Valentines Blog Hop - Win The Memory of Roses; Coming Soon - Delighting in Your Company

Posted on February 11, 2012 by Blair McDowell

My name is Blair McDowell , and my books are set in places I know and love and are peopled with characters drawn from my experiences of those places. The Memory of Roses takes readers to the Greek Island of Corfu, where a young woman finds her future while searching for her father’s past. My upcoming book Delighting in Your Company which will be released in April 2012, transports the reader to a small island in the Caribbean, with a heroine who finds herself in the unenviable position of falling in love with a ghost. Due for release in the fall of 2012, the setting for Sonata is the city of Vancouver, with its vibrant multicultural population and its rich musical life, and my heroine is a musician who finds herself in unexpected danger.

I hope you will enjoy reading these books as much as I have enjoyed writing them.

Delighting in Your Company by Blair McDowell - coming in April 2012!

www.blairmcdowell.com

What more could a girl ask for?

When Amalie Ansett visits her elderly cousin on the small Caribbean island of St. Clements, the last thing she’s looking for is romance. Just out of a disastrous marriage, she’s ready to swear off men forever. That is until she meets local plantation owner, Jonathan Evans. He is tall, good looking, intelligent and incredibly sexy. What more could a girl ask for?

An unsolved murder …

Then Amalie discovers that the man she loves is a ghost. Only she can see and hear him. Perhaps he is real to her because Amalie is the image of her distant ancestor, Jonathan’s bride in that earlier time. Jonathan was murdered two hundred years ago, and has no knowledge of who killed him or why.

A perilous trip to the past…

When Jonathan asks her to help him by returning with him to his past, Amalie is torn. If she helps him solve the mystery surrounding his death, she could lose him forever. If she doesn’t, she is stuck with a ghost for a lover.

And a love that crosses the boundaries of time.

To save Jonathan, Amalie agrees to travel with him back in time to the Caribbean of the 1800’s, when sugar reigned supreme and the slave trade was making fortunes for wealthy planters and ship owners. Her adventures there include a slave uprising, murder, deceit and an enduring love that crosses the boundaries of time.

Check out our web page for updates, release announcements, and places to purchase after release.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The Memory of Roses by Blair McDowell

The Memory of Roses, Cover

Buy The Memory of Roses today at various outlets listed on
‘The Memory of Roses’ web page .

Win one of 2 available ebook copies of The Memory of Roses!!

Answer the following questions either by Email to [email protected], or by posting the answer(s) in the Comment box below:

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The Greek island of Corfu is the scene of the enduring love stories of two generations of the McQuaid family. Renowned archaeologist Ian McQuaid meets the love of his life while recuperating from an illness contracted during a dig in Crete. Ian is married, but his wife has never been a passionate partner, and Maria Calbrese is a miracle sent to him at the lowest point in his life.

A generation later, on his deathbed, Ian leaves his daughter a letter telling her that when on Corfu, he had fallen in love with a woman named Maria and bought a villa there. He asks, as a final request, that Brit should travel to Corfu, stay in the villa, then find Maria and deliver a package to her.

Brit intends to fulfill her father’s last request and then return to the US, but her plan is soon derailed. She meets Dr. Andreas Leandros a sizzling young Greek Archaeologist, and her own damaged heart begins to heal.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Excerpt:

In the excerpt below we find Ian McQuaid eating a lonely meal in a Greek Taverna when Maria Calbrese enters…..

 

It was on June eleventh that he met her. He had gone to Adriatika for his evening meal. It was a week night and he had lingered over his late afternoon swim. By the time he arrived, the few other diners were well into their meals.

“What have you for me tonight, my friend?” he asked.

“Ah! You are in luck. We have Rabbit Steffado and I’ve kept a portion back for you.”

Ian settled into his chair at his regular table and opened his book. He’d long had the habit of reading in restaurants until his food arrived. It kept him from feeling lonely.

He heard a commotion at the door and glanced up from his book to see a stunning young woman in conversation with Yiannis.

“Of course you are not too late, Signorina,” Yiannis was saying as he showed her to a table. “We always look forward to your return in June. Did you have a pleasant journey from Venice?”

“Pleasant enough, Yiannis. I hope you have some of your Rabbit Steffado for me tonight. I’ve been looking forward to it for months.”

“Alas, I am afraid the last portion was just ordered by someone else,” he said, nodding in the general direction of Ian’s table. “But I have a very nice fish if you’re interested.”

“Hmm. I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, if you could bring me a pitcher of your good house wine…”

“Of course.”

Ian went back to reading his book. Suddenly he sensed that he wasn’t alone. He looked up to see the woman who’d just entered the restaurant standing at his table, a brimming pitcher of wine in her hand. She was tall and full breasted, her long ebony hair swung loosely to her shoulders and her eyes were dark and lively. Her face could have come from a Botticelli painting, beautifully oval, classically Italian. She wore a low necked blouse that seemed to fall off one shoulder and a full skirt that emphasized her small waist.

He realized with a shock that she was speaking to him in English and that he hadn’t heard a word she had said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said I assume you speak English since you’re reading a book in that language. If you’d rather, we could speak in Italian. My Greek is a bit primitive.”

Confused, Ian managed to stutter, “English will be fine.”

“Good. I have a proposition for you.” She smiled.

Ian thought whatever it is the answer is yes. He merely nodded.

“You,” she resumed accusingly, “you have ordered the last portion of Rabbit Steffado. I’ve been looking forward to Rabbit Steffado for months. I propose that we should enjoy that rabbit together. There is always enough for two in Yiannis’ portions. Meanwhile we can order some of Catarina’s eggplant and a salad to start and,” here she held up the pitcher, “I already have the wine.” She waited expectantly.

Ian threw back his head and laughed for the first time in months. “Please,” he said, getting up quickly and pulling out a chair for her, “Be my guest. I’m Ian McQuaid.”

Over the eggplant she told him she was from Venice and that her name was Maria. “I always spend six weeks here at this time of the year. And this is my favorite restaurant on Corfu. I always came here on my first night back.”

They worked their way through the appetizers laughing and chatting about their experiences on Corfu as if they were old friends.

The rabbit arrived at the table, steaming and aromatic in its rich sauce. Maria ladled it on to their plates. “So what brings you to Corfu?”

Ian somehow didn’t want to admit his recent illness to this young woman who was the picture of health and vitality. “I was working on Crete and I decided to take some time off. A friend suggested Corfu.”

“What do you do on Crete?”

“I’m an archaeologist. My special area is Bronze-Age societies, the Minoans in particular. Knossos, on Crete, is one of the best preserved Minoan sites in the world. I’ve been working there off and on for some years.”

“You’re an American aren’t you? Your accent isn’t British.”

“Yes. I’m a professor at Stanford University in California. But I spend half of every year in Greece.”

They continued to chat and laugh their way through the rest of meal.

Ian could hardly take his eyes off of her. She was so utterly alive. Her mobile face telegraphed her every thought and mood. When she laughed at his stories her whole face lit up. When she was serious, her eyes held the reflective calm of a mountain lake. He found her utterly entrancing. By the time they’d finished dessert he was wondering how he could prolong the evening, how he could arrange to see her again.

Then he reminded himself that he was still married, that he’d no right to become involved with this young vibrant creature sitting at his table. And that surely she would have no interest in him, a middle-aged man graying at the temples and many years her senior. Regretfully, when Catarina began closing the shutters, he moved to pay the bill. “Please allow me,” he said. “You’ve given me so much pleasure tonight.”

She nodded and rose to leave.

Outside the restaurant, she paused confused, and looked around. “Where’s your car?”

“Actually, I don’t have one. I haven’t found much need for one here. I walk everyplace. The house I’m renting is just up the hill a mile or so.”

“Please let me drive you home,” she said. “I insist. It is small payment for that lovely dinner.”

Ten minutes longer with her, Ian thought. Ten minutes more of her lovely voice and beautiful face. “Of course,” he responded.

She drove efficiently and competently. He watched the shadows and light fall on her face as she navigated the curves of the narrow, winding country road.

“Turn here,” he instructed as they reached the open gates to the property. She came to a stop at the circle in front of the villa. The fountain was splashing, its dolphins alive in the moonlight.

“What a beautiful spot.” She said. They sat in silence for a moment, neither quite willing to end the evening.

“You could come in for a brandy,” he suggested.

They got as far as the front door. Later they could neither of them remember who moved first. They were in each other’s arms, tearing at their clothing, stumbling up the steps toward the bedroom. Frustrated with their slow progress Ian swept her up into his arms and carried her to his bed, covering her with his body. They made love wordlessly, frantically, as if their very lives depended on their being together in this way at this moment.

When the storm had passed, Ian tried to speak. “I had no right to do this,” he said. “I’m married.”

“Of course you are,” she replied. “No man as attractive as you could be single. Not at your age. I came to you willingly, I asked for no commitment. We have here and now. We have tonight. Let’s not ask for more.”

He buried his face in her fragrant hair.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Don’t forget to visit and enjoy the other blogs today! https://thebloghopspot.com/event-page/

Posted in Blog Hops, Books of Blair McDowell, Delighting in Your Company, The Memory of Roses | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Show Don’t Tell

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Blair McDowell

Who among us has not seen those dreaded words in the margin of a manuscript? It sounds so easy. “Show, don’t tell. ”

Those of us who are, shall we say, of more mature years, are programmed to tell. Our parents and grandparents told us stories. Charles Dickens and Jane Austen and Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie and Dostoyevsky all told their stories. And they were very good stories indeed.

Movie Theatre

But the times have changed. The shift in reader expectations from passive to active involvement in stories began, I believe, with motion pictures in the early decades of the twentieth century. Movies pulled people into their stories in a way print never had. For the first time stories were made visual. Of course, plays existed before. But only a minute proportion of the population ever went to the theater. With the advent of movies, suddenly drama was available to everyone.

Then came television. Living other people’s stories was no longer a once-a-week movie experience, it became a nightly event. Drama came into people’s living rooms and captured an audience far beyond that of most books. Plots moved fast. They had to. There was only a half hour or hour time slot in which to drawthe audience into the story. The story was visual. The actions observable. Emotions were shown, not described. No imagination was necessary on the part of the viewer. It was all there to see and to hear and to identify with.

Video games came next. Action at the speed of light with the players in charge of the story.

A result of all this recent history is that we as writers must adapt to a very different set of reader expectations than our predecessors. Today’s readers expect to see the story. And a natural corollary of this is that they want their stories to move faster, to be shorter. Where the 90,000 to 110,000 word novel used to be the norm, now shorter works are more in demand.

Stories must pull readers quickly into the experiences of the characters. From the first page they must feel what our characters feel, see what they see. Hear, smell, taste, touch, vicariously what our characters see, hear, smell, taste, touch. The use of all five senses is vital to helping readers live our stories.

I rely heavily on the five senses in my stories. In The Memory of Roses, the scent of that flower is a connecting link between the two love stories and forms a continuous thread from the beginning to the end of the novel. In Delighting In Your Company, the ghost hero sings and whistles the tune, Greensleeves from the first pages to the last. Abigail’s Christmas is replete with the sights, sounds and scents of Christmas. Using the five senses is one of the easier ways of showing.

 

We cannot simply say that a character is sad, happy, nervous, tense, anxious. We must show what the character is doing that physically expresses the emotion he/she is feeling. This is not always easy. But this is what “Show, don’t tell” means.

 

Here are two ways to tell whether we’ve slipped into telling where we should be showing.

The first and most obvious is the use of the words “feel” “feeling” and “felt”. If any of these words is present in a sentence, we’re probably not showing, we’re telling. A computer search of the manuscript for these words will let us know immediately where we need to revise.

Amy felt deeply saddened as she looked around her father’s empty study.

Clearly, this is telling. What actions could we have Amy do that would show the reader she is sad? If she were an actress with no lines to speak in this scene, what could she do to let us know how she feels?

She could sigh. She could brush her hand across his desk and shake her head. If she is deeply distressed she could cry. She put her head in her hands. Her body might slump. We need to tap into the physical actions, the behaviors that indicate sorrow.

Another area where it is easy to fall into “telling” rather than “showing” is the point in the story at which we describe what our hero or heroine looks like.

Telling: Amy had short auburn hair that never looked quite combed.

Showing: Amy ran a brush through her short auburn hair and shrugged. She knew it never looked combed but she really didn’t care.

Telling: Andy had well-muscled shoulders and a broad chest.

Showing: Amy leaned against Andy, taking comfort from his strong arms and the solidity of his chest.

Telling: Amy set about cooking breakfast for the kids.

Showing: The bacon began to sizzle. Amy turned to the stove, cracked four farm-fresh eggs into the hot bacon fat and watched as the edges began to brown. Three pajama clad boys tumbled into the kitchen. Amy smiled. Nothing like the smell of bacon and eggs to rouse the troops .

Hearing, seeing and smelling were all a part of the above example. When we draw on the five senses in a scene we always come closer to showing.

Any time we name an emotion we are telling rather than showing. Almost any time we use a word with an “ly” ending (gladly, sadly, grudgingly, happily, etc. etc) we are telling, not showing. I regularly do a computer search for ly. Sometimes I leave the word. But usually I try to find an observable action that will express the behavior indicated by the “ly”.

Show, don’t tell means that we must live inside our character’s minds and have them behave in ways that demonstrate their feelings and thoughts, their reactions to the situations in which we place them. Above all we must make it possible for our readers to become involved in what’s happening in our stories, to be a part of our hero’s journey.

Buy Blair McDowell’s books today at The Memory of Roses Page and Abigail’s Christmas Page.

Watch for Blair’s newest book, Delighting in Your Company, to be released by Rebel Ink Press in March 2012.

Posted in Abigail's Christmas, Books of Blair McDowell, Delighting in Your Company, The Craft of Writing Fiction, The Memory of Roses | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Memories of Christmas Past

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Blair McDowell

Memories of Christmas Past

My fantasy Christmas happened long ago. It will live in my memory forever as the most beautiful Christmas I’ve ever experienced. I was in Hungary, studying at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music for the year, away from home and husband and missing both severely.

 

The Budapest of that time, 1971, was a drab and dreary place. Mementos of the brief, abortive 1956 Hungarian Uprising against their Soviet oppressors were everywhere. Sides of buildings were riveted with bullet holes. Russian soldiers patrolled the streets in pairs, machine guns slung across their shoulders, unsmiling, stony faced, ignoring everyone and everything in their path.

I remember being cold all the time. Buildings were not centrally heated – rooms had ceramic stoves heated with soft coal. It was warm only immediately next to the stove. I cut the fingers out of a pair of gloves so that I could wear them in class and still take notes.

But I had been fortunate in finding a wonderful place to stay. After looking at several rooms near the Academy that ranged from dreary to dismal, I decided to look farther afield. I had bought a little yellow VW in Amsterdam, so it was possible to search beyond the city limits. High in the hills on the Buda side of the Danube, (that’s the Duna, in Hungarian) I found a wonderful old pouszta (country) style home with a room to rent. The house was blindingly white, long and low, with a series of archways across the front and a red tile roof. I later learned that the red tile roof was new. Just a couple of years before it had been thatch.

I rang the bell at the wrought iron gate and a young dark haired woman came bustling down the flagstone path, accompanied by several dogs and some hens and roosters she shooed out of the way. Unlocking the gate she said “Tesek”, a word I learned had many meanings, but at that time clearly meant I was to come in.

Talking all the while, she led me into a kitchen rich with the aromas of garlic and paprika. Soup bubbled on the stove. I had taken a year of Hungarian lessons before coming to Hungary, but they had in no way prepared me for this onslaught of indecipherable conversation. I smiled and nodded a lot.

She sat me down at the little kitchen table. “Ehes?” she asked, proceeding to dish out a large bowl of the rich dark soup and cutting me a slice of heavy black bread to accompany it. By this time I had decided to take the room whatever and wherever it was in this household. I think I’d have happily bedded down in the chicken coop.

But that didn’t prove necessary. The room was small, but bright, its single bed and armoire were painted green and decorated in peasant style with birds and flowers. There was a window looking out on the garden, which could be opened if the weather was balmy or closed and shuttered against winter winds, and there was a sheepskin on the floor beside the bed so that bare feet wouldn’t land on chilling tiles.

I had found a home. That was in October. I soon became a part of the household, just another family member along with Sari, her husband Gyuri, their two children, Kati and Peter and the patriarch of the family, Nagypapa, (Grandfather).

We quickly settled into comfortable routines. I had been there only a couple of days when Sari sat down at the table with me and produced two small books – one entitled “English-Hungarian Dictionary and the other “Madgar-Angol Szotar”. We started talking, referring to our dictionaries every two or three words. Sari, who had lived most of her life in a country occupied by invading armies, first the Germans and then the Russians, had insatiable curiosity about everything beyond Hungary’s borders. What was it like living in the west? How many rooms did my house have? How much money did a school teacher make in America? Where did we go on holidays? What did we eat?

My vocabulary increased exponentially, perhaps aided by Nagypapa, who would pour me a water glass full of wine every evening, which he never allowed to become empty. The family grew grapes and made their own wine that was stored in a cave dug into the hillside. Nagypapa would go out to the cave, siphon off a pitcher of the fruity white wine and bring it into the kitchen where Sari and I were at our language lessons, saying, “Kisci bor jol aludni.” A little wine, good sleep. It was very good wine and I slept exceedingly well.

But I missed my husband so I made plans to go home and spend Christmas with him. When I told Sari that I would be leaving on December 15th and returning after the New Year she was appalled. “You’re not here for Christmas? This is not a good thing. It is an important family holiday and you will not be here with your Hungarian family to celebrate?”

There was nothing for it but to hold Christmas early. The night before I left we had a traditional Hungarian Christmas dinner, then we went into the long narrow room with all the arched windows. There, Gyuri had set up the Christmas tree, freshly cut pine, its pungent scent filling the air. There were short fat candles on each branch. Real candles. At a given moment he lit them one by one until the whole tree was blazing with soft flickering light. No tree I’ve ever seen before or since has been as beautiful. Under the tree were boots. My boots, Kati’s boots and Peter’s boots. And in the boots were presents. Mine was a hand embroidered table cloth that had belonged to Sari’s grandmother.

The next day I flew back to the US and for the next two weeks I did the usual round of holiday parties and admired myriad, mostly artificial, Christmas trees with their blinking electric lights and saw houses outlined in lights with Santa Clauses up on the rooftops and reindeer in yards—and my mind kept returning to my beloved Hungarian family and the fresh cut pine tree with the real candles.

I was happy to see my husband. It was never easy being separated from him as we were all too often by his work or mine. But Christmas for me will always recall memories of a pouszta-style house in the Buda hills and a tree lit with real candles.

Sari and I have remained life-long friends. I have returned to Hungary many times since, and she has visited me in the US, in Canada, and in the Caribbean. We’re both widows now, but we’re still family to each other.

December 2011
www.blairmcdowell.com
blog.blairmcdowell.com
Email: [email protected]

Read Blair McDowell’s latest books:

The Memory of Roses

When her father dies, Brit McQuaid inherits a villa on the beautiful island of Corfu, a villa she knew nothing about. He also left a cryptic note asking that she deliver a package to a woman on Corfu with whom he was once in love, while married to Brit’s mother.

This launches a journey for Brit, taking her from San Francisco to Greece and Italy. Along the way she meets a sizzling Greek archaeologist who not only helps her unravel a powerful secret from the past, but shows her the path to her own future. After this adventure, Brit’s life will be changed forever.

Buy The Memory of Roses at: The Memory of Roses Web Page

Abigail’s Christmas

When Abigail went out on Christmas Eve to look for a tree to brighten her drab apartment, she wasn’t expecting to end up with her dream man on a sleigh ride in the Rockies with a wedding in the offing.

Buy Abigail’s Christmas at: Abigail’s Christmas Web Page

 

Posted in Abigail's Christmas, Books of Blair McDowell, Delighting in Your Company, Seasonal, The Memory of Roses | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

On Plotting

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Blair McDowell

“A novel, play, or any type of writing, really is a crisis from beginning to end, growing to its necessary conclusion.”
Lajos Egri, The Art of Dramatic Writing, 1946.

The playwright Lajos Egri wrote this classic book on the art of writing that is surely as appropriate as a resource for authors today as it was sixty-five years ago when he wrote it. It’s available in a new edition on Amazon.

What is Egri really telling us in the above quotation? From his other writing we learn that he strongly believes that plot is wholly dependent upon character development. That well drawn characters lead plot. This may be true. Certainly my own characters have occasionally led me down unexpected paths.

But here, I believe Egri is suggesting that we ask ourselves, “What does my principal character want? What is the nature of his/her crisis? Think of a few examples from films and books.

  • What did Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz want?
  • Or ET in the movie of that name?
  • Or Harry Potter in any of the Potter books and movies?
  • Or Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice?

They each wanted something quite desperately. To go home (both Dorothy and ET), to overcome the evil wizard (Harry), to marry Mr. Darcy (Elizabeth). To a certain extent, what they wanted is not the issue. It was the urgency of that want that captured the viewers/readers.

Of course wanting alone was not enough to create a good plot. What made the plot work in every one of those cases?

Someone or something made the hero’s goal appear to be unobtainable. There was opposition at every turn. Not just the mild opposition of circumstance, but opposition that was urgent and important, seemingly unmovable, and in some of the above cases, even dangerous.

This is the essence of plot building. One character, the hero, the protagonist, wants something desperately, urgently. Another character, the antagonist, wants a very different end that is in direct opposition to our hero’s wants.

This clash of wants is what creates conflict and conflict is the stuff good plots are built of. Whether that plot is a Harlequin Romance or Macbeth.

What are the most common wants , motivations, in literature?

  • Love
  • Life
  • Fear
  • Ambition
  • Revenge
  • Justice
  • Money

There are others of course, but these seven and their endless permutations are probably the most common motivations in literature throughout history.

The clash between characters is, at its simplest level, one in which the hero’s actions are based on one of the above motivations and the antagonist’s are based on a different one. The more urgently the hero wants, and the more the antagonist blocks that want, the more completely readers will identify with the hero and keep reading.

However, to keep the readers reading, what the hero wants must be articulated clearly and early in the book and must then be thwarted at every turn. It must seem within grasp only to be snatched away. Characters must clash in interesting and exciting ways.

As authors we should ask ourselves, what is the next logical scene in this book? Then, instead of writing that expected scene, we should take a sharp turn to the left. Set up a problem that cries for resolution, and then not resolve it. This creates suspense, and suspense is the single most necessary ingredient to keep readers turning pages. We must regularly move in unexpected directions. This is as true in a simple love story as in in a complex Dan Brown novel of intrigue.

One very useful exercise is to take a book that really caught you. One you thoroughly enjoyed. Look at the last paragraph of every chapter. In varying degrees it will be a cliff-hanger. Something designed to make you turn the page, to start the next chapter.

In a sense we must practice what Scheherazade practiced in one of the most ancient of stories, One Thousand and One Nights. The Sultan, if you remember, wed a new wife every night and had her executed the next morning. When he weds Scheherazade, she decides not to be the next dead wife. That night and every night thereafter, she tells the Sultan a new story, but she never finishes the story. She finishes it the next night, and immediately starts a new one which she leaves unfinished. This clever lass does this for – you got it — one thousand and one nights. By that time the Sultan has gotten used to having her around and decides to keep her.
Her motivation—to stay alive. Surely the most fundamental of all motivations.
His motivation – to hear the end of the story.

I have not talked extensively here about the magic ingredient in any story, conflict. It is so complex a topic it deserves to be treated in a later blog.

This is the sixth in a series of articles on craft by Blair McDowell. For the others go to the Category, The Craft of Writing Fiction.

  • Which Comes First, Setting, Characters or plot?
  • On Voice
  • The Influence of Place on Plot
  • I Don’t Follow Umbrellas
  • The “O” word and Character Portrayal

Buy Blair’s books at The Memory of Roses Web Page, and Abigail’s Christmas Web Page.

Abigail’s Christmas was awarded Four Hearts by Sizzling Book Reviews!
“Abigail’s Christmas is a sweet and special story that honors both love and the holidays.”
Read the full review……

Watch for Blair’s newest book, Delighting in Your Company , to be released by Rebel Ink Press in March 2012.

Posted in Abigail's Christmas, Books of Blair McDowell, Delighting in Your Company, Sonata, The Craft of Writing Fiction, The Memory of Roses | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Christmas Away From Home

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Blair McDowell

There is no lonelier time of the year than Christmas for someone away from home and alone. It seems that the rest of the world is composed of couples or family groups. Restaurants are filled with party revelers, shoppers in happy clutches hurry from store to store chatting and laughing, their arms filled with bags and boxes. Recorded carols spill out onto the sidewalk adding to the joyous cacophony. You weave your way through all this. Isolated. Unseen. You think this is what it must be like to be invisible. This is what it is to be alone and far from home at Christmas.

The reasons for your aloneness could be one of many. You may have chosen to take a job in a distant city. Perhaps there has been a recent divorce, or even a death in your family that has left you alone. You survive. That’s all anyone can do. The rest of the year, being alone is bearable. At times even pleasant. But at Christmas time survival somehow is much harder. At Christmas, aloneness is almost intolerable. No one to laugh with. No one to trim a tree or share an eggnog with. One feels a bit like the proverbial boy with his face pressed against the window of the candy shop.

What to do? Go back to the lonely apartment and eat a dinner of scrambled eggs? Stop in a restaurant and sit at a table for one, watching other tables of twos, fours and sixes eating and laughing together?

I remember one Christmas like that in my life. In my case it wasn’t because friends didn’t invite me to join them. It was because in the depth of despair over my husband’s death I didn’t want to be around happy people celebrating new beginnings. I didn’t want anything to intrude on my misery. Looking back, I realize that wasn’t a very healthy or productive way to handle things.

Last Christmas, when I had long ago shaken off the shackles of grief and rejoined the human race, I started thinking about how a young woman might cope with being alone on Christmas Eve in a city far from friends and family. What would she do instead of isolating herself from the human race as I had? I started writing. The result was the short story, Abigail’s Christmas. Abigail was much smarter than I was. She knew that it was important in life to keep going. And to accept the unexpected as a gift.

 

Abigail’s Christmas was awarded Four Hearts by Sizzling Book Reviews!
“Abigail’s Christmas is a sweet and special story that honors both love and the holidays.”

Read the full review……

Buy Blair’s books at The Memory of Roses Web Page, and Abigail’s Christmas Web Page.

Watch for Blair’s newest book, Delighting in Your Company and Sonata, to be released by Rebel Ink Press in 2012.

 

Posted in Abigail's Christmas, Books of Blair McDowell, Seasonal | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sirmione, Lake Garda, Italy

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Blair McDowell

 

Lake Garda, Italy

The sun is an orange ball suspended low in the sky, its color reflected across the ripples of the water as I sit on my balcony overhanging Italy’s Lake Garda. It is warm now, with just the hint of a breeze stirring the trees, but there is cooler weather on the way. Church bells are ringing, first close, then more distant, then from across the lake. Five o’clock mass. On the flagstone terrace below me there are palm trees and lemon trees, bright geraniums in pots and masses of bougainvillea climbing old stone walls.

We arrived here around two this afternoon. After flying from Canada to Frankfurt, we had a few hours of sleep and a quick breakfast of rolls and coffee before continuing on by plane and train to Sirmione, this fourteenth century walled town on a finger of land jutting out into a lake that extends north all the way to the Italian Alps.

At our favorite small inn, the Marconi, Mama Visani tells us lunch is finished but she’ll make us something to tide us over until dinner. We sit on the terrace in the sun and enjoy a luscious thin crust pizza accompanied by light fruity white wine, while Carlo takes our bags up to our room.

Then, before even unpacking, we pull on our bathing suits and go down for a swim in the lake, surrounded by ducks and sea gulls. The water is surprisingly warm for October. As we tread water a huge white swan glides majestically by us, not three feet away, totally unconcerned by our presence.

We sit on the dock in the warm sun long enough for our bathing suits to dry before we give into the sleepiness that is a sure sign of jet lag.

We awake at sunset. From our balcony we watch the ferry that plies the lake from one end to the other, chugging past on its way to the town dock. A mist is creeping across the lake. The other side is invisible now. Silver lake meets silver sky. One lone swimmer is in the water, catching what is probably the last swimming day of the year. The now dull sun, a pale reflection streaked with purple, is setting into a cloud bank behind the hills. The promise of cooler, wetter weather tomorrow.

The birds have retreated to their night time places.

The French call this time of day l’heure bleu, the blue hour. Here it seems an appropriate term.

There are few places in the world where one can feel utterly at peace. For me this is one of them. I haven’t yet set a book here, but one is brewing in my mind.

Blair McDowell
Sirmione, Lake Garda, Italy
Written on 5 October 2011

Buy Blair’s books at The Memory of Roses Web Page, and Abigail’s Christmas Web Page.

Abigail’s Christmas was awarded Four Hearts by Sizzling Book Reviews!
“Abigail’s Christmas is a sweet and special story that honors both love and the holidays.”
Read the full review……

Watch for Blair’s newest book, Delighting in Your Company , to be released by Rebel Ink Press in March 2012.

Posted in Travel | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

And So To Bed

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Blair McDowell

Last night I fell out of bed. Being of mature years and — shall we say -generous proportions, nothing much was hurt except my pride, but the experience got me to thinking about Italian beds. They are 30 inches wide. An American single bed is 39 inches. An Italian single bed is 30. You can’t turn over in an Italian single bed without falling out of it.

To make a double or what they call “matrimonial” bed, the Italians push two thirty inch beds together and stretch double sheets across them. It must work for them because I see lots of Italian babies around. But my ever inquisitive author’s mind can’t help but wonder how they manage. If they use the two beds pushed together, someone is going to be uncomfortably over the crack in the bed. If they opt to use only one bed — one 30 inch bed — there are only three positions I can think of that would not involve one or the other of them falling out of bed. And those three are all rather dull positions. I can’t imagine the passionate, immaginative Italians being satisfied with them.

Of course we all know a bed is not absolutely essential to love making. There are planes, trains and automobiles. There are coat closets and shower stalls, sofas, desk tops and even elevators if you know how to stop them between floors. And there are beaches. In The Memory of Roses I had Brit and Andreas make love for the first time on a beach on Corfu in the moonlight. Romantic? Yes and no. To be highly romantic it had to be spontaneous-but comfortable, I hope Andreas brought along a blanket. You do NOT want sand in some of those places.

But back to Italian beds. I can’t say for sure how Italians manage, but in the interest of scientific and literary research I feel I should do some investigating. I’ll let you know what I find out.

Written in Lake Garda, Italy
10 October 2011

Posted in Humour, Travel | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The “O” Word and Character Portrayal

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Blair McDowell

Two recent experiences have made me consider yet again the subject of character development and portrayal. I’ve been reading a series of books by the late Michael Dibdin in which the central character is a detective named Aureleo Zen. In the seven Zen books I have read thus far, Zen is pictured in one as the only honest detective in Rome, in the next as bumbling and rather dull, in a third as intelligent and insightful, always searching out the truth, and in another as on the take, willing to accept money from a murderer in return for looking the other way. Will the real Zen please stand up!

Dibdin clearly never decided who his character was. The central character in each book is named as Aureleo Zen, but there the similarity begins and ends from book to book. I like and admire some of Dibdin’s Zens, and detest others.

Why do I keep reading these uneven novels? Because Dibdin is a past master at setting a scene. His descriptive passages are unparalleled. His prose is simply gorgeous. There is much to learn by reading Dibdin. But at creating and maintaining character, he is hopeless.

My second experience with poorly realized characters was an opera. Now don’t stop reading just because I used the “O” word. The stories of operas are the epitome of romance and romantic illusion. Their plots could have come from a book by Nora Roberts.

The opera in question is The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart. The libretto, the dialogue, was written by Lorenza Da Ponte back in the 1700′s. Now Da Ponte was a man who knew how to draw characters. There are two interwoven stories in Figaro. The heroine, a Countess, is saddened by her husband’s repeated infidelities. She suffers with great dignity and at the end of the opera, when the Count comes to her, repentant and contrite, she forgives him. The subplot involves the upcoming wedding of the Count’s servant, Figaro, to Suzanna, the Countess’ maid. There is brilliant interplay between the lightness of Figaro and Suzanna’s love and the darkness and disillusionment of the marriage between the Count and Countess. Sound like a plot from a Women’s Fiction novel? Da Ponte drew his characters with merciless precision and Mozart’s music underlines these portrayals precisely and beautifully.

But the Director of the production I had the misfortune to see recently in Venice’s La Fenice Opera House did not even comprehend, let alone reflect, the Da Ponte characterizations. The “updated” version I saw had all the sex and violence of a bad TV show, everyone attacking everyone else with guns and knives and poison when they weren’t engaged in extraneous sex with varied partners. There was no differentiation at all among the characters. They were all dark and amoral. They were all violent and venal.

Only the valiant effort of a cast of first rate singers and Mozart’s glorious music made the evening endurable. The audience at La Fenice had the good sense to “Boo” the director loudly when he came onstage at the end of the performance.

How can anyone so misread characters? There is no interest in any work where all the characters are cut from the same cloth, whether that cloth is light and bright or dark and dismal. Characters in a book, or in an opera, must be, as they are in life, diverse.

As writers, I believe we must know our characters well before we start weaving them into stories. Who are they? Where did they come from? What is their background, education, social position, religious persuasion? What are their emotional hang-ups and how do they cope with them?

In The Memory of Roses, my heroine, Brit McQuaid, is flawed. She distrusts men, and with good reason. Much of the book is about her recognizing and coming to terms with this. The Memory of Roses is on a certain level the story of a young woman’s journey toward self -understanding.

Characters, to be real, must have flaws. On the other hand even the most villainous of characters must have some redeeming qualities if they are to appear to be more than comic book caricatures.

If our characters aren’t real to us as writers, they won’t take on life for our readers. To return to Michael Dibdin, his Aurelio Zen lacks the consistency of behavior we expect from well drawn characters.

And as for last night’s performance of The Marriage of Figaro, when the Countess threw herself out of a window in the last scene — something never envisioned by either Da Ponte or Mozart — I could only wish it had been the director making that long fall rather than the soprano.

It is to be expected that characters undergo change in the course of their stories. They should grow as they resolve their external problems and their inner conflicts. But at some central core they must remain true to themselves. This, I believe, is at the heart of good writing.

Written in Venice
15 October 2011

Posted in Books of Blair McDowell, The Craft of Writing Fiction, The Memory of Roses | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bacon and Eggs and Venice

Posted on October 6, 2011 by Blair McDowell

I have just served my last portion of bacon and eggs for the season; my partner has just baked her last scones. We run a B&B on the West Coast of Canada six months of the year, March through September. This year we’ve served more than 700 breakfasts. That’s a lot of eggs, as well as a lot of bed making and loads of laundry. But it was all worth it. Now we reap the benefits. We get to throw clothes into our carry-on suitcases and head for the airport.

This year we’re again starting in Venice, the scene of the denouement of The Memory of Roses. I will get to walk and traverse the canals in vaporetti and gondolas, the path my heroine, Brit, took after her shocking discoveries about her father’s past as she rushes back to the arms of her lover, Andreas.

It is no accident that I chose Venice for this important scene in my book. It is a city so breathtakingly beautiful, so dramatic in each and every vista that it calls out for mystery and romance. It is a setting just waiting for a story, as countless famous authors in the past have realized.

The Memory of Roses is set on the Greek island of Corfu, but in the following scene, Andreas and Brit have just arrived in Venice.

“I think you’ll like this place,” Andreas explained. “I always stay here when I come to Venice.”
They climbed a long flight of stairs to the pensione and were shown to a small, comfortably furnished room on the front.
Brit went to the tall windows, looked out and drew in her breath sharply.
Andreas came up behind her and encircled her with his arms. “I think this is the most beautiful view in Venice,” he said.
She leaned against him. Together they gazed across the Grand Canal, to the magnificent colonnaded marble church and monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore on its own small island in the Lagoon. Below them the waters teamed with vaporetti, private motor launches and boats filled with produce heading for the market, water taxis, and, slipping silently among them, beautiful black gondolas decorated in gold and red, some hundreds of years old, navigated by striped shirted gondoliers wearing the same traditional straw hats they had worn for generations.
Andreas said, “This is the reason I prefer this little guest house to any of the larger hotels in Venice. I know of none of them with such a view of Venice. Just wait until you see it at sunset.”
“Can we go for a walk?” Brit asked. “I want to see the Piazza San Marco. I’ve wanted to see it all my life, but somehow, I never wanted to come here alone. If any city was meant for lovers, I think Venice is.”

When her father dies, Brit McQuaid inherits a villa on the beautiful island of Corfu, a villa she knew nothing about. He also left a cryptic note asking that she deliver a package to a woman on Corfu with whom he was once in love, while married to Brit’s mother.

This launches a journey for Brit, taking her from San Francisco to Greece and Italy. Along the way she meets a sizzling Greek archaeologist who not only helps her unravel a powerful secret from the past, but shows her the path to her own future. After this adventure, Brit’s life will be changed forever.

Buy The Memory of Roses at Amazon.com, AllRomance.com and EbookStrand.com

Posted in Books of Blair McDowell, The Memory of Roses, Travel | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

The Memory of Roses by Blair McDowell - Book Trailer

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Blair McDowell

Watch this video to learn more about Blair McDowell’s latest novel, The Memory of Roses, now available for sale on Amazon.com, AllRomance.com and EbookStrand.com.

Excerpt from The Memory of Roses:

From the distance there was an ominous rumbling. Andreas went to the door. Great thunder clouds were blotting out the horizon, moving rapidly toward them. The sky was almost black. A streak of lightening illuminated the sky, followed closely by a loud clap of thunder. Then the rain came in great sheets.

He turned back to Brit to discover that she had turned quite white.

“I’ve never liked thunder storms,” she confessed. “When I was little, my father told me that Zeus was angry, and was throwing thunderbolts. He always assured me they were not being thrown at me, but, to this day,” she gave a small mirthless laugh, “to this day, I always want to run and hide when I hear thunder close by.”

Andreas pulled her close. “I’ve done nothing that could anger Zeus. Just stay here safe in my arms until the storm passes.” He kissed the top of her head. “Brit, I love you so. Why do you keep resisting me?”

Brit nestled her head against Andreas’ chest. “After what happened last night between us, how can you possibly say I resist you. You are without a doubt the most irresistible man I’ve ever known.”

He shook his head in frustration. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. I’m not looking for a short affair, however sexually satisfying. I want marriage. I want a home, a wife, children.”

Brit pushed him away with a short, sarcastic laugh. “That’s the woman’s line, Andreas. That’s what the woman always says, isn’t it? I want a home, a husband, children. But I’m not saying that to you. You have never heard me say those words to you.”

Her voice took on a harsh, angry edge. “You’re too young to even know what you want. You think you’re in love with me? What will you think when I’m forty and you’re only thirty-four? When I’m sixty and you’re still a man in his prime?”

Andreas looked at her, shock written on his face.

With a sob, Brit turned and ran outside into the storm. Swearing, Andreas ran after her. By the time he reached her they were both soaking wet. He scooped her up effortlessly into his arms and walked swiftly with her the rest of the way back to the villa. There he stripped off her wet clothes, dried her body and her hair roughly with towels as her teeth chattered, and dumped her unceremoniously onto their bed, covering her shivering body with a thick down duvet. Then he stripped off his own wet clothing and joined her. Wordlessly he made love to her, bringing her body quickly to the heat only passion can create.

When they lay, exhausted and still, he murmured, “I will want you when I am eighty-five and you are ninety-one. I will go to my grave wanting you.”

 

Posted in Books of Blair McDowell, The Memory of Roses | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment