Jeanne Oates Estridge

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Day 24: Charlie’s Golden Anniversary

Welcome the 8LW 25 Days of Stories.  

This entry is based on the 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.

Anyone who is a fan of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or the movie starring Gene Wilder that was made from it, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, will recognize the characters below (except the new ones created and even those apples don’t fall far from their respective trees).

Without further ado, here is today’s story courtesy of 8L Jeanne.

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Charlie’s Golden Anniversary

Charlie Bucket opened the door of his chocolate factory and shivered. The courtyard was freezing. Overhead, a banner read, “Welcome Back Golden Ticketers!” Beneath the banner stood eight people. He rubbed his hands together. “Thank you all for coming today.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” A smooth-faced woman who looked like she’d been poured into her figure-hugging purple jumpsuit pushed forward, hauling a young girl along with her. The jumpsuit wasn’t the purple of royalty, but an obnoxious shade of puce that made Charlie want to squint, even in the thin winter sunlight.

She extended fingers encrusted with purple gemstones. “Amethyst Darlingstar.”

Charlie peered at her through his bifocals. “I’m sorry. I don’t recall inviting an Amethyst Darlingstar.”

The woman stretched her red lips into a smile, though not one other muscle in her face moved. “You knew me as Violet Beauregarde. I changed my name when I became an actress. Perhaps you’ve seen some of my films?” Continue reading →

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Day 20: The Queen of Tropes

Gold crown on red pillow

Welcome the 8LW 25 Days of Stories. We’re in the final stretch of our set of stories; I hope you’ve been enjoying them as much as we have. Today’s story is a lighthearted play on traditional story tropes. It features some if not all of the following words: northern, blinking, warm, kingdom, seed, social, knuckle, bittersweet, dove, bauble, pure, invitation, coat, sticky, aversion, and challenge.

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

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The Queen of Tropes

Dove Ledbetter turned in a slow circle, blinking as she took in her surroundings. Beyond an enormous picture window, the northern lights put on a spectacular Christmas show. Next to it, a huge stone fireplace warmed the huge room despite its cathedral ceiling.

Somehow, and she wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened, she was in a fancy hunting lodge. A moment before, she’d been binge-watching Hallmark Christmas movies and drinking the eggnog laced with rum she’d received the rum from her Secret Santa at the library where she worked.

At home she could indulge in all the romance she liked. At the library, they despised romance novels—the entire collection consisted of a single shelf of tattered Harlequins.

“Can I take your coat, darling?” An extravagantly handsome man in a tuxedo gave her a seductive smile.

She dragged her winter coat, which was missing two buttons and had a sticky spot where she’d spilled eggnog on it, more tightly around her. Continue reading →

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Jilly: Plot Preferences

Almost all my favorite stories are character driven. What I want most from a book is a main character I can commit to. I love to dive deep into their head and stay there, living every word of their challenges, actions, setbacks, dark moment and ultimate triumph.

That means I prefer books written in first or close third person point of view with a powerful internal plot—a character who desperately wants something and will grow and change over the story as they battle to achieve it.

However. With the exception (maybe) of category romances, which focus intensely on the internal plot, a great character driven story needs a robust external plot to provide a framework for the hero or heroine’s adventure. And some external plots engage me more strongly than others.

I’ve been mulling this over for a week or two, ever since I finally read Martha Wells’ Murderbot books (four pricy novellas and a novel so far). The internal story is fascinating, because in this world the characters with biggest personalities and most powerful emotions are not humans but bots, especially Murderbot. The fact that I bought and read all five books is a tribute to the author’s skill in creating Murderbot’s voice, personality and emotional arc, because the external plot is computer-based space opera. Murderbot’s adventures turn on data, systems, drones, hacking, viruses and killware, with spacecraft, planets, wormholes and tractor beams. I know loads of people who enjoy those story elements. I’m so not one of them. I bought and read these books despite the external plot.

