As of July 10, 2014, I will no longer be posting to this blog. I now post at my new website/blog at www.donnahechlerporterbooks.wordpress.com. The old posts can be found there as well.

You can click the link to redirect you.

I Found It!

You know you’re a book nerd, or a writing nerd, when the most exciting thing that happens over the Fourth of July weekend is finding the old path your characters would take from Richmond, Virginia to Bedford, Virginia.

But that’s what happened Saturday night, and boy did I do a happy dance.

My husband ran through the house worried something was terribly wrong. My children hovered around me, concerned that I had received some sort of bad news. I assured them that nothing was wrong, but all was right in my “writing” world.

Writing historical fiction is fraught with one especially nasty difficulty – how true do you stay to the historical record?

Some things are easy to find. The kind of food people ate. The clothes they wore.  Not only are there books about just any time period you are interested in, but these days a lot of what you need can be found on the web.

But then, some things, like old roads, can be more difficult. That’s where the trouble started.

I don’t wish to give too much away, but Annie and David, in Breaking Promises, must go from Richmond to Bedford. I know the new roads oftentimes followed the old, but I didn’t want to just assume this was so. I have looked for the past four months in various books, websites, etc. Finally, in a webpage for the history of Powhatan County, the words popped from the page. Colonials going that direction would have taken the Old Hunting Path. And, even better, it closely mirrors US 60.

Honestly, I thought I had struck gold.

I can’t wait for Labor Day! 

3 Day Kindle Countdown Deal & Reviews

From Friday, June 27 to Sunday, June 29, I will be offering Keeping Secrets on a 3-Day Kindle Countdown Deal. On Friday it will be available for .99, on Saturday for $1.99, and on Sunday for $2.99. By Monday, it will go back up to the regular price of $3.99. This is a great opportunity to get a Kindle version at a sale price.

I have also heard from one reader that she was unable to leave a review of Keeping Secrets on Amazon. I am unsure why this is, unless it is because Amazon won't allow readers to write reviews, or to rate the book, unless the book has been purchased  directly from them. That means that if you purchased a paperback copy from me, you might not be able to review the book on Amazon even if you have an account.

If you do not have an account on Goodreads, you can join for free and rate the book and/or leave a review on their site. While not as popular as Amazon,  Goodreads still has lots of readers, and a review left there is still extremely helpful. 

Any reviews left are much appreciated by me. Up until this past spring, authors were able to give away gift cards or free copies of books as incentives for reviews or to show their appreciation. Amazon has since then cracked down and that is not possible any longer. 

A few cautionary words about reviews. If you post the same review to Goodreads and Amazon they will delete them both. Goodreads is now owned by Amazon, and for some reason they do not want the reviews repeated. Be sure to change them up quite a bit if you post in both places.

Also, be sure and not mention that you know me personally, or that we have ever even had a minimal amount of contact. Those reviews are pulled instantly from Amazon. I don't know about Goodreads, but they are likely culled there as well.  

We Indie authors live by our reviews. The way Amazon and the other book sites figure their algorithms Amazon  drives us up or down in their search engines and on the pages. The higher we rank, the more people see our book, the more new customers we acquire. 

A special thank you to everyone who has read Keeping Secrets and has had kind words to say about the book. They mean a lot to me. More than you can know. Your words of encouragement have pressed me forward to working on the second book and to continue writing. Thanks you so much! 

A Tale of Two Mothers

   

The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world –

What the quote above fails to state is that the hand that rocks the cradle is one of constant self-sacrifice. Not only do mothers sacrifice their bodies to bring children into the world, but they lose THEIR time, THEIR interests, and have to broaden THEIR goals and THEIR world to include their children. A woman’s life is never the same once she has children, and for most of us our life is divided in half, our life before children and our life after children. 

It could be said that Keeping Secrets is a story of two mothers – Mary McKechnie and Abigail Cayle – both of whom sacrifice their lives in different ways for their families.

When the book opens, widow Mary McKechnie is in danger of losing her five daughters: Sarah, twins Annie and Katie, Rebecca, and Martha. Her deceased husband, in his will, gave Mary control of the property, but he named her older brother, Lawrence Langdon, as the girls’ guardian. Lawrence has insisted that Mary work only for members of the Society of Friends so the girls won’t be influenced by “outsiders.” If she works for outsiders, even disorderly walkers like Amon Cayle, he insists he will take the girls and place them into indentured servitude. Unable to get enough work, and after a series of disastrous events, Mary takes enormous risks  and violates her brother’s mandate in order to keep her girls with her.

Kitchen fires in colonial America weren’t surprising since almost all food was prepared in them and they were the only source of heat and warmth. Besides death in childbirth, fires were the next most common way for women to die. (Some historians argue more died in fires than in childbirth.) Abigail Cayle offers the last sacrifice of her life as the fire sweeps through the kitchen.  When the book opens, her husband and children are still dealing with her death, her sacrifice, and the aftermath of the fire that nearly took their eldest son David’s life as well. Abigail’s death is as influential in the lives of her family as her life, and it is through both her life and her death that Amon and David begin to heal and to forgive themselves.

The essence of motherhood hasn’t changed since the beginning of time. The act of creating a life for nine months in the womb, and the act of doing whatever necessary to preserve that life once it arrives is a natural imprint on a mother’s soul. Despite the passing of time, the call of motherhood is no different now than it was 250 years ago.

Mary McKechnie, having lost two boys before her girls came along, knows the precious blessing of life, and even though she is a working mother through circumstance, her girls come first. She’ll do anything to keep them together as a family. 

Abigail Cayle, too, knows the precious blessing of life, and her choice speaks to the highest sacrifice a mother can make. She’ll do anything to keep them alive.

I think a traditional woman’s role in the home is an exciting, awesome adventure.

I am apparently in the minority.

For some reason, authors don’t tap into the rich history of women. There’s a lot of conflict and turmoil in families no matter what time period you live in. While the modern world spins a tale that women in the past had no control, I believe this is simply just not the case. Women had a great deal of control over their own worlds, and likely had more control over their men than women do today.  I think we, as a world culture, despite the women’s liberation movement, have lost sight of the true role of women and the influence they have when they are who they are – women.

In Breaking Promises, the torch of womanhood is passed to Annie McKechnie. She must come to terms with her desire to be a career woman and her growing desire to be a wife and mother, a vocation she has fought against since childhood. Both paths are fraught with difficulties, and both have rewards and sacrifices. She will have to make a choice in the end.

But for Annie, it is a choice that could cost her everything. 

Sleeping Beauty I'm Not

Every now and then I come across a couple that are so sweet with each other, it makes my heart warm. Usually, but not always, they have been childhood sweethearts.

However, all the relationships I’ve ever had with men have been fraught with angst, turmoil, and just plain friction. It makes for some highs and lows, but rarely is the relationship showered with the ongoing tenderness I see in these sweet couples. Don’t get me wrong, there is tenderness. But there’s also an awful lot of conflict.

Maybe that’s why I don’t write books about “those” kinds of couples. It may be why I don’t find books about those sorts of relationships interesting either. There’s likely not enough of “me” in those kinds of stories. Honestly, they just don’t seem real.

Or, maybe I just enjoy the conflict in a relationship?  Hmmm.  I don’t think I’ll go there today.

One thing is for sure. Sleeping Beauty I'm not. My Prince Charming didn't kiss me and wake me up so we could live happily ever after. 

I just finished racing through Kim Vogel Sawyer’s  Waiting for Summer’s Return. (It is currently available for free on Kindle.) First, let me say I have never read Sawyer before. Her website advertises “gentle stories of hope” and Waiting for Summer’s Return certainly delivered. 

Bostonian Summer Steadham is stranded in a Mennonite town in Kansas after the deaths of her husband and four children of typhoid. In order to remain close to their graves, she takes a job as a tutor for widower Peter  Ollenberger’s ten year old son, Thomas . Peter is a sweet, admirable, hardworking man. He is infinitely patient with  Summer  which, in her grief stricken state, she needs. I liked him, but I sure wanted him to lose his temper at least once. He really was almost too good to be true. I really couldn’t find any fault in the man at all.

As a matter of fact, I couldn’t find fault with any of the characters beside the townspeople at the beginning who don’t like Summer because she is not a Mennonite. As a result, I didn’t find enough high energy conflict in the book to keep me interested in reading every word. I skipped over the substory of Summer’s conversion to the Mennonite faith as well as her ministering to her mother-in-law near the end of the book. I found it preachy and too slow for me to wade through reading. I kept waiting for an explosion between Summer, an obvious outsider, and the Mennonites, who were clearly displeased with her arrival in their community. After a few harsh words between Peter and church elders, one woman befriends Summer and the rest soon follow.

