Author: Kay Keppler

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Day 21: The Gift of the Wise Man

A man walks in Minsk, Belarus, November 22, 2008. (Xinhua/AFP Photo published on sina.com)

Welcome the 8LW 25 Days of Stories.  Yesterday we had a lighthearted story about Maximilian Tropes, King of Romancelandia.  Today’s story is a heart-warming tale, based on the same story prompt of “what if your character received an anonymous/mysterious/unexpected gift?” and the following words: northern, blinking, warm, kingdom, seed, social, knuckle, bittersweet, dove, bauble, pure, invitation, coat, sticky, aversion, and challenge.

Courtesy of 8L Kay, here is today’s story.

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The Gift of the Wise Man

The pale winter light was fading rapidly from the northern sky as Birdy Dove entered the warm kitchen. She hung her coat on the peg by the door and accepted the unspoken invitation of her brother to join him at the hearth. She sat down with a sigh and stretched out her cold hands to the flame.

“How’s things in the kingdom?” he asked, his eyes on the piece of wood he was whittling. He’d cut his knuckle, Birdy saw, but he’d promised the twins a new doll, so a new doll they would have, if he cut off all his fingers to do it. Not that that was likely. He was an artist, pure and simple. The doll—or two of them, if luck held and time was generous—would not be much of a challenge for him.

“The kingdom is brilliant,” Birdy said. “The Abbotts gave us a Christmas goose and all the fixings. They’ll deliver it tomorrow. They said I need not come in to sweep or scrub for a week, and they’d pay me my wages in full. They’ll also pay for the twins’ school tuition and send you to apprentice with that sculptor fellow, Mr. Eakins. And they promised to find me a suitor. And you a wife, if you want one.” Continue reading →

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Day 10: Botticelli Pizza

Photo courtesy of fearlesshomemaker.com

Welcome the 8LW 25 Days of Stories.  Today we’ve got a “Happily Ever After” story, with pizza.  This “Christmas Week Short Story Challenge” — a holiday version of our Friday Writing Sprints — features (some if not all) of the following words: secret, story, diary, snowflake, diamond, snuggle, forest, catastrophe, plan, buffet, traffic, surprise, signature, memory, flamingo, and whisky.

So here, courtesy of 8L Kay, is today’s story.

Botticelli Pizza

For some insane reason, I decided I wanted to throw my parents a surprise buffet party for their anniversary at Christmas. I’d fretted about it for weeks—the menu diary, the signature cocktail, the tiered cake, the special music, the decorations, the tableware, the linens. I’d just started my catering company, and, I suppose, I wanted to show off.

Showing off—yeah, it’s always smart to try to show off on your first gig, in front of family, in December.

Why had my parents wanted to get married in December? Practically on Christmas Day? Continue reading →

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Day 3: ‘Twas Daybreak on Christmas

Welcome to the 8LW 25 Days of Stories.  Today we’re continuing with another story, based on the rules from the first year of our annual “Christmas Week Short Story Challenge” — a holiday version of our Friday Writing Sprints — featuring a short story of no more than 500 words including ‘Derbyshire’ and at least three of the following:  Darcy, Rhinoceros, Woolly, Admire, Love, Mine, Villain, Volcano, Ghost.  Extra kudos for including more than three, and kudos with sparkles for Christmas references.

So here, courtesy of 8L Kay, is today’s story — a fun mash-up of Pride and Prejudice and The Night Before Xmas.

‘Twas Daybreak on Christmas

Sleigh-Silhouette’Twas daybreak on Christmas, and all through the hall
All the servants were stirring, for tonight was the ball.
The Yule log was laid and the mistletoe hung,
In hopes that Sir Darcy’s fling would be flung.

Miss Lizzie still nestled all snug in her bed,
While nightmares of family danced in her head.
But Mary and Kitty, and Lydia, too,
Argued at breakfast about whom Darcy would woo.

Then out in the parlor there rose such a clatter
Jane sprang from the table to see to the matter.
Maids had dropped glasses, which smashed on the floor
The butler was livid and gave them what-for. Continue reading →

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Kay: Celebrate Banned Books Week!

This word cloud shows the issues most usually targeted in the challenged books of 2021

Well, friends, here in the good ol’ USA it’s Banned Books Week this week! Here’s to…not reading something challenging!

Founded in 1982 by the American Library Association (ALA), the Banned Books project was started to raise awareness of attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. Events this year include a virtual Banned Books Trivia Night and Banned Books Virtual Quiz, as well as more serious lectures and panel discussions.

According to the ALA, the most common book challenges in the decade leading up to 2016 deemed texts to be “sexually explicit,” containing “offensive language,” or as being “unsuited for a certain age group.” Books today are increasingly challenged for allegedly promoting religious or political viewpoints, particularly in relation to racial inequity and injustice and LGBTQIA+ inclusivity. The graphic for this post shows the issues most commonly raised. Continue reading →

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Kay: Hey, Kid, Wanna Buy a Book?

We all know that writing books is a lot different than selling them. The activity of it, as well as the mindset. When you write a book, you sit somewhere, stare at a blank screen, then open a vein and bleed on the keyboard. When you (try to) sell a book, you bang your head against a wall, sometimes accompanied by throwing money out the window.

The world of the author. Simple.

I’d decided at the beginning of the year that I’d take this time to try to straighten out my writing drawers, so to speak. I have a bunch of manuscripts sitting on my hard drive that needed revamping. And I haven’t sold more than a few copies of any of the books I did publish in years. It’s been all about the writing, right? That’s what I like to do. Writing is creative. It’s Andy Warhol, Beyonce, and Louise Penny all rolled into one. It’s where the magic lies. Selling… that’s for Willy Loman.

But Covid-19 gave me a lot of extra time, so I thought I must as well use it to fix up the languishing manuscripts, get new covers for everything, and do a few things to sell a few copies. Clean out the drawers!

I know you’re all wondering how that’s going so far. The mostly good news is: So far, so good. I got a couple books out, and the new covers are happening. But the sales effort! Friends, I am clueless.

What I have learned from Mark Dawson, David Gaughran, Ricardo Fayet at Reedsy, and a host of others, is that advertising pays. And based on their advice, I’ve thrown a bunch of money at Amazon and BookBub in an effort to increase sales. And it’s paying off! Sort of. That is, I’m breaking even or a little better, making back in sales what I’m putting out in costs.

But the mystery of it. Who’s buying my books? On Amazon and BookBub both, you can choose—within a range—where your ad shows up. You pick authors who you think are roughly like you, and your ad will show up when someone searches for that author. (All those irritating “sponsored” things you see on all the pages? That’s where I am. Maybe you’ve seen me there.)

I thought Janet Evanovich would be a lock for me. Turns out, no. Nothing like. But why the heck not? Her Stephanie Plum is a lot like my Phoebe Renfrew. My books are screwball comedies, like hers. Janet Evanovich readers should love my book.

And maybe they would, if they ever bought it. Maybe Janet Evanovich readers get their books from the library? Maybe that’s why I sold two copies to OverDrive? I have no clue.

Who was a lock? Jana DeLeon, an author I was unfamiliar with. I got her name by going to Janet Evanovich’s profile page on Amazon and seeing what her buyers also bought. And it turns out Janet Evanovich authors also buy Jana DeLeon. So I tried that, and then for a month I watched as readers who searched for books by Jana DeLeon saw my ad and bought my book. For more than a month, more than half my sales came through Jana DeLeon.

In the last couple of weeks, she’s fallen off precipitously. I guess that means that people who read Jana DeLeon who might be interested in my book already bought it, right? I think so. But I’m not sure. She’s got a huge audience. Surely I have not exhausted those folks yet.

And now, what else I don’t get? I bought an ad for the second book of the series. And it’s getting no traction whatsoever. I’m talking flatline. Book One, however, still is going gangbusters. “Gangbusters” by my standards, anyway.

So it’s all a mystery to me. What experience do you guys have with marketing? Any clues for the hapless?

And now, back to something easy. Like bleeding on the keyboard.

(P.S.: Which cover do you like?)

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Kay: Writing in Residence

Tao HouseA friend of mine recently was accepted as an artist in residence at Tao House, the former home of Eugene O’Neill located in Danville, California, which is a designated National Historic Site managed by the National Park Service. Applications are accepted year round, and artists are constantly in residence. 

