blacksmith Forge.

Below it the Blacksmith Shop.

I have a whole lot of pictures of old iron tools. I wanted to make my next character a blacksmith but after studying this building, I maybe can't handle it! We'll see.

Next we walked along the stockade walls to enter Fort Dodge. I just love this kind of stuff. 

Below is a picture of the Land Office. Looking around restored pioneer villages helps me to remember all the possible stores in a town of this era. I tend to have a general store, a livery stable, a jail, a diner and a saloon. I'm trying to remember there are occasionally a few more things. This village had a veterinarian, a cabinet maker, a carriage maker, a drug store, a church, a school...I remember to add those always. It was a cool place.

And one more little thing...today is my mom's 93rd birthday. This is a picture from her 90th birthday party. Mom and all eight of her children. 

So we don't get to throw her much of a party. I'll be gone for a while this morning. But I'll be back.

We all agreed this last year has been so majorly WEIRD with Covid and everything shut down, that getting together for the writer's retreat (all of us vaccinated) was just purely uplifting.

We haven't done it enough.

And we're already talking about next time!

Leave a comment to get your name in a drawing for a

Keepin' Cowboys Cool Cooler to celebrate the new series.

Keepin' 

Cowboys 

Cool

Braced for Love

Ruthy here.

I can generally tell when someone has never driven, walked, stood in or experienced a real blizzard or lake squall (blizzard-like conditions over a specific area instead of a general storm) because they tell it wrong. Not just different... because what one fears, another one takes as a challenge, so the variants of character(s) are fine... but the storms themselves are uniquely similar. So are the effects. But how those effects affect an area can be so different based on terrain, setting, wind direction. And as a writer, as an American author, 50% of your readership could live in an area (like mine and Mary's) where snow is a reality for six or seven months/year. We can cite the October, 2018 blizzard that decimated farms and animals throughout the Midwest to April blizzards that keep people from Easter services and cover fertile fields with flood waters as the Mississippi basin drains 1/3 of the country. Those staggering numbers mean you need to get it right or lose readers. I remember a line from "A Town Like Alice"... "But he was an 'abo', and he was painting his place." 

The hero was explaining why the aboriginal man got the painting uniquely right. So how do you correctly write something you've rarely or never experienced? We've got some great ideas for you today so you Don't Mess It Up... 'cause if you do? They'll boo ya! (Derek Jeter to President Bush 9/2001)

Here are a couple of shows that show actual winter:

The Last American Cowboy (Season 1, Episode 1)

Heartland Docs (Season 1, Episode 2) 

Heartland Docs is also available from National Geographic on your Disney + app if you have that.

The harsh reality of a rugged snowstorm is life-threatening. It can also be funny. And poignant. Think of ALL the Hallmark movies you've watched where they get snowed in... roads blocked... gently falling snow. #notreal #Imserious #itsnotlikethat but... they generally have the BAD SNOW between the heroine and the airport, right???? :) That way bucolic innocence wins the day.

Here's a list of what to look for on videos and shows if you're inexperienced at writing winter storms. 

1. Snow: This might seem obvious, but a thick-falling, moisture-heavy 31-degree snow is heavy and piles up quickly, making travel dangerous without a major wind attached. Conversely a frigid cold, tiny flake 10 degree storm with a 40 mph wind, makes white-outs and blizzard conditions (creating "no" or very low visibility) an immediate danger. Even if your folks aren't going out into the storm (sensible people, right?) what they see out their window affects your reader and sets the scene.

2. Wind: Wind and snow have clogged interstates, mountain roads, village streets, shut down cities and wreak havoc whenever they walk hand-in-hand. In cities, the immediate problem is congestion. A heavy snow needs to be moved. Millions of people need to stay put. Tens of thousands of cars clog the roads. Power lines fall, people are cold, options severely limited. And little apartments don't have much room for a pantry, do they? 

     Conversely in rural circumstances if there isn't a stock of food, being cut off from civilization, no power, no internet, no phone, no nothin' is a dire straits situation. (Mary's historical excerpt gives you that imminent feeling of danger. She threw in a fire for good measure.) :)

3. Slush: No one talks about slush, but slush on the roads can throw a car into a ditch or reel it into a field like my Welcome to Wishing Bridge opening chapter...  Amazon lets you read the opening chapter here for free, and I'm not bragging when I say that this chapter kept an editor from going to the Manhattan fireworks show several years ago because in her words "I couldn't put it down..." The result was a bestselling book with over 600 reviews and a 4.6 rating... But it starts with a storm that brings the characters together... God and their history take care of the rest. 