The one creeping fault in Summer’s character is her selfish and persistent decision to drag her husband and children from Boston to a life on the Kansas prairie over their wishes. I waited for the gut wrenching emotional turmoil that would set her towards the struggle of taming her selfish side. Itnever happened. She acknowledged it briefly, and that was the end of the matter. Even Peter’s son, ten year old Thomas, is too good to be true.

If you’re a fan of sweet romances and don’t mind long sections devoted to Christianity, then you’ll enjoy Sawyer’s portrayal of two people trying to move past their pain to find love. If you like grittier fiction, like Kirsten Heitzman and Judith Pella, or fiction with a Christian worldview without any overt plot about Christianity, then you’ll be disappointed.

As for those sweet older couples, I guess I won’t be one of them.

Hmmm!

Well, the Goodreads Giveaway for Keeping Secrets is over. There were 1100 entries by the time the contest ended. I have the names of the five winners and will be mailing them their books by the end of this week. Congratulations to all of them!


The book is now available (a day early) at Amazon in both paperback (Createspace) and Kindle. You can also access direct links on this blog on the right side bar of my main blog, as well as on the Novels page of my website.

Indie authors like me rely on their ratings and reviews, so if you enjoy Keeping Secrets, please leave a review at Amazon and/or Goodreads. It can be the same review if you like. It's not necessary to write two different ones. The more reviews an author receives, the higher their rating and the higher they climb in search engines. The higher the book is in search engines, the more exposure it receives.

I must admit, having a book finished that you really can't do anything more with is a bit intimidating. (I can make small changes through Createspace and Kindle, but nothing major.) It was a little bit troublesome to set it aside and move onto the next one. However, I did start writing Breaking Promises in earnest yesterday. I am excited about what the future holds for David and Annie.  I hope those of you who have read or will read Keeping Secrets are anxious to find out what happens to them as well.

My goal is to make Breaking Promises even better than Keeping Secrets. Thanks to Robin Matheson's classes through Romance Writers of America last January and February, I have a good start. I told her last year that if I got the second book published I would dedicate it to her, as she helped me through a particularly rough patch in my plotting. I will make good on my word by the end of the year, God willing!

Again, congratulations to the 5 winners of the giveaway, and blessings to you all!

Not Again!

I've learned a lot the past month in trying to get Keeping Secrets off the ground and to readers. One of the biggest mistakes I made was not hiring someone to do a quick edit check on the manuscript. I'm pretty good at checking mistakes, but when it's your own work you tend to overlook things.

The other mistake was not hiring a formatter. I finally got the hang of it, but in the hours I spent in editing and formatting I could have had the rough draft for Breaking Promises nearly finished. I made a decision, after resubmitting the files one more time this morning, that I would NOT fix anything else. There are no longer any huge mistakes, so little ones will have to slide. Hopefully, there won't be too many.

So, imagine my surprise when, this morning, it happened again. Another mistake on my work.  Not in the manuscript, but in my book trailer for Keeping Secrets. I was looking at the trailer when it jumped from the page. The stock art on one slide had the company's name across it.

I thought I was going to pull my hair out. The last thing I wanted to deal with was an error in a book trailer. As it turns out, I didn't even purchase that particular picture from that company, but found it at another site. However, since the trailer is on Youtube, I had little choice but to replace the picture because of licensing issues.

That's when I got my second, nasty surprise.

I had deleted all the pictures from Windows Movie Maker last week when I started working on the book trailer for Breaking Promises. Instead of my pictures, there were all these nasty little red "x"s on the pictures. I had no choice but to upload the picture and rebuild the trailer.

Needless to say, I won't get those two hours back.

I am glad to report, however, that the updated version is now on Youtube, my website, my Facebook page, and my Goodreads author page. There shouldn't be any licensing issues with this one. I checked and doublechecked again. I have learned another valuable lesson to add to the long list of those I've already learned this month. Don't delete pictures from Windows Movie Maker, and always, always, always be sure to doublecheck that you've used the ones you've purchased, and not those you are just "playing around with."

Keeping Secrets is due to be released this Thursday, May 29. My Goodreads giveaway for 5 free autograph books is close to 550 as of now. If you haven't entered, be sure to do so.