Two Secondhand Shoes And One Runaway Bride

We thought we'd take time today to give a nod to our friend Shelly Arkon, who is having a giveaway at her blog tied to her book Secondhand Shoes.

Here's a bit about Shelly herself:

When she was nine, Shelly Arkon's mother advised her not to write a novel because no one would publish it...but she wrote it anyway.

Shelly Arkon has never stopped writing since she wrote that first novel as a child. In spite of more family drama than most of us could handle—as the mother of five daughters, drama is unavoidable--she's been writing most of her life. She says most of these stories, written in longhand in spiral notebooks, have been about vampires.

She now lives in New Port Richey with her husband and two dogs. She’s also a member of Florida Writer’s Association and Writers of Mass Distraction.

Currently, she’s working on a book series. It’s’about two grandmothers, one a New Age hippie, and the other, a Southern Baptist, their grandbaby, their grown children who are pill heads, their extended dysfunctional family, and a dangerous drug dealer.

The two grandmothers find themselves in a dangerous pursuit to save their grandbaby while finding an unlikely friendship between them.

And here we have the blurb for Secondhand Shoes

The shoes didn’t fit. It was an omen.

Eighteen year old psychic-medium-germ-a-phobe Lila should have listened to her ghostly Gram’s advice the morning of her wedding, “Take off that dress and those shoes. And run.”

En route to the honeymoon, she decides to listen after too many disagreements with her groom. It doesn’t pay to go along to make everyone happy.

Still in her wedding dress and shoes, she escapes out a diner’s bathroom window into the Florida woods despite her fear of snakes and germs with her dead Gram’s direction.

So she begins a journey of finding her inner strength, putting her on a deadly run from her psychotic groom and his deranged friends.

Will she ever get past her fear of germs and snakes? Will she survive her honeymoon?

The book can be found at Amazon, both ebook and paperback, through this link: Secondhand Shoes. And over at Shelly's blogs, you can find details on the free giveaway, which started yesterday and goes through tomorrow. Secondhand Shoes and The Life Of A Novice Writer are where you can find Shelly, and they're busy blogs at the moment. Head on in, comment there, and to be in on the giveaway, Shelly asks this in return:

Post this on your facebook page:

Secondhand Shoes is FREE Feb.19, 20, and 21st. Get your copy: http://www.amazon.com/Secondhand-Shoes-ebook/dp/B00B1ZNQAO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1361049290&sr=8-2&keywords=Shelly+arkon%2C+Secondhand+Shoes

Feb. 19th, 20th, and 21st join us to Spread the News and Cheer on the Run Away Bride Give Away and Blog Party. You could win a 15 dollar Amazon card or an autographed copy of Secondhand Shoes. Visit http://secondhandshoesnovel.blogspot.com/

Feb. 19th, 20th, and 21st join us to Spread the News and Cheer on the Run Away Bride Give Away and Blog Party. You could win a 15 dollar Amazon card or an autographed copy of Secondhand Shoes. Visit http://www.shellysnovicewritings.blogspot.com/

And on Twitter, tweet this:

Free books and prizes @ http://www.shellysnovicewritings.blogspot.com/ Feb.19 to 21st #FReeBooks#KindleAmazon Please Retweet

and

Free books and prizes @ http://secondhandshoesnovel.blogspot.com/ Feb.19 to 21st #FReeBooks#KindleAmazon Please Retweet

Head on over and give Shelly your support. She's a lot of fun, and the book is a terrific read!

It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged

"....that a politician, running for higher office, shall be in want of a spin doctor. Oh, no, that will never do. Spin doctor is a term that hasn't been invented yet. Very well then, how shall I start this tale? It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a drunkard, having had sobered up, shall be in want of a bottle of rum? Come now, Jane, you're not writing a drinking song. Think, girl!" ~ Jane Austen, 1796

This month marks the two hundredth anniversary of the first publication of Pride and Prejudice, the signature novel by Jane Austen which continues to be a beloved classic today. The story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy hasn't lost its appeal in these two centuries, still selling strong today, spawning endless adaptations and inspirations for stage, screen, and spinoffs. At the heart of a story about British society, family dynamics, class, and parental expectations are two stubborn, proud characters, both of whom are meant for each other.

We thought we'd mark the occasion by asking a most serious question or three...

Do you relate more to Darcy or Lizzie?

Does Mr. Wickham deserve to die a horrendously painful death in the never seen writer's alternative ending? 

Is Mr. Collins merely misunderstood, and really not all that awkward?

Is Lady Catherine de Bourgh naturally that ill tempered, or is it because her heart was once broken by a knavish rake?

Do you have no idea who these people are we're talking about? (Heathen! Heathen! We cast you out!)

Happy Two Hundredth Anniversary, Jane. All writers wish they could still be known two centuries on. You've done just that.

And no, we have no idea why the zombies got grafted onto the book by Seth Grahame Smith. 

Secondhand Shoes & Wedding Disasters

We thought we'd take a bit of time today to point out a book that's in its final stages, written by a dear friend of ours. Secondhand Shoes, by Shelly Arkon, is a blend of comedy, drama, and finding the strength inside to stand up for oneself. It also has a liberal dose of paranormal mixed into the lot. We've had ourselves our own look at the book, which is currently being formatted for release, and it's a great deal of fun- with the occasional fright thrown in for good measure.

Here's the blurb:

The shoes didn’t fit. It was an omen.

Eighteen year old psychic-medium-germ-a-phobe Lila should have listened to ghostly Gram’s advice the morning of her wedding, “Take off that dress and those shoes. And run.”

En route to the honeymoon, she decides to listen after too many disagreements with her groom. It doesn’t pay to go along to make everyone happy.

Still in her wedding dress and shoes, she escapes out a diner’s bathroom window into the Florida woods despite her fear of snakes and germs with her dead Gram’s direction.
So she begins a journey of finding her inner strength that puts her on a deadly run from her psychotic groom and his deranged friends.

Will she ever get past her fear of germs and snakes? Will she survive her honeymoon?



And here we have a short excerpt:


A screen stood between me and my freedom. I pushed it. Nothing. I pushed it again. It was one stubborn screen. I took off a shoe, scraping a blister. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow,” I muttered.

I held my spiked heel like an ice-pick and punched a hole in the screen, ripping the rest with my other hand.

I didn’t want to, but I had to put my shoe back on and get it over with. I jammed my foot into it and stepped. “Ouch, ooh, ooh, ouch.”

The ledge was tummy high. I slung one leg over it, held onto the bottom of the window, got my other leg up and over and shimmied my way out.

There were woods beyond the alley holding the diner’s dumpsters, trees all the way to the interstate’s on-ramp to my right and on down behind the gas station to my left and beyond.

A light wind blew my hair across my face. I looked at the sky. Dark clouds coming up I-75. I looked at the woods.Probably a million snakes in there,I thought.

“Don’t be afraid, Lila,” Gram said.

A half-dozen sparrows flew from around the front of the diner, low to the ground, and into the woods. I followed them in through the ferns bordering the pavement and into the trees. My lacey arm caught on a cypress branch ripping a portion of my sleeve from me.
I walked for at least a half hour. When Max and I left the wedding, it must’ve been mid-eighty degrees. It warmed up since then like twenty more. That was a Florida July for you. The humidity made it almost unbearable. I was sweating, my bodice soaked. The money inside my bra stuck to my skin. It itched. The lace on my one arm and back itched more. I smelled no better than Max did when he got home from work and every winged insect buzzed around me. I smacked at them. A big, black horsefly really liked me. It wouldn’t go away. I thought of Max.

My blisters and toes screamed pre-, mid-, and post-step. The balls of my feet, too. The three inchers got caught in vines, branches, and mole holes. It took a lot to stay upright in the deep leaves. I considered taking my shoes off, but there might be hook worms or some jungle ameoba waiting to feast on my leg muscles, and I needed my legs to get me out of this mess. Mom scared me out of going shoeless when I was little, and I’d never gone barefoot except on Mom’s clean carpets and disinfected floors. I wore shoes or slippers at Cynthia’s. Her mother didn’t vacuum every day. Nor did I taste Pine Sol in the back of my throat at her house.

A hawk flew down out of nowhere and landed on the ground in front of me, tilted its head, and blinked its eyes at me.

The hawk jumped up and down, flitting its wings. He turned and squawked.

“You want me to follow you?”

It hopped onward, looking back at me every third or fourth bounce.

From not too far behind me a male voice bellowed, “Lila!”

Max.



You can find Shelly through her blogs (one of which is frequently hijacked by two bickering dogs). Have a look, start following her, and you'll find you'll really get to like her.

Secondhand Shoes

The Life Of A Novice Writer

An Astonishing View From The Top

We have our friend Eve Gaal to thank for originally setting us onto this place. Awhile back we got a slideshow of images from her about this outcrop, and we think it might be an ideal place to write into future works. Preikestolen is known in English as Pulpit Rock or Preacher's Rock. It's a massive cliff over the Lysefjorden in Norway, and each year, thousands of hikers make the trip up to the overhang to take in the view. It looks like a smashing place to be, and we think that it would be a fine place for our characters Chloe and Gabriel to visit in a future book. After all, part of our book Same Time Tomorrow actually starts in Norway, and it seems right to head back there. In the meantime, we thought we'd do a photoblog of the place. Just as long as you don't have a problem with heights....

Crossed Wires And Wedding Music

Scarlett and I had ourselves a rather odd turn while writing a specific passage in Same Time Tomorrow. We’ve been finishing off the wedding sequence, getting things polished off. This sort of thing gets passed back and forth between us as we go along, and we’d come to the point where the ceremony comes to an end.

Scarlett wrote a passage, and asked me what I thought of it. Of course, I loved it. It’s Chloe’s point of view during the kiss, and she started out by having Chloe thinking the exact same thing that Gabriel is thinking. Then she asked me what I thought of the Mandy reference. This is the moment that confused me. You see, one of the early moments between the characters has them interacting online, long before they meet. Chloe is most definitely a Barry Manilow fan. Gabriel is certainly not. Despite that difference, they find that they like each other anyway as they get to know each other, and the relationship grows from there.

I was confused by the question. I don’t know the song, beyond the tune and the title, so I looked at the passage, wondering if some little bit of dialogue or something else there referenced some obscure lyric of the song. In the end, that wasn’t the case. It turns out that Scarlett deleted the line before saving it, and hadn’t realized it.

This is one of those moments in collaborative writing where confusion runs both ways, and you find yourself wondering just what on earth is my partner talking about? Of course, it also makes it all the more amusing afterwards!

Have you ever had misunderstandings with a friend or colleague over something you'd written or omitted from an email? That's what happened here.  I've actually lost a good friend just because she misunderstood a text message from me (sarcasm does not translate well to text messages!). I almost had a serious rift with another good friend because of a similar error in an email. Fortunately, James and I didn't come to blows—though now that I think about it, blows might have been quite nice.

The important thing in a collaboration is to ask if something your writing partner has written isn't clear.

Otherwise you’ll be running into confusion unlimited!

In this case, problem solved. We wrote in a bit of a reference involving the violinist at the ceremony… playing, of course.... Mandy.

Distracting Ourselves Whilst In Between The Sheets

We're still recovering from our post-New Year's Eve marathon session of being naked and involved in... adult situations with each other, so we thought we'd point you to something we've discovered. Word It Out is a site that allows you to take sections of text and make word clouds out of them. We've played around with this with text from our book Same Time Tomorrow, and these four word clouds are the result. Enjoy!

Fictional Weddings Require As Much Work As Real Weddings

Today we thought we'd talk about weddings, given that we're writing one for the book at the moment. This is an odd thing, considering that we didn't expect we'd be doing so... at least not a wedding for our main characters, until the second book. They hijacked the book on us!

It was Chloe's fault, really. Gabriel wanted to give her a perfect wedding...but all Chloe wanted was to marry Gabriel and have her mother with them on their wedding day. That was her idea of perfect.

And so here we are, arranging a wedding for them within a few days. You know, there's this joke I recall from meeting a fellow in a church one day. He said that brides would reserve the church three years in advance, this despite not having a groom at the moment.

That's true, for the most part...but not for Chloe. She didn't even think about a wedding until she met Gabriel. She's a girl who didn't need a Kim Kardashian wedding, just the man she loved and the people they both cared about, in a small, intimate ceremony with a lovely setting.

That's the sort of ceremony we should all go for. Chloe has never struck me as a Bridezilla, which is a very good thing. Still, small wedding or not, there are details that have to be seen to. Such as the rings....

And their wedding attire....the license...the preacher...the location...the gifts for their attendants. And we haven't even discussed a wedding cake or a (small) reception yet!

 Come to think of it... should there be a musician? It's questions like this that lead to big weddings...

Maybe a friend with a guitar?

Or a violin? Certainly not an accordion!

Definitely no accordion! A violin would be very nice....

So there are definitely things left to be seen to. Still, a quiet wedding's a whole lot better then one of those extravaganzas. It's much more meaningful.

Gabriel and Chloe both come from a place where they appreciate what a wedding is really all about.

It makes them much more compelling, that way.

And the good news is that they don't have to have a traditional wedding cake! They can have whatever they want.

Why am I picturing carrot cake?

Maybe because you like carrot cake?

They can have a carrot cake!

That's one checked off the list, and more to come!

Do we do a reception afterward, or just take everyone to a nice restaurant?

I think some nice restaurant, a country inn, that sort of thing... after all, Gabriel and Chloe would want some privacy for their wedding night. And they're not going to get it with a farmhouse full of people... not to mention owls and coyotes outside making noise all night long...

Maybe a night at a nice country inn would be a wedding gift from of of their friends...or Linda...or Bridget?

Yes, that would be right...

Now, the question is... how will Gabriel get that garter off his bride?

With his teeth, of course!

No hands, Gabriel!

Wait a minute... he's a fictional character!