Which got me thinking about what I do enjoy in an external plot. I like main characters with career or life goals, because True Love alone is not enough—for a credible HEA the characters need something to do when they’re not kissing and cuddling. I like Jeanne’s heroine in The Demon Always Wins—a nurse who runs a free clinic on the Florida/Georgia border. I’m all in favor of the hero (retired quarterback, now CEO of a startup electronic car company) and heroine (language analyst for the CIA) in Kay’s upcoming trilogy. My heroine in The Seeds of Power is a princess who’s also an expert cultivator. The main character in my current WIP (The Seeds of Destiny) is a healer.

I love power politics. Like Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor, in which a forgotten half-goblin prince finds himself Emperor of the Elflands. Robert Graves’s I, Claudius: derided underdog brilliantly survives the murderous excesses of the Roman empire and reluctantly ends up on the throne. Werewolf and shifter stories, which are usually built on hierarchies. And the brilliant, hilarious warlike theocracy of space vampires in Ilona Andrews’ Sweep of the Blade.

I don’t enjoy plot moppets—so Georgette Heyer’s Sylvester (Jeanne, Justine and lots of other people I know like this) or SEP’s Dream a Little Dream (a favorite of Michille’s) are not for me. And I have zero interest in shoes, clothes, shopping and the trappings of extreme wealth.

There must be others, but those are the ones that spring immediately to mind.

How about you? What kind of external story do you like best?

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Michille: Beach Reads 2019 (and before)

The Kiss QuotientWith the holiday weekend approaching, lots of folks in my area and around the country are heading to the beach. For our non-US friends, Memorial Day in the US is a federal holiday for remembering and honoring people who have died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. It is currently observed on the last Monday of May, which means a lot of Americans have the day off (and head out of town or have a cookout). With beaches on the mind, I was thinking about beach reads for this summer. I’m not heading out this weekend but will probably have some time to put my nose in a book. I’m looking forward to the second in Kevin Kwan’s series, China Rich Girlfriend. I read the first, Crazy Rich Asians, recently and, while not particularly well written, it was entertaining so it might be that one next.

Some of my recent reads that I can recommend are: Continue reading →

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Michille: The Clinch Cover

Several of my fellow 8LW are self-publishing their books. They occasionally bounce cover ideas off the rest of the 8LW. I’ve never given the composition a lot of thought other than I like this or I like that, but as I’ve been seeing the process through their eyes, it’s made me pay more attention. I’ve noticed cartoon (probably not the right word) covers making a comeback, lots of bare chests and tats for the more erotic stories, and full-faces of characters rather than half-images which I used to see more. I’ve always paid attention to whether the cover lived up to what was inside or if it leads me astray. Continue reading →

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Michille: Procrasti Nation Again

The View

Sometimes I have difficulty coming up with ideas for this blog. When I do, I start with my old blog posts to see if any of them spark ideas for new ones. In today’s case, I found one from almost exactly a year ago that sums up where I am now. AGAIN.

In November I was going gangbusters on my WIP. I kept up the progress for a couple of months and then . . . ppppfffttt. The motivation fizzled out. I think part of it came from the realization that, not only did I miss the Golden Heart deadline, but I would have to miss RWA. AGAIN. (big sigh) And part of it is, of course, life interrupted. So now I’m back living in the same place I was a year ago. Continue reading →

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Michaeline: Three Questions for Jeanne Oates Estridge about her professional debut!

snake winding its way around a practical female hand holding an apple

The Demon Always Wins (image via Amazon)

Today marks a red letter day for us: not only is our blog celebrating five years of existence, but one of our Ladies is publishing her first book today. Jeanne Oates Estridge started The Demon Always Wins in May 2012 in response to the popular Twilight series.

I got to read an early version of it in the McDaniel course for romance writing during the 2012 school year, but lots of people have seen the book in progress. Jeanne mentions her long-time critique group, as well as a group of writers known as The Cool Kids that she met at the Midwest Writers Workshop, members of a one-day workshop in Indianapolis with Lucrecia Guerrero, several of the Eight Ladies and a handful of beta readers. Whew! It takes a village, doesn’t it?