5. Visibility: Snow isn't rain. Driving rainstorms thin your vision field and can be awful.... That's another blog, though. Heavy snow can obliterate all of your senses except touch. It can deaden hearing, blind vision, mask smells and there is nothing to taste in a snowstorm unless you bite your lip in fear, and then the metallic taste of your self-imposed wound becomes a reminder to stay calm... or as calm as you can.

Mary sent me a great excerpt from her wonderful book "A Reluctant Warrior", and between the fire and the snow and the fire's effect on the snow, it's a gripping scene. If you read the Wishing Bridge opening scene... and Mary's scene... and take the time to watch those two episode links (and you might have to buy the opening episode of "The Last American Cowboy". I bought the whole series so I can use it for reference writing Westerns and cowboys... it's been invaluable.) you'll have immersed yourself in the realities of snow and how a brilliant scene doesn't just draw a reader in... it leaves them longing for more. And maybe-- just maybe-- they'll skip the fireworks to read your book.

EXCERPT FROM THE RELUCTANT WARRIOR by Mary Connealy 

Ruthy asked me to write about snow. This scene (I’ve cut a few chunks out of a much longer scene) was one I brainstormed with a couple of my kids. I needed my characters in danger and had decided to have a villain burn their house down.

Except, shame on me, I decided that wasn’t enough.

I wanted to talk about how dangerous fire was and one of the kids (or several talking together) said yes, fire is dangerous but how much worse would it be in the bitter cold during a blizzard. And out of that came this scene. Heavy, powdery snow like they get on the ski slopes buried the house. Then comes the fire, digging yourself out through doors and windows that are buried deep.

And blazing fire melts the snow into ice and you’re soaked in ice water, surrounded by deep snow.

One of the things I loved about this was the fire that was trying to kill them, is now desperately needed to survive. And the snow that was freezing them, is now an insulator on the bunkhouse still standing that helps them warm the building and save them.

It’s all how a matter of degrees…in this case, blazing hot and brutally cold degrees.

Here the best of the snow and cold from the scene I wrote.

The Reluctant Warrior 

[Cam set his children] down, sick about leaving them in the bitter water and ice. But he had to get everyone else out. He had to. These four out here were soaked now. Him, too. Cold, with wet clothes was as deadly as fire, though a slower way to die.

>>>>

Fire danced up the back of Slim’s coat. Cam juggled Gwen to free a hand and rip the coat off the youngster. Cam slammed the coat on the ground to extinguish it. Then he caught Slim by the arm, still hanging onto Gwen, and dragged them all forward. He collapsed in the ice water, now sooty and blackened. 

There was sudden shouting and hands pounded on him. Someone screamed. In the yelling, he heard, “Your hair’s on fire!”

Gwen was gone from him. Cam was pushed face first into the icy slush, then rolled onto his back. Through the daze, Cam swatted at the attack. Hadn’t he been hurt enough?

All the grappling hands turned him onto his front and his own coat was torn away. Trace grabbed snow in both hands and plowed it into the back of Cam’s head.

Then he was back on his feet, shivering violently, even with the blazing cabin at his back. He was soaked front and back in ice water. A stiff breeze froze his fingers and face, the rest of his body chilled with shocking speed.

And he looked at the whirlwind of hurt and scared people. In all the action, Penny and Gwen lay motionless. Then Penny coughed. It was deep and sounded painful but it was a sign of life.

Trace hauled Cam to his feet. “Your hair, your coat, most of your back was on fire.”

Cam’s blue army coat was shoved back in his hands and he pulled it on, even though it was as wet and cold as he was.

He realized no one from the cabin had a coat.

The men from the bunk house had grabbed coats. Everyone on Trace’s ranch slept fully clothed and kept their boots on to battle the cold. But the men in the bunkhouse had grabbed their coats. No one from the cabin was given a chance.

“We have to get the children warm.” Adam turned toward the bunkhouse, then turned back. “We put the fire out in there.” 

Cam’s eyes went to Maddy Sue (his daughter) shivering. Water dripped from her clothes. Ronnie was soaking wet. Maddy Sue wrapped her arms around her little three-year-old body, shaking, crying. Cam met Slim’s eyes, judged the boy to be fully alert, picked up Gwen and handed her over. 

“Get her inside. She hasn’t shown any sign of waking up, not even coughing.” She was alive though. He felt her breathing. He felt her warm in his arms.

Ruthy here: Connealy did a brilliant job of showing how nature and elements TRY TO KILL US!!!! But if we keep our wits about us, and react (very physics friendly, we need an "equal and opposite" reaction to be able to save ourselves!!!) in the best ways, we can live. Or people die and we have heart-gripping backstory that haunts  heroes and heroines for years to come.

Either way works... and if you tell it right, it's a scene your readers will never forget.