Eugene O’Neill and his third wife Carlotta lived at Tao House for only seven years, the longest time that O’Neill had lived in any one place. In that time and already beset by illness, he wrote his best-known works: The Iceman Cometh, Hughie, A Moon for the Misbegotten, and Long Day’s Journey into Night, for which he received posthumously his fourth Pulitzer Prize. Continue reading →

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Kay: RIP, Leverage

Leverage

Publicity shot of the first Leverage cast.

I seem to spend more time talking about the television I watch than the books I read, but… I guess that’s the way it is right now. And I am here today to lament the reboot of Leverage, one of my favorite TV shows of all time.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the original show featured a bunch of crooks who banded together, initially unwillingly, to right a wrong. And then they made a career of it. The hitter, the hacker, the grifter, the thief. And the mastermind.

I loved that show. My favorite character was Parker, the thief, who unabashedly loved money and was so funny and innocent but also amoral: the perfect pickpocket and lockpicker. Together, though, these people could do anything, con anyone.

And I guess the management team at Electric Entertainment, which produced the original program, thought a reboot would be even better, so they brought back most of the original cast and shot a bunch of new episodes, now called Leverage: Redemption.

Friends, I am not happy. If I hadn’t seen the original, maybe I’d say there’s nothing wrong with the reboot. Most of the original cast returns. They’re still lovable. The new cast members are fine. The essential Robin-Hood-esque plot types are intact.

But to me, it’s a little bit off. The actors are a decade older. The handstands and backbends and splits that Parker did ten years ago to avoid laser alarms now look contrived. The giddiness of “Let’s steal an island!” seemed to fit better with younger characters. The new story lines have more explosions and chases. The fights go on longer. The cons don’t seem as intricate, and the storylines that compelled you to care (“They dumped toxins and my child got cancer; now they won’t pay for treatment”) are now bigger and more abstract. The beneficiaries are “thousands” of hungry children. I worry about hungry children in real life, but in a story, it helps to focus on just one.

I’m not into it.

It’s got a 9.1/10 rating on imDB, and every review I’ve read seems to love it. What about you? Have you seen the Leverage reboot? What do you think?

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Kay: Good News!

The proof copy! It’s brighter in real life, too.

I complain so often and so regularly about the problems I have with writing or publishing or marketing (or even finding topics to blog about) that when I fretted to a friend today about what I could talk about, she said, tell people that your book came out.

And I said, nobody cares about that, and she said, if they care about your complaining, why wouldn’t they care about your successes?

So that’s my news for this week: Ms. Matched came out, seventeen years after I first put pen to paper. It’s been three long revision passes, a 25 percent word reduction, and about six title changes, but finally this story has been taken out from under the bed, dusted off, and sent out into the world. I’m happy for her. She’s a cute little thing. And my critique partner Patricia said that I’d created a new genre, too! One that has no antagonist and no conflict of any kind. And she had to worry about something, so she worried about the gold fish. (Spoiler alert: the gold fish is fine.)

So that’s it for me today. Ms. Matched is flexing her muscle in the marketplace. While I am here, working on the revisions for the next book. And complaining about it, of course. What about you?

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Kay: Whitstable Pearl

whistable-pearl

Kerry Godliman as Pearl Nolan in Whitstable Pearl

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m a fan of mysteries, both to read and to watch on TV. Now that I subscribe to the Acorn channel, which showcases television primarily from the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but also from other EU countries, as well, I’m just about as happy as a pig in mud. There’s always something good on!

Continue reading →

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Kay: Writing to a Standstill

from Double Debt Single Woman

I have several manuscripts—all my early ones—sitting on my hard drive. Some time ago, I decided I should revise them into acceptable shape and put them out there.

Well, that’s easier said than done. The first one, which had had two heavy edits over the years, went great. It’s my first book, and in working on it again, I remembered how much fun I’d had with it all those years ago when I’d started it, how my spirits lifted every day when I sat down to it and I thought, I can do this. One light edit later, I finished it, and I’m happy with it. The cover’s done, and with luck, I’ll get it published in the next few weeks.

However, the second book is, as we say, another story altogether. When I wrote it all those years ago, my critique partner said several times that my hero wasn’t heroic enough, so I put it aside until I understood what she meant. Now I do. And I realized in shock that not only is my hero not heroic enough, he’s a jerk of the first water. How did that happen? Continue reading →