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Writing An Homage

March 21, 2022 / Gigi Lynn

My dad likes to watch British mysteries. On my last trip to Idaho, I wrote during the day. In the evening we watched old episodes of Poirot, based on Agatha Christie’s novels. I had never read any of Agatha Christie’s works. I was intrigued.

Mystery Inspired by Agatha Christie

From 1920 through 1973, Agatha Christie wrote 66 mystery novels, 14 short story collections, and plays, one of which is The Mousetrap, which is the world’s longest-running play. The Mousetrap has been performed continuously (except for Covid) since 1952. She also wrote six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.

Many of her works have been adapted for television, film (30 of them), radio, and the stage. She holds the honor of having the most translated works by a single author.

Okay, she is a big deal.

Veiled In Mist–a romance, but also a mystery

Veiled In Mist, my newest novella, is my Regency Romance nod of respect to the extraordinary Agatha Christie.

It didn’t start out that way. When I finished The Lies We Tell, the second full-length novel in the Illusions Series, I started right in on the third novel–The Masks We Wear, but I couldn’t get Lady Helen Ramsgate out of my mind. He father had been caught working with the local smuggling gang. Their family was in disgrace. She retreated to the Phoenix House to live in seclusion.

How could I just leave her there? So, I started writing a little romance for Helen.

For years, I have heard other writers talk about how their characters take over and want something different than they planned. I always thought those stories were flights of fancy, told for marketing purposes. It so happens that those stories are true. At least it has been true for me—every single time.

The girls of the Phoenix House, a school for reforming girls, wanted to tell scary stories on a stormy night. And the former occupants of the house—when it used to be The Hydra House, a gambling hell and brothel weren’t finished with their business there. Poor Lady Helen got pulled into their plots.

Suddenly my little romance novella took on elements of a mystery. I had to research closed circle or locked room mysteries and found Agatha Christie’s name again.

I don’t claim to be anything near the mystery writer that Christie was. However, I did sometimes feel her shade leaning over my shoulder as I tried my hand at weaving a little mystery into my romance.

I hope you enjoy reading my romance/mystery novella as much as I enjoyed writing it. Veiled In Mist, releases on Amazon (and Kindle Unlimited) this week.

In Defense of Brain Candy

February 21, 2022 / Gigi Lynn

Brain Candy? What is that? Some people call it light reading, some genre fiction. These are stories and novels that have a greater mainstream appeal than traditional literature. They are more accessible and easier to read.

Don’t get me wrong. I love “Literature” with the capital L. The poetry, short stories and novels that have endured over time have changed the way I see the world and myself. Some of my most powerful moments have come through reading the beautiful words of great authors and poets.

So, why do I advocate for Brain Candy? I’ll list a few of my top reasons.

There is nothing like reading lighter fiction to relieve stress. Sometimes I just have to let go of all the problems and worries of my life. For some reason reading a good book (one that doesn’t require a more active study) is better for stress relief than watching a movie or playing a game.

I sleep better if I separate at the end of the day for a little while. I’m not thinking about what I did or didn’t do. I’m not planning for tomorrow. My heartbeat slows down. I breathe easier. I relax. I can’t understate the importance of better sleep.

I believe, I hope that fiction, stories about other people, help me to be more empathetic. I can walk in another person’s shoes for awhile. Reading also creates a safe place to explore difficult emotions and difficult situations. It allows me to step out of myself and experience different viewpoints and different experiences.

I’m very hopeful that all reading, including brain candy, is going to help me keep more brain power. The old adage “use it or lose it” resonates with me more and more each day.

One last reason I believe that reading Brain Candy is valuable is that it is a pleasure. I am happier when I read.

It might be better even than the finest chocolate. What have you read recently just for fun?

Asking

February 14, 2022 / Gigi Lynn

My Starting a Business Class, challenged me to do the paperclip trade. This is where you take an item of very little value and ask people to trade something better for your item. Then you trade again, and again. (The first man who did this traded fourteen times, over more than a year, eventually ending up with a house).

I’m not trying to get a house, although if you want to give me one, I won’t turn it down. I would like to get some more followers on my social media. I’m trying to learn more about marketing and networking. And I want to spread a little love and romance.

I do write romance novels.

I started my trade by offering a bookmark. For fun, I put the bookmark in my first novel and put it up on my social media and the local online classifieds and Craigslist.

After three days, I now have a $20 gift card from Crumbl to trade.

One of my classmates took the challenge and started with a mechanical pencil. Then he went door to door in his neighborhood and asked people what they would trade. A week later, he has a TV. It didn’t even occur to me to ask the neighbors. Why not?

And this is what I’ve discovered so far in this challenge. I don’t like to ask people to give to me. This isn’t really a strength for writing or for business. I can’t write books in a vacuum. I need other writers and readers. I need to build a community. Luckily, I have also found that the writing world is a generous and supportive culture. and my readers have been AMAZING!

Writing books and learning how to run the business of getting them out there to be read, all of this is outside my comfort zone, but outside your comfort zone is where most of the good stuff is. So, I will start asking. How about you? Is this your challenge, or do you feel comfortable asking for help or for what you need? I’d love to hear your story.

The Moment of Suspension: Can it be good?

January 10, 2022 / Gigi Lynn

I’m writing my 5th book this year. From April 2021 to now, I’ve finished two full length novels and two novellas. At some point in every novel or novella that I have written so far, I have found myself in an uncomfortable, paralyzing moment. I’m there now in my third full length novel.

Sometimes the moment lasts a few days or a week. Sometimes it lasts a month or more. During the writing of one novel, I paused (clutched) long enough that I wrote an entire separate novella before getting back into the groove with the novel.

During that time, even though I was writing daily, I experienced incredible angst about that half-finished work. Those characters loomed over me during the day and haunted my sleep at night.

I don’t know if my experience is universal or specific to me. I don’t know if this is a process that only happens with writing or if it is common in other artistic endeavors as well. (And I don’t know if it is wise for an author/creator to admit that she experiences this). But I thought maybe talking about it will help someone else. It never hurts to remind myself that, thus far, I have finished every novel or novella I’ve started. I will finish this one too.

I’ve read books on writing. I’ve listened to podcasts and read blogs on writing. Some advice is helpful, but I believe every writer, every artist, every creator is different. We all have to find the rhythm and process that works for us. I’m also beginning to believe that what works on one work, in one time, may need to change for the next. I am trying to learn to be comfortable with that. The creative process is just that–a process (changing, growing, moving) and creative (varied, fluid, surprising, challenging). It is by nature a non-linear, non-traditional undertaking.

My questions today are: Are those moments of temporary suspension, of blockage always negative? Could there be a useful purpose to the pause, the questions, the pushing through? Are they perhaps a necessary part of the process? What do you think?

What Is Your Song?

December 1, 2021 / Gigi Lynn

Do you have a song? One particular song that represents the beginning or flowering of your romance. How did it become your song? Do you play it on special occasions? Or do you just remember vividly when you chance to hear it?

What is it about music that speaks to us so powerfully?

I don’t understand it, but that power isn’t new. Archeologists have found flutes made of bones and mammoth ivory that are over 40,000 years old. But instruments and song may be older than that. Charles Darwin, in The Descent of Man, suggested that our language abilities may have started with singing–a long and deep foundation for our pleasure in music.

Scientist say that making music aids in the development of reasoning and language, improves coordination and creative thinking among other things. And most of us began learning reading skills by singing the ABCs. We tend to remember what we learn through song.

Who hasn’t experienced that vivid, sensual (in the context of senses) memory brought through music? Do you remember tastes, colors, smells associated with certain music?

So, Christmas carols, dance/exercise music, hymns, our writing or study playlists may remind us and motivate us? But they also change us.

I ask again. Do you have a song? What is it? How did it become your song? What happens to you when you hear it?

Build a world

November 7, 2021 / Gigi Lynn

culture

I have been thinking about culture. I’m defining culture here as that unspoken ‘knowledge’ that a group of people share. The things that we never question because we are sure that everyone understands, accepts, and experiences the same. Every family has a culture–a way of doing things and thinking that every family member assumes is universal (but often isn’t).

And isn’t that one of the challenges of the first little while of a marriage? Two people who love each other come face to face with another family culture and live with a person who has never seen life done differently or considered that there might be another way? Maybe even a better way. In most successful relationships, both people have to open their minds to other possibilities. Most create a new family culture, melded from the two that they came from.

Most books have a culture too. All writers, in one way or another, create a world.

I met this challenge this week in my writing group. One friend read my piece for the first time. (We can’t all of us read all of the writing. We choose a few pieces, and it mostly works out that every author has a few people reviewing and giving feedback). This friend isn’t a romance reader. He writes fantasy/science fiction, so he tends to choose those pieces that are closer to his wheelhouse, so to speak. But this week he read my piece. While giving feedback, he said something like, “And what is keeping these two apart. She’s just making a big deal about nothing, IMO.”

It isn’t fantasy, but Regency England is an unfamiliar world that I try to build/reveal in my novels. It has a very different culture that made no sense to this 21st century man and writer of fantasy worlds. This is a world where a girl can’t dance more than twice with the same man in an evening without endangering her reputation. If a single man and woman are discovered alone, perhaps in the garden outside the hot ballroom, he is honor bound to offer marriage. Name, position, history, and reputation–and money of course, determine a person’s future. And if the reputation of one person in the family is ruined, all suffer the consequence. (Think Lizzie in Pride and Prejudice after Lydia runs away with Wickham).

So, I’ve been thinking about culture. Have you ever been forced to question the way your family, your community, your culture does things? What caused the questions? What happened?

And what worlds, what cultures have you most enjoyed in your reading? Why?

hand holding a picture frame in front of vista

Write What You Know

October 31, 2021 / Gigi Lynn

Write what you know. You’ve heard it before. I think people say that hoping to de-mystify writing, to make it sound easier, doable for all of us.

I see three problems with this imperative.

One is that I only know so much. There is another saying that everyone has at least one book in them. I believe that. But if I only write what I know, I may only have one book in me. But I have a need to write more.

Two is the question of imagination, creation, and exploration. Where are those things if we stay in the lines of what we know? What about all those worlds out there that I don’t know yet? I want to explore those.

Three is perhaps the most difficult. What I do know, what seems most important for me to capture and express, are the most difficult things to capture and express. I have experienced kindness, and sacrifice, and selfless service. I know devotion, loyalty, romance, and love. I have seen beauty, friendship, joy. I also know sorrow, and loss, and regret. Reverence, and grace, and faith are very real to me. These I try to capture in words. And that is the biggest challenge. How do I put the reality of these emotions and experiences into words.

Write what you know. It does sound simple. But it is a quest, an adventure, and often a frustration and agony. Maybe that is one kind of writer’s block–being filled with a knowing that no words can capture and describe. I am compelled to keep trying.

Unfiltered

October 17, 2021 / Gigi Lynn

Recently, I had an opportunity to guest blog for RWSL. So for today, you get a little bit of writing technique advice. Don’t close down yet. It’s not an English class. This might help in your own writing or speaking or social posts. So here goes.

In my writing group, we’ve been talking about filters. It’s made me hyper-sensitive to words and phrases that separate my readers from my action. Editing these filters has strengthened my writing. So let’s talk about filtering here.

The phrase ‘filtering’ comes from Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway. She writes, “you step back and ask readers to step back and observe the observer—to look at [the character] rather than through the character—you start to tell-not-show and rip us briefly out of the scene.” Filters are words that come between our readers and our character’s point of view or their experience. They pull the reader out of the action.

Once you’ve become aware, you’ll begin to notice filters everywhere, and I guarantee that you’ll want to banish them as much as possible from your writing. Here is an example (filters in bold). First draft and edited excerpt from The Lies We Tell by Gigi Lynn:

The rocking of the carriage and the bumps in the road kept me holding onto my seat. I thought miserably about the day. I looked down at the boy’s clothes I wore, now much worse for the drying mud. I asked myself what did I have to show for my unladylike defiance and descent into immodesty?

I found a maid I no longer wanted but lost a dog I did. I had no papers, and I had no more information about what Hugh was doing. I asked myself, what did all of this have to do with me? I had never been involved in Hugh’s vices. I told myself shouldn’t feel responsible. I knew I wasn’t equipped to expose smugglers or fight women who ran brothels. I had been taught to be a lady. I realized that I had no other skills. What a muddle I had made of things I thought in discouragement.

The rocking of the carriage and the bumps in the road kept me holding onto my seat. What a miserable day. My boy’s clothes stuck to me, more disreputable for the mud. And what did I have to show for my unladylike defiance and descent into immodesty?

I found a maid I no longer wanted but lost a dog I did. I had no papers and no more information about what Hugh was doing. What did all of this have to do with me? I had never been involved in Hugh’s vices. I wasn’t responsible. I wasn’t equipped to expose smugglers or fight women who ran brothels. I was taught to be a lady. I had no other skills. What a muddle I had made of things.

When we take out the words that come before the action, our readers will experience the action and emotions more immediately. They will be in the story, living what happens along with the character.

Now that you’ve seen what a difference filtering makes, you’ll start noticing phrases like:

I watched as— She realized that— He noticed— He saw that— I felt like— She knew— I decided right then that— It seemed— He wondered— She thought— She heard— It sounded like— There are others, but you get the idea.

It’s our goal to have readers enter our stories. We want them to feel what our characters feel. We want them to experience the action with our character, not through our character. If we remove most of the filters from our writing, our readers will more vividly experience every action and emotion in our stories. so let’s write unfiltered!

“Gigi Lynn grew up in Las Vegas, devouring romance novels like they were candy. She studied and later taught English literature and writing—and continued to read romance novels voraciously. She raised seven children and read to them every day—and often read romance novels for fun or escape. She always said she would write one day. One day is now! She recently published two regency romance novels and a novella. Another novella will go live mid-October 2021.

A Handmade Gift

October 10, 2021 / Gigi Lynn

What do you give your family for their birthdays?

A few years ago, my husband and I attended the funeral for the mother of a good friend of his. He had spent a lot of time in their home, and she had made him feel a part of their family. The funeral was a sweet tribute to her and a celebration of her life.

I was touched me by the stories that her grandchildren told of letters she sent to them on their birthdays every year. In those once a year birthday letters she would reminisce about what she did and how she felt when she was their age. What a precious gift this woman left to her children and grandchildren.

I would like to say that I started right then to write birthday letters to my grandchildren. I didn’t. First, I’m not sure I could remember enough about my childhood to accurately describe what I did and how I felt. And I felt a little like I was starting too late (which looking back I realize is ridiculous). Regardless, I didn’t do it.

What special, personal, intimate gifts you give to your loved ones-your family, your dear friends? I’d love to hear from you.

One thing I have done is make a quilt for each of my grandbabies. I haven’t always been timely with this gift, but before they turn two, they have a quilt from Mimi.

In my family, this has been an exercise in quilt binging because the babies seem to come in batches. So a few years ago and again this last two months, I made five baby quilts.

I hope you enjoy seeing what I do when I’m not writing, researching, or reading.

What topics do you research?

September 19, 2021 / Gigi Lynn

Spying: Part One of a Three Part Series

Research is the one avoidance behavior I don’t feel too guilty about. I find the most interesting information while researching for my books. While my time spent delving into Regency England informs my writing, I can’t put everything I find in the stories. For fun, I want to take a few weeks and share some stories I’ve found about spying during the Napoleonic war.

Both England and France collected information, discredited their enemy’s diplomats, and even planned assassinations. I hope you enjoy reading about a few Napoleonic era spies.

This week, meet Karl (Charles) Ludwig Schulmeister, Austrian double agent for France.

Karl Ludwig Schulmeister Unknown artist – www.servimg.com

Charles was one of Napoleon’s most successful secret agents. His father was at various times a metalworker, grocer, shopkeeper, smuggler, and a Lutheran minister in Baden. Charles was raised as a shepherd, ³ but later became a smuggler in Strasbourg. One of the things he traded was information. ²

Charles gathered contacts among the French. One of his contacts, General Anne-Jean-Marie-Rene Savary, was aide-de-camp to Napoleon and recruited him to work for Napoleon. He was sent to Vienna to find out the plans of General Mack, the commander of the Austrian Army.⁴

Once in Austria, he claimed he was a Hungarian noble who had been exiled from France. He began to move in aristocratic circles and soon met General Baron Karl Mack von Leiberich. ⁴ He persuaded Mack that he represented royalist opposition to Napoleon and gave him secret data about the French army (Given to him by under Napoleon’s orders).

Now trusted by General Mack, Schulmeister was made chief of intelligence in Mack’s army.

Taking information from Schulmeister, Napoleon printed false newspapers and letters reporting unrest in the French army. Mack believed that the British were landing a force and that France was close to an uprising and were retreating. When Mack pursued the French, he was surrounded by their “retreating army.” He had no choice but to surrender. Napoleon won one of his most famous victories at the battle of Austerlitz. He captured Vienna and Schulmeister became chief of police.¹

At various times during the war, Schulmeister acted as a General in Napoleon’s army, was active in espionage in England and Ireland, and was director of the French Secret Service.²

Schulmeister set up an effective cluster of spies from Napoleon’s enemies in the East. After Napoleon’s success at Austerlitz, he told his officers “Gentlemen, all respect to Charles, who I estimate highly, because he was worth an army corps of 40,000 men to me.”³Schulmeister wanted to be awarded the Legion of Honor, but Napoleon later said that “gold is the only suitable reward for spies.” ¹

After Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and exiled, Schulmeister was arrested. He bought his freedom with his fortune. Nearly penniless, he received a a tobacco stand from an old friend in Strasbourg. He was able to earn a small income until he died of heart failure.³

I thought it interesting that Napoleon used Schulmeister for his information but didn’t trust him or respect him. His death in poverty seems a just end.

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