Author Archives: lynnkerstan

Collaborating Without Getting Shot, Part 1 (Alicia Rasley)

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Alicia Rasley

 

Thanks to Lynn Kerstan for inviting me to guest blog here today and tomorrow! I decided to tell you all the dirt I have on her—No! I forgot. I’m supposed to tell you about our history of collaboration in fiction-writing. We’ve written two books together (one won a RITA award), and are embarking on some new linked novellas.

Lynn and I first “met” online, when we were both on the GEnie network (one of those Internet roundtables in the dark ages before the Web, when we had to get online through the phone at 24 baud a second, using only flints to light our candles). We were both writing Regencies, and the Romex roundtable on GEnie was rife with Regency writers discussing the important issues. (Example: Did men really sign dancecards to claim a dance at a ball?)

Lynn and I are remarkably similar while being almost complete opposites. I mean, she’s had this exciting life—travel, cruises, high-stakes bridge (ask her about her time with Omar Sharif), gambling, hot cars, hotter men… and here I am with my boring little Midwestern life. (But actually, I like boring. I am not good with change, something that should make my husband grateful.) However, in intriguing ways, we’re a lot alike. We both grew up Catholic and went to parochial school, though she went to a posh one high above San Diego Harbor, while my school was in a ramshackle house in Boston and had to close after my family (eight children) moved to Virginia and took half the students away.

We both studied literature in grad school, though she was a Shakespearian (this gets important later :) , and I studied American lit.  We had a similar tendency to plunge drastically into love with certain writers and books (Dorothy Dunnett got passed back and forth between us). We both wrote Regencies, but mine were all about the relationships and the slang, while she liked to take her characters on rollicking adventures. And while I always loved my heroes and treated them gently, Lynn liked to shoot them at least once every book.

Poetic Justice, starring a Librarian and an Adventurer

We didn’t have much contact online until I mentioned that I wanted to write a book where the hero (John, a secondary character from Royal Renegade) found some rare book and love too. (Hey, my heroes have adventures too! They can find books!) Lynn, who had actually handled Shakespeare Folios when she worked at the Folger Library, mentioned in an email that I might want to look into the playscript of Sir Thomas More, part of which was purportedly written in Shakespeare’s own hand. Whoa! That sent me off into the rabid swamps of Shakespearian denialists, who think someone else (usually Francis Bacon) wrote the plays.  Within a few days, her wise counsel had led to a real plot, in which John really does have an adventure allying with Jessica to save this manuscript from the destruction planned by an evil “Baconist” librarian.

So I owe that book to Lynn! It is, by the way, Poetic Justice, and it’s available now on Kindle. Really. Lynn inspiration. Shakespeare denial. Evil librarian. Aren’t you scared?

Lynn and Alicia on an ice floe (aka our writing careers)

In Praise of Second Chances (Kathleen Eagle)

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NYTimes Bestselling Author Kathleen Eagle

My youngest grandchild turned 8 this weekend, and what did she want for her birthday? A Kindle Fire. This is a child who reads waaay better than I did at her age, loves books, loves to write, loves school—all the stuff that warms Nana’s heart and gives her hope for the future of the planet. But won’t that touch screen spoil her little fingers? Will she soon turn her pretty nose up at paper pages? Will the Kindle be the Buzz Lightyear to her once beloved paper Woody?

I hope so. If you know your Pixar lore, Buzz and Woody eventually play well together, and I’ve come to believe that e-readers and books will, too, at least for the foreseeable (read Nana’s lifetime) future. And that includes my stories. The technology I’ve been diligently avoiding in recent years is stepping up to give some of my best stories new life in a new format. Within the last few years I’ve been able to reclaim the rights to seven books, and I’ve been sitting on those rights, trying to decide how to get those books back into print. They’ve never been available in audio or digital format, both of which spell new life.

First up, THE LAST GOOD MAN, which should be available in March. He’s one of the gentlest cowboys you’ll ever meet. She’s a woman who thought her physical beauty was all she had going for her–before her mastectomy. You can read an excerpt on my web site. This is a book that received lots of honors. It’s the only romance ever nominated for the Minnesota Book Award. It was named one of the 5 Best Romances of the Year (2000) by Library Journal. I’m thrilled to see this book get its second chance. And just look at the gorgeous new cover Bell created for it!

That Kindle of my granddaughter’s has only been in the house for two days, and already it’s lighting my fire. I’m going to break down and get myself one. I think they’re here to stay, and I’m ready to say it’s all good. The written word—like rock-n-roll—will never die. That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

 

Award-winning Western Romance Novel

The Ghost’s Debut (Lynn Kerstan)

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Reappearing soon, wherever eBooks are sold.

Just wanted you all to see, hot off the press, the new cover for the reissue of our RITA-winning Regency Romance novel.

This time we get to use our own title, our own choice of images, our own designer (the wondrous Tara at FantasiaFrogDesigns), and be masters of our own fate.

I love writing historical novels–they never go out of date–but I’m so very happy to be living in the modern era where writers can be publishers, if they so choose. Alicia and I also write for an excellent publisher, so we have the best of both worlds.

Now I have to clean, do laundry, pay bills in advance, do everything that can’t wait until I return from Spain and Portugal, get a haircut, and (Yike!) cram everything I’ll need for three weeks in uncertain weather into a small suitcase and a backpack.

If you want to receive an occasional tweet from me and Lonzo the Leopard (cat perspective is always important!) during the trip, follow @RegencyTwisters and/or @LynnKerstan.

Adiós por ahora, mis amigos, y todos los buenos deseos!

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Throes (Lynn Kerstan)

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Chaos Central.

This is not my workplace. My own workplace is pathetically cluttered, and I am indeed surrounded by piles of papers and books. Chances of finding anything I’m looking for are not good. But somehow I must wrestle order into all the partially done projects and chaotic clusters scattered around in my apartment . . . by next Friday.

I must also wrangle order into my brain, which makes the clutter in the picture look like an amateur. So much to do, so little time, and I’m too excited to focus on any one task. Today I spent an hour looking for my thermal underwear (not needed here in temperate Coronado CA) because Pat (probably in the same crazed prep phase as I am) told me Spain was cold.

Even this post is disorganized, and it’s the last one from me until I return from my trip. Happily, you will be blessed by excellent blogs by excellent writers while I’m gone. The wondrous Kathleen Eagle will be here next week, and my frequent partner in crime, writing, and traveling–Alicia Rasley–will follow with her own version of how we got together and continue to occasionally work together as collaborators. If she wasn’t so funny and wasn’t telling it like it was and is, I might be miffed. Instead, I laughed my head off (Ha! So that’s where my brain went!) reading her account.

Really, one Can-Opener is as good as another. But I'll make a fuss when Lynn comes back, just to remind her who really matters in the place. Namely me.

Meantime, Thea the Wondrous will tend to Monsieur le Comte, who will doubtless miss me for a nanosecond.

While I’m gone, I’ll be taking a lot of pictures and researching my next novella in the Drewe Sisters series. There was one sister, Yvette, who didn’t get her love story told in our first round. What to do? Alicia and I collaborating on one novella? Or draw straws to determine which of us would write it?

And then, miraculously, I discovered an all-new sister that none of the other sisters knew about. And lo, she happens to be living in Spain. What a coincidence! Her name is Lucinda, and presently, she’s a flamenco dancer. The man who wins her heart is a career soldier who made a brief appearance in Alicia’s novella, “Allegra’s Song.” We often wind up writing about characters from each other’s stories. They all lived about the same time, after all, and the military men usually happened to join the 52nd Regiment. It’s our own little world within the larger world of Regency England, where many of our characters wind up interacting with one another in our books. Fact is, they are so real to us that we cannot bear to let them go.

Sorry. Mindless rambling here. Mostly I wanted to say that I’m really excited about my trip with Pat Potter, seeing two countries I’ve never visited, and having the opportunity to combine my three favorite things in the world (not counting  my good friends and my cat): travel, inventing interesting people, and making up stories about them.

See you all in late March, with pictures and travel tales galore. If you’re on twitter, follow us at #RegencyTwisters (me and Alicia). If I can learn how to use my new Ipod Touch, I’ll be tweeting from Spain and Portugal. But don’t hold your breath!

Adios, Amigos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tech Wizard (Lymond de Sevigny)

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Refuge from the Storm

As I enter my mature years, only two things propel me to the top of the cat tree. One is my sworn enemy, the vacuum cleaner. The other is the Can-Opener, when she is attempting (and usually failing) to do something with a mechanical object. Most particularly the computer. Whenever she attempts something new and inevitably screws it up, her language demonstrates that she is the daughter of  career navy man. Oh, my delicate ears.

Truly, she has missed her calling. If tech inventors and purveyors test their manuals and ‘Help’ files on her, they would discover every possible way a customer can misinterpret a simple instruction.

Fortunately, the C-O has friends. Long-suffering friends, most particularly Alicia Rasley, who spend much valuable time sorting out the CO’s messes and salvaging her projects. And my sanity. Their names should be inscribed on the rolls of saints and martyrs.

The two empty spaces are reserved for Yvette and Lucinda, whose stories will be told at a future date.

It was Alicia, her co-author on several excellent (or so I’m told) stories, who guided her through the process of making those stories available to readers machines called Kindle and Nook and Kobo and also on computers. Much of this process took place when the C-O ought to have been writing her Friday blog. And now she has bribed me to cover her patootie in that regard. Instead of napping, I am earning my bits of leftover salmon.

I’ve only had time to skim this book, but one brief portion captured my attention and approval. It appears at the top of the C-O’s story:

Dedication

To Thea Gurns and John Blocker

Great friends and wonderful neighbors.

It is Thea who will see to my well-being while the C-O is gallivanting  around Spain and Portugal, doing research for Lucinda’s story and for a new book, Dangerous Betrayals. I will credit the C-O with this much: she has excellent taste in friends.

‘Ears to Ya! (Lynn Kerstan)

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What's that white thing on the the Can Opener's head? It looks something like my food bowl.

Some of you may remember I was diagnosed with my third (!) kind of cancer nearly four months ago. Yesterday, I finally had the “procedure” to eliminate the basel cell carcinoma, a Big Scary Name for a non-spreading thingie located on the shell of my ear. It was about the size of a dime, the doctor said, located inside the curve of the ear right about where it merges into the lobe. The dermatologist who diagnosed it predicted I would be left with a “funny looking ear.” An appointment was made for something called Mohs surgery (named for Dr. Edward Mohs who invented it in 1938 when he was still a medical student. Wow!). It is still used today, mainly for treating skin cancer on the head and neck. Cure rates are 95-100%.

I expected the doctor would cut a big chunk away, but that didn’t happen. It was more of an excavation, with me comfortably laid back on a wonderful chair while the doctor dug away layer after layer until he though he’d gone past the cancer to healthy tissue. Didn’t hurt a bit, thanks to the shot. That hurt a lot, but briefly. Then I waited, still laid out, nothing to read or look at or listen to for nearly 45 minutes. I’d brought my Kindle, but I was instructed not to bring anything un-sterile into my space. Happily, I’m starting a new Drewe Sisters novella, so I did some pre-planning. A working writer can’t ever be really bored.

The pathology report indicated that the healthy layers had been reached. All that remained was my new headgear and instructions about home treatment.

 

I am, uncharacteristically, feeling some sympathy for the C-O.

Monsieur le Comte was, at first, more curious than sympathetic. The bowl (stuffed with gauze to absorb bleeding) is held to my ear by a head-circling strap fastened via Velcro. Really, Velcro is a truly great invention. I have to wear it constantly for 72 hours. No shower, no exposing it to air (which I did, to change the gauze). I have to sleep (ha!) nearly sitting up against a bank of pillows. I should continue to wear it a night for several weeks. Meantime,  I look like something dug up from a graveyard, but I feel okay. Well, some pain, low level but distracting and not conducive to sleep. Tonight I had to choose between painkillers and wine. Guess what I chose.(Pat Potter, you do not need to guess.)

As an Aristocat, I have long since mastered the art of Cat Comfort. Oddly, it comforts me as well.

A Whale (minnow) of a Tale (Lynn Kerstan)

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Yacht Harbor in Quivira Basin, San Diego

Intrepid (indolent) adventurer that I am, I decided to make one more try at actually seeing a whale on a whale-watching boat tour. Okay, receiving a juicy GroupOn discount was a factor (the deciding factor). Pat will remember that on a previous joint effort when she was here in San Diego, nary a whale was to be seen. But that was summer, and this is migration season for the Gray Whales. They live in the far north, but journey thousands of miles to bear their young in a quiet Mexican bay. Then they all swim home. That’s where the food supply is. Peak travel pass-thru time here is January, so how could I fail to see a whale? And in fact, I didn’t. Fail, I mean.

Aboard the “Privateer” at 10 a.m., I was cold before we ever got underway. Unwise preparations on my part. But I love being on the water, so the first ten minutes sailing out of the harbor was a delight. Then came the swells. The big, rolling, unending swells. No danger, but lots of rocking and rolling. Some passengers woofed their cookies over the side. Sitting was okay, but to stand at the rail and actually see anything required hanging on for dear life. In these pictures, everything looks calm. But believe me, those swells were lofty and never-ending.

One dolphin, One of maybe 200 that surrounded our boat. It was magical.

Here is one whale, blowing us off.

Dolphins, several pods of them, greeted us as we emerged from the harbor. I took dozens of pictures, but the boat was pitching so much that I wound up with pictures of the sky or the water. But never mind. Half an hour later, we found whales. Four of them. We know that because we saw four blowhole spouts of water go up at the same time.

Yes, this is as close as we got to a whale. See that little spray way in the distance? We’re not allowed by marine protection laws to approach closer than 100 yards, but the whales have their own laws, which are even more restrictive. They don’t make a point of avoiding us, but they know where we are, and they tell other whales where we are. The Gang of Four was trying to hook up with a pair of  whales, and a boatload of gaping tourists was deemed unwelcome to the party. They waved their flukes and bid us goodbye.

That little black thing sticking up is a fluke. AKA tail.

By this point, about an hour into the tour, I was bored silly. People continued to be sick, but over the side, so there were no awkward messes. And after a short time, the whales took themselves even farther away. The boat followed, lost them, and for next two hours, we saw nothing by sky, water, and the occasional cormorant diving for lunch. If I could have walked home, I’d have done so.

As Gilligan learned, a three-hour tour can wind up taking longer than one would think. Sort of like reading this tedious blog.

 

Almost the Cover (Lynn Kerstan)

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Crazy day. Car problems. 8am appointment with a mechanic to take care of things, so I’m toddling off to bed as soon as possible.

  But as promised, I wanted to debut the cover of my novella, the one that’s paired with Alicia Rasley’s novella (Allegra’s Song), here on StoryBroads. Neither will be available for upload to your e-reader until 16 February at the earliest, but I can hardly wait for it to go “live.”

There’s still some tinkering to be done with the cover, but this is pretty much what I’ll be using. I love Maggie’s wary look. And she certainly has a right to be suspicious.

Meantime I’m formatting the actual story for uploading, and I have to say that I truly love this novella. It was the third story I ever wrote, way back in the early 90′s, shortly after my first book and another novella had been published.

I can hardly believe I was so daring in the early days! I never did learn how to tread lightly.

 

Trips and Travails (Lynn Kerstan)

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Lorenzo (Lonzo) the Leopard lounges atop the TV and within easy paw-reach of a sword. I knew from the moment I saw him that he is a born adventurer.

Lorenzo the Leopard (aka Lonzo the Leopard) arrived at my home this week. He’s looking forward to our trip. For the present, he chooses to hang out where the Alpha Cat, Monsieur le Comte de Sevigny, can’t get to him. When they were introduced, Lymond gave him a look that boded no good for the interloper.

This morning, I am at a breakfast get-together at a lovely resort hotel in San Diego. It’s sponsored by Grand Circle Travel, which has the privilege of Pat, Moi, and Lonzo on its Spain/Portugal trip in March. Lonzo came along in my purse, already eager to get underway. As am I! I’ll post pictures and a report… if I remember to take the camera and can stay awake long enough to take notes of what happened. Don’t hold your breath.

Meantime, life wags on here. My buddy Alicia Rasley and I are preparing two “connected” Regency novellas for publishing on-line, and I am learning the hard way about choosing and producing fine-lookin’ covers to go with them. A good thing I got my hair cut on Wednesday. If I still had enough hair to get hold of, I’d be tearing it out.

Seagulls are glorious, viewed from a distance.

Moving on to a whole different subject. Every Tuesday and Friday, a huge garbage truck pulls up near my apartment to empty the dumpster and, as a side effect, sends Lymond underground. For some reason, he is convinced the truck is coming for him. Never mind that in nearly eleven years, it’s never come near him or shown the slightest inclination to do so. Birds, on the other hand, mostly crows, drop by regularly to see if there’s anything to forage for supper. I like crows. They’re beautiful, they’re smart, and I’ve never had one swoop down and snatch something from my hand.

Seagulls are beautiful too. Dunno if they’re smart. But they will ransack a picnic basket or lunchbag if it’s left unattended, and when I take leftover bread to the beach for handouts, they flap around me like invading hordes of huns. No mercy from a gull. Certainly no respect or gratitude for a handout.

Is this a snack I see before me? Come let me clutch thee, before the truck gets here. Macbeth the Seagull

Gull residents of a beachside town know no fear of people. Residents and tourists alike treat them well, so they are relatively fearless. Yesterday, this sleek adventurer showed up at our dumpster to see what he could scavenge. He must have found something in the plastic bag he pecked at, because he stayed a long while, snacking. I expect he’ll be back.

Bad cold here, with much sneezing. Will report at some point Lonzo’s opinion of his new travel company. I figure that if he endured the mailing in a cramped box to my apartment, he’ll do well wherever I take him. And if Pat can put up with me on a trip, so can he!

Quick Note: We’ve had some problems with Comments, so if your very welcome comment fails to appear, be sure that Tara (our sole Techie here) is working to fix it. We love it when you post a comment, so keep ‘em coming.

Beflustered (Lynn Kerstan)

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I'm a leopard, and I need a name!

The choices are:

Lorencio the Leopard;   Lalo the Leopard.   Leopoldo the Leopard.   Lisandro the Leopard.   Lorenzo the Leopard.  Luciano the Leopard.

What's the Can-Opener up to now? As if we need another cat around here!

I, the Can-Opener, am struggling to finish a rush editing job. Later today, I’ll update this blog and explain what’s going on here. Really, it’s not altogether silly business. I do have a purpose.

Meantime, if you prefer one of the candidate names to the others, post in Comments. Hasta Pronto! (See you later)

I’m baaaack. Those who’ve had a chance to vote, thanks! The polls will be open until next Thursday, when my new buddy he is scheduled to arrive. I did forget to include one name on the list. It’s Lonzo, a nickname for, I suspect, Lorenzo. Lonzo means “eager” and “ready,” which is the nature of my adventurous new cat.And he does look eager and ready, come to think of it. But I’ll go with the winner of the poll.

Lymond needn’t be concerned, of course. The leopard will not eat from Lymond’s dish, drink from his water bowl, or use the litter box. I don’t think he can climb the cat tree, or for that matter, anywhere else. But unlike the House Potato feline in residence, he’s eager to accompany me on my travels.

For years, I’ve considered palling with a small photo-buddy. Pictures are more fun with people in them, especially people we know or know about. But there’s not always a likely candidate nearby when I’m ready to snap a shot of something interesting. And while friends keep asking if there’s room for them in my suitcase, well, there isn’t. So I need a small travel pal who’s packable, trouble-free, willing to go anywhere, and cute. There will be plenty of pictures starring me and/or Pat, of course, some of them posted here at StoryBroads. But you’ll also see What’s-His-Name Leopard, who can ride peaceably in my backpack when we go exploring.

Why a leopard in particular? To be honest, I first looked for a Lymond avatar, but could not find any little stuffed Abyssinian cats. And as it turns out, my “Big Cat” trilogy (historical romantic adventures) will be re-released by my new publisher this summer, which gave me an idea. Those are my own favorite written-by-me books, and the first one, out in July, is The Golden Leopard. Writing that story was an adventure in itself, not to mention great good fun. No leashes on my imagination, that’s for sure. So to celebrate, I’m adopting a Golden Leopard avatar and taking him on my next few adventures. With any luck, he’ll be kind enough to recommend the book.

Needless to say, there is more to this story.

Lymond, Monsieur le Comte de Sevigny here, with what the C-O is not telling you. I flat-out refused to accompany her to Spain, even in avatar form. She intends to do research for her next new book, and clearly she needs to reacquaint herself with what was going on there in the 19th Century. I, you understand, am part Scottish and part otherwise, descended from a long line of aristocrats with a French title dating back to the 16th Century. She’s apparently forgotten that in the Peninsular War, Spain allied itself with England, even though Napoleon put his own brother on the Spanish throne. I won’t set paw in that traitorous land. It’s a matter of principle.

Also, far too much trouble to take for a photo-op. This time, let a stuffed animal be the C-0′s shill. I have naps to take.