I know you can do this. I know it takes work and word choice and scene speed, and all those little things that separate the men from the boys... but I have faith in you. Do your research. Write, write and rewrite... Make 'em feel every step of the way. I trust you.

You've got this.

We've got a couple of books to give away today... but you've got to tell us you want them! The book will most likely include a winter storm! :) Leave a comment about winter below... and we'll be checking in throughout the day. Ruthy has two kids all day today (remote learning) and a 9:00 meeting, but she'll mosey over here... And Mary will check in off-and-on, too... And thanks for stopping by Seekerville. You and your success mean so much to us! 

Mary is tossing a copy of The Reluctant Warrior and Ruthy is giving away a copy of Wishing Bridge... a total score for two wonderful people! If you already have one or both, tell us.... You know we'll take care of you!

Mary and Ruthy have been friends for about 18 years now, maybe more, once Mary forgave Ruthy for giving her a Bad Score in a writing contest.... and then they came face-to-face and Ruthy had to admit it, and cry and whine and beg forgiveness (okay, you know that never happened, Ruthy succinctly told Mary why she tried to ruin Mary's career before it even got launched, and she takes full responsibility and credit for Mary's amazing success.) Yep. That seems more likely. 

Ruthy's website here....

Friend and annoy them on Facebook and they do love it when folks buy their books. Links for The Reluctant Warrior and Welcome to Wishing Bridge are below: (in case you missed them as you skimmed, darlings!) 

BUY THE RELUCTANT WARRIOR HERE

BUY WELCOME TO WISHING BRIDGE HERE

 I  didn't want to say formatting for dummy's because that might hurt YOUR feelings.

Me? I'm kinda used to it.

So I had a novella come out of a collection, it'd been published for a couple of years. I thought, HEY I should put it back up. Might as well keep  it in print, right?

But I also feel a little guilty doing that, because it's been out a while and I don't like to trick people into buying a book they've already read. 

I also don't expect it to make much money. So....I'm sorry...I guess. But I just did it ALL myself. I MEAN ALL. I edited it. Created the cover and (here's the tricky part) formatting.

So, I don't know. Maybe I'm a jerk. Probably. But I just did it.

I found a YouTube video on formatting. I'll show you the link rather then try and explain it. It was very specific, very step-by-step.

You know...it seems to have worked. I'm going to give away a few copies of it today and if anyone gets it and reads it, I'd appreciate a report of any errors in the kindle book. I did NOT create a print book because it's a single novella and they are so SMALL. Maybe someday if I collect a few more novellas I'll put them together and create a print version. But I don't know how to format that, so I'm scared!

I followed the link to the video I used. It has a whole lot of VERY SPECIAL steps and I advise you to follow them exactly. 

HOW TO FORMAT A BOOK IN WORD

Leave a comment to get your name in a drawing for an ebook copy of Dr. Tess and the Cowboy

AND NOW

DR. TESS AND THE COWBOY

An archeologist discovers dinosaur bones and wants to preserve an important site. Her dream come true may destroy his ranch. Or it may lead them to true love.

http://www.maryconnealy.com 

So, I did Nano.

The month of November has been declared National Novel Writing Month. Sometimes called Nanowrimo…sometimes called Nano.

I have never done Nano before. I have many years done what I call Shadow Nano…where I try to up my own production in November in harmony with Nano. But this year, for whatever reason, I signed up.

I know people like form groups, egg each other on…but Mary the Troubled Loner did not do this.

Maybe next year.

But I did have a very productive month. The first week I was really steaming along. Maybe…12,000 words the first week. And I’m jazzed. 12,000 a month, that’s 48,000 with a goal of 50K and the two extra days November gives (four weeks is, after all, only 28 days!) I was going to make it.

But then, like some kind of gravitational pull, I dropped back to my usual 1000 words a day.

In the end I wrote 37,924 words in November. That’s pretty good. I write 1000 words a day but I miss days. I always take a few days off and I don’t regret that. It’s a baked into my goal. But for Nano, I didn’t miss a single day in November. I wrote 30 days in a row.

So that alone made Nano worth it. I’m working on a 75,000 word book and I had a few thousand words written before Nano started so that book is currently at 43,461. I need 30k to finish and hopefully I’ll be done with the book around January 1^st. It’s Due February 1^st.

So everything is good!

Was Nano worth it? Should Mary the Troubled Loner have joined with others?

Have you ever done it? Does anyone here have Nano experience?

Is there a way to get more out of it?

I think I’ll do it again. It was relatively painless. And I did write more than usual…a bit.

So share your experience, or your curiosity.

Leave a comment to get your name in the drawing for a Mary Connealy book of your choice…from those I have on hand. I may choose multiple winners, cuz I’m in a giving mood.

Whoever I draw can consult with me.

And a second winner gets a $20.20 Amazon Gift Card.