The book was a finalist in all of the five contests Jeanne entered it in, and won the 2015 Romance Writers of America Golden Heart award in the paranormal romance category with an earlier incarnation called Demons Don’t. The sequel, The Demon’s in the Details, was also a finalist in the 2018 paranormal romance category of the Golden Heart. Another version of The Demon Always Wins won first place in the paranormal/SF/fantasy category of the 2015 Diamonds in the Desert contest under the name of Demon’s Wager.

Having read the latest version, I can tell you the book has evolved from good to great over the years – the words are different, but they stay true to the underlying story. But enough from me. Let’s ask Jeanne a few questions!

8LW: We did the McDaniel course for romance writing together in 2012-2013, instructed by best-selling romance writer Jennifer Crusie. What lesson from the class had the most impact on your final book? Continue reading →

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Jilly: Vicarious Thrills

Regular readers of this blog will no doubt be aware that our Jeanne’s debut novel, The Demon Always Wins, is now available for preorder on Amazon and will be released for sale on 1 September. Squee!

Some of the 8 Ladies have been published before, so it’s not technically our first book, but it’s the one Jeanne was working on when we all first met (virtually) in class at McDaniel College. When she said it was a re-telling of the story of Job as a paranormal romantic comedy I remember thinking, “that’s interesting, and different.”

Because we spent a whole year in class talking about our stories and critiquing each other’s scenes, I think we all feel a certain sense of ownership of this book. We got to know Jeanne’s dark, snarky, funny voice. We saw her delete a fantastic opening scene only to replace it with one even better. We watched her polish her manuscript until it became a Golden Heart winner, and then take it up another level with the help of rigorous professional editing. Continue reading →

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Jilly: Voice

VoiceI’ve been away from home the last couple of days, visiting my mum. She’s in her late 80s and her health is variable, so I try to get the most out of every hour I spend with her. It can be challenging, and I’ve learned by experience that there is no point taking my WIP along. By the end of the day, I’m generally too fried to tackle anything more demanding than a large glass of wine and a good book.

Reading inspires me, but I don’t read new novels in the sub-genre I’m writing, because I don’t want to borrow, even subconsciously, and I don’t want to be put off developing something my story needs because it feels too close to something someone else has created. So new fantasy or urban fantasy authors are off-limits. I’m not in the mood for contemporaries or historicals. Romantic suspense might be a possibility, but best of all, for now, is a Terry Pratchett re-reading binge. Pratchett suits my current reading needs perfectly – he’s familiar, fantastic, funny, brilliant, inspirational and unique.

I’m currently half-way through Mort, the fourth Discworld novel – the one in which the eponymous hero becomes Death’s apprentice. I threw it in my travel bag without even thinking about the storyline, but after a day spent with the residents of mum’s nursing home a story about life and death expertly told with intelligence, humor and compassion was, oddly, exactly what I needed.

I sneaked in a few more pages over breakfast yesterday morning, and as always, I was dazzled by Pratchett’s voice. Continue reading →

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Nancy: RWA 2015 – A Success for the Eight Ladies Writing!

RWA Nationals 2015As Kay told you Thursday, last week the Eight Ladies took NYC by storm! It took a bit out of us as well along the way, but in the end, we declared RWA a great success for us as individuals and a group. We were able to do one of the things we most anticipated – spend a lot of time together bonding, talking story, and being girlfriends who all also happen to write. We drank toasts to our much-missed lady, Michaeline, who was rooting for all of us from half a world away. We even had our ‘honorary Lady’, Jilly’s husband, doing reconnaissance for us to find the best pubs, pizza, and cheesecake in the city while we spent long days at workshops and evenings at the bar in very important business meetings.

I’m still decompressing, processing, and quite frankly recovering from the sheer magnitude of the event and amount of information there was to absorb. Once I’ve managed some of that, I’ll share more insightful information in future posts. In the meantime, through my haze of exhaustion, I’ll share a few of my personal conference highlights, which I’ll bet more than a few of the other ladies share as well.

Watching our own Jeanne WIN THE GOLDEN HEART!!! Continue reading →