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Submit Your Questions to: dearlee@writersnewsweekly.com.

Dr. J. R. Paine, D.Sc., and Distinguished Professor Emeritus Dr. S. N. Gupta, Ph.D. are the founders of Health Super Spa Inc. Dr. Gupta’s achievements are profiled in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World and Who’s Who in Finance and Industry. Together and with Science Consultants Dr. Ranee K. Brylinski, Ph.D., and Dr. Jean Luc Brylinski, Ph.D., they have devoted over 145,000 hours to research and the development of the 21st Century solution for obesity.

Children’s Book Publishers Illustrate Presidential Hopefuls

Make room Cat in the Hat, Berenstain Bears and Curious George—you’re being replaced with John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. Believe it or not, it’s true. Three new children’s books on sale two months before the historic November election focus on the lives of two presidential hopefuls and one almost-hopeful. The goal is to target the children of voters by telling the life stories of the three candidates in the 2008 presidential election.

My Dad, John McCain (Aladdin, 2008) by Meghan McCain and Dan Andreasen tells the story of the GOP nominee through the eyes of his daughter, Meghan. The book highlights McCain’s military career, calling the senator an American hero.

Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2008) by Nikki Grimes tells the story of the Democratic nominee and his hope for a better future. The book is told in the form of a lengthy prose—unusual in children’s books.

Hillary Rodham Clinton: Dreams Taking Flight (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2008) by Kathleen Krull is the story of the Democratic nominee runner-up’s childhood, told by using the analogy of flying.

As expected, reviews of the books are mixed. Publisher’s Weekly says My Dad lacks “personal touch,” the illustrations in Son of Promise are “stagy,” and the text of Dreams “is weakened by supplemental aphorisms on every spread.”

Are these books a good way to teach children at a young age the importance of voting? Or is this another case of over-exposure this election season? The text is clearly written for the parents—that is evident in the bland writing in McCain’s book and the prose that will go over any child’s head in Obama’s. Some critics see this as a tool to raise little Republicans or Democrats. After all, it’s highly unlikely that an Obama supporter will purchase both Son of Promise and My Dad for their child, and vice versa. The top-notch illustrations will hold the attention of a child for a while, but it remains unknown whether or not the message of the book will stay with children who read the book.

At a time when polls mean everything, perhaps the only way to measure the success of these books is to see where they rank. According to the Amazon ranking for books on September 9, 2008, Clinton’s book comes in last at 22,099. Runner-up is Obama at 3,402, and the winner is McCain by a landslide at 745.

Do you think that targeting children to reach parents this presidential election is wrong? We want to know what you think. Send an email to editor@writersnewsweekly.com and share your thoughts.

By Amanda Linsmeier

Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe is a novel by bestselling author Jennie Shortridge (Eating Heaven, NAL Trade, 2005.) This novel tells the story of 45-year old Mira Serafino, who in the beginning has a seemingly perfect life. She’s the ever-obedient daughter, loyal wife, caring teacher and loving mother. That is until she discovers that her husband Parker has been seeing another woman. Mira’s world is destroyed, her own identity altered by discovering that things aren’t so perfect, and in fact that nobody wanted them that way to begin with, much less her husband and rebellious daughter Thea. With nowhere to turn, Mira escapes. She runs from her husband, her home, her big Italian family and her responsibilities. She drives with no point in mind and little money until she reaches Seattle. It is there that Mira finds a job at the strange Coffee Shop at the Center of the Universe and meets some people who will become friends and some who will become more. The Mira that emerges from these struggles and experiences is unlike the old Mira. It takes courage and freedom for her to accept the new woman she has become- flawed, imperfect and real, and to finally allow her family to see who she is and who she wants to be.

Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe is a terrific novel. Although I am not middle-aged (yet) and not going through menopause (thank goodness) I really understood Mira. I thought she was a warm and hopeful character. I liked the fact that even though each main character in the book does something wrong, nobody is seen as the “bad guy.” Mira herself has to accept that she’s not a good girl or a bad girl, and I think lots of women will relate to this issue. Shortridge’s novel is a sad, funny, warm and sensual story of a perimenospausal woman in the midst of discovering herself and those she loves. I hope you like it as much as I did and if you read it without wanting to run out for a grande white chocolate mocha with extra whipped cream then you’re much stronger than I am.

Eggs in Purgatory by Laura Childs

Laura Childs is the pen name of Gerry Schmitt who is the bestselling author of the “Tea Shop Mystery” series and the “Scrapbook Mystery series.”

Q: Why did you decide to write under a pen name?

A: When I started the “Tea Shop Mystery” series, I was still CEO of my marketing firm and my real name was quite familiar to the press. Using a pen name made things simpler.

Q: How do you develop secondary characters in a manner that doesn’t overshadow your main character?

A: The overall plot and story line always belong to my protagonist. But sometimes, the secondary characters do burst forth and overshadow the main character in a few scenes or chapters. I think this keeps things interesting and fluid, since one person’s perspective can sometimes get a little monotonous.

Q: You have said that you read the thriller/mystery/horror genre. How has it influenced your mystery writing?

A: It taught me how to build tensions and add small touches of humor when things get a little too scary. Also, some of our great thriller/mystery/horror writers are just awfully fine storytellers and wordsmiths.

Q: How did you come to write in the specific niche using the tea shop and scrapbook themes as settings in your mysteries?

A: I’m still a marketing person at heart, and tea shops are popping up like mushrooms and scrap-booking is the number one craft in America. So, I took a look at that existing audience and decided it was a lot easier to hook into a trend than start one!

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact and Touching The Dead, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

Carlotta Holton has just received her second award for Touching the Dead from the National Federation of Press Women Communications Contest. Click here to purchase the book.

In the novel I’m writing, fire images recur ad nauseum. Boats burn, yards burn, dogs leap through flame, etc. The repetition eventually caught my attention, and my rational mind recoiled. Why so much fire? This is nonsense, man, stop it!

I made a conscious effort to snuff the flames, despite an urge to incinerate things in almost every chapter. Thousands of words later, I caught myself writing a scene in which an entire prairie burns. Then it hit me: Fire was the solution to motivation problems my protagonist had been struggling with since the novel’s inception. Intuition was trying to clue me in, but my rational mind with its insistence on reason wouldn’t listen.

How can intuition be accessed and employed in writing? What role does it play in the writing process? I asked a poet, a nonfiction author and a novelist how they harness their intuitive power. Here’s a summation of what they said:

Warm up: Read something before you write to create an aura of intuition and give yourself an opening into an idea or feeling. Take a word, phrase or mood and transfer it to the first moments of writing. Something emerges onto the page intuitively in the context of your project, and then you can develop it.

Listen: Open up to your inner voice and hear what it’s saying. It might be the voice of a character or a wiser version of yourself. Don’t force it; just wait for an idea, snip of dialogue, image, etc. that grabs you. If it rings true, use it.

Pay attention: Be aware of urges and hunches while you write. If you feel a pull in some direction, go that way. When you’re having trouble making a decision in your piece, there’s usually an intuitive wisdom that knows what to do. If you pay attention the decision’s already made.

Play: Intuition comes through most easily when you’re having fun. Stress and worry shut it down. If one chapter seems more fun than another, work on that one even if your rational side doesn’t like the sequence. You have to stay loose to open the door.

Interpret: It’s not always obvious what to do with intuitive insights. Sometimes you have to zoom back and ask yourself how they fit into the big picture. What do they mean? How can they contribute? Allow intuition to come through first, then let lefty figure out what to do with it.

Intuition is the spark that ignites great writing, but like the smell of distant smoke it’s easy to ignore and rationalize away. In most of us, the rational mind is well developed while intuition is largely suppressed. But where’s the logic in that? If both are needed to produce our best work, doesn’t it stand to reason that we should develop intuition?

Next time, with help from Shakti Gawain’s excellent book Developing Intuition, I’ll outline some steps you can take to get rational and light a flame under yours.

Intuition Defined
Intuition Developed

Have a question for Doug? Click here to submit it to THE WRITE MIND.

Doug Kurtz is a published novelist, certified life coach and the owner of Write Life Coaching (www.writelifecoaching.com). He earned his MA in creative writing at the University of Colorado, where he also taught fiction writing. He currently lives in Boulder, where he’s busy coaching other writers and working on his next novel.

Tyler Oaks, author of Ruby Rest, at Domaine Carneros Winery.

There are certain fountains that I cannot resist running my fingers under. It’s as though the water is magnetic, and I have to feel it in order to experience the place. Each time I make my way up the steps to the eighteenth-century style chateau at Domaine Carneros, I stop when I see the ram heads. I always reach out to allow one of the two rams to spit a clear stream of water into my hand. It doesn’t matter that on this last visit, I was soaked by a three-year-old whose parents were out of view on the terrace drinking sparkling wine. Even the laughing child could not distract me from the water dripping from my fingertips and the dark rams.

As children, sheep are one of the first animals we sing about. “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” run through our heads as we swing at the playground or construct towers of blocks on the living room floor. Sheep seem to be everywhere during those years in the nursery. Little Bo Peep lost hers, and you never could be too sure a wolf wasn’t hiding under all that fluffy fleece. Somewhere along the way, we’re told to count sheep to fall asleep at night when otherwise sheep would probably never come to mind as our heads hit the pillow. Later we become black sheep at times, and sheep take on a negative connotation.

Wherever we are along the way, sheep are never presented to us as brilliant. Cute, useful, idyllic even, but never as terribly bright or exciting. If we think back to Sunday school or even to George Orwell’s Animal Farm we know that sheep will follow each other in circles and are perfectly content to be, well, sheep needing to be led to be saved from nothingness or pure defenselessness. Somehow rams are different. Their very name is a verb, and a strong one as it forms on our lips. The mere mention of a ram and horns suddenly come to mind, not prey animals.

The ram is a symbol of several gods, including Khnum, the Egyptian creator god. Throughout mythology and both ancient and modern religions, the ram is a picture of strength, drive, energy and power. From the Phoenicians to the Babylonians and to the Greeks, the ram head symbolizes authority. In the Old Testament, it was a ram that was sacrificed instead of Isaac on Mount Moriah. Today, a ram’s horn is often made into the shofar. The ram not only creates but redeems.

Back at the fountain, the puddle of water in my hand represents another force symbolized by the ram. Carneros is Spanish for ram, the region of Napa and Sonoma that was once the pasture for General Mariano Vallejo’s flocks. The golden hills are now prime vineyards of pinot noir and chardonnay, but the rams are still here and they’re not going anywhere. My dress is soaked with their spit as I continue my way up the steps to the chateau. I can’t help continue to contemplate the relationship of rams to sparkling wine, whispering the verb as I feel the bubbles on my palate.

Tyler Oaks earned her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish from California State University, Stanislaus and her Master of Arts in Spanish from California State University, Sacramento. Tyler lives in California's Napa Valley with her husband and twin daughters. Tyler is presently at work on her next novel.

Hurricane Gustav

On Saturday night, my wife and I left Lake Charles and drove six hours to Austin, TX as Hurricane Gustav set its sights on our Louisiana coast. At that point, I had no plan to write a column this week, much less invest the time necessary to come up with a topic which always takes me more time than the actual writing.

As it turns out, the inspiration came through the back door, so to speak. While vigilantly monitoring the storm, not even aggressively pursuing a column topic, it dawned on me how much a writer can learn from a hurricane and all the peripheral aspects of it, including the experts who forecast it. More on them and their predictions in the coming weeks.

Perhaps that is the first lesson learned from the storm—that inspiration often comes to writers when we least expect it, and that we have to be alert to those moments and follow their lead. Sometimes it’s not the assertive pursuit of an idea that gets your pen or keyboard in motion, but the patience and the alertness to see when even the tiniest moments in life whisper inspiration to you.

There is an Old Testament verse in the Book of Kings that reads:

“The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.” 1 Kings 19:11-14

Elijah “went out and stood at the mouth of the cave” because he was coming out of hiding, out of his place of frustration with God. Regardless of your religious beliefs or affiliation, this story and so many others in Scripture provide us with such stimulating models for our lives and the stories we write. Elijah’s frustration had made him temperamental, a man thirsting for a great sign from above to legitimize his faith. But that great sign did not come, not as he expected anyway. Once he moved out of the cave and into a position of vulnerability and patience with God, God spoke to him, quietly in a whisper so that his child could hear amongst the noise.

The same is often true in our writing. We read the Romantics of old and how great the Muse is, and we expect the same sweep up into the clouds