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Several years ago, my wife and her mother were watching a series of Christmas movies on TV that I really hated. I would love to decorate my house like they decorate houses in those movies. But the plots and the dialogue were just awful. So predictable. Yuck. I would tease them for watching those movies because it was the same thing over and over: a young woman moves from the city to the country where she finds peace in her grandfather's Christmas tree farm. Her boss, who loves her, follows her to the country to talk her back to the city. He alienates everyone in town, an old boyfriend takes interest in her, the kids sing at the pageant, and suddenly the boss realizes the "true meaning of Christmas" (actually he couldn't be further off) and he and the girl find love on Grandpa's Christmas Tree Farm.
Fresh off my GI Bill English Lit degree, I bragged I could write a better Christmas Story than that with one eye tied behind my back. My wife simply said, "Put up or shut up." So I did.
Rule #1 of being a writer is to Write What You Know. After that, the rest of the rules are silly and generally meaningless, but I remember Rule #1 and I began to write a Christmas story in my favorite place on earth, Southern Erie County, New York. Hills, trees, farms, and life-threatening lake effect blizzards by the dozen. Perfect for a Christmas romance/sex romp. And I finished it and put it aside while I worked on other projects.
Four years later, I dug out what was lamely titled "Our Year" and wondered if I should do anything with it. I cut a chunk out of it and released it in a holiday contest and it took second place! I was shocked. I almost threw that story away! The reaction from my beta readers was that they loved the characters and wanted so much more. Andi, our heroine, is a smart, beautiful, sexy young doctor whose ex-husband did her wrong, very wrong. She meets Paul, a quiet, sullen doctor that she met briefly five years previously. They are brought together in a life-threatening blizzard. Both have serious trust issues that they earned in previous battles of the heart and they come to realize that they will not survive this blizzard if they don't come together. Will they open up to each other? Will Andi's twin 5-year-old daughters find the true meaning of "missile toast?"
I try to make my characters real, individual, and likeable. If there's a character that you don't like in my stories, rest assured, you just identified The Bad Guy. A friend suggested I publish my stories, and I've been writing without direction for a couple of years so I took Our Year and polished it, made the blizzard more life threatening, made the characters kind and warm, and I gave my friend the reborn Andi's Dream - A Blizzard in Buffalo
I truly enjoyed writing that book. It's a fun romp through the 'south towns' of Western New York, the land where I grew up. It's a real insight into what it's like to be trapped in a blizzard in Buffalo, and what we do to survive the blast of snow. That and an insight into what it's like to finally find love and security after a pain filled life.
Agent's Note: You can find Andi's Dream - A Blizzard in Buffalo in its inexpensive entirety, at Bookapy. Here's a link to Duleigh's Page where you can find the above, and all of his work to date. Thank you for your consideration, and have a safe and Happy New Year's celebration!
A couple of years ago I was mentoring young writers in a short story event. The idea was to write a complete story in 750 words exactly. It's a tough challenge and I've found that once you try it, you'll come up with several stories. I wrote a series of three stories testing my writing skills. #1 was written in first person, #2 was written in second person, and #3 was written third person perspective. So far none of my readers picked up on that, and beyond that I challenged myself in other ways, #1 was a mature romance, #2 was a lesbian romance, and #3 was a May/December romance, I've never tried any of those and it was a fun challenge.
But #3, Saturday Evening, struck a chord with me. I wanted to explore my characters further, so I started writing, and I told other writers of my plan to expand the story into a full novel. One of my writing friends challenged me to "Go darker than you normally do." So I did. And now I have a murder on my hands, a grieving family, and a scarred veteran seeking revenge.
https://bookapy.com/s/1385/loves-last-kiss
Well, yeah, I'm promoting the Friend Zone, written by my buddy Duleigh. If you've been reading his wildly popular We're a Wonderful Wife series, you'll want to read this one too, because Don and Lanh make an appearance! It's worth checking out. And hey, it's under $3 for the whole thing over on Bookapy, because, why would you want to wait to have the chapters doled out twice a week?
Duleigh's Bookapy Page
If you like Sci-Fi, especially the authentic 1950s type Sci-Fi, you'll see three smaller books there too. And other stuff. Enjoy!
First Love (Book 1) and Mrs. Sergeant Campbell (Book 2) are current in the second and third spots on the Best Sellers list over at Bookapy.com, and now the fourth and final book in the We're a Wonderful Wife series, All Good Things, is available there too!
With the current posting schedule, it will be months before these other books hit SOL, so if you're a fan of romantic novels, check out First Love and the others!
As a follow-up to his successful Book 1, First Love, in the We're a Wonderful Wife series, Duleigh has published Mrs. Sergeant Campbell, available over on Bookapy. First Love is currently on the Bestsellers List there.
I'm Rob (ahorsewithnoname) and Duleigh's agent. He's got all four books in the Andi's Dream series over at Bookapy, along with the three 1950s sci-fi style works Captain Scarlett Saves Mars!, Captain Scarlett vs. The Scrapper, and Captain Scarlett, Martian Envoy. Now he has both First Love and Mrs. Sergeant Campbell, and will soon follow with Book Three and Book Four.
Great reading for just a few dollars! Enjoy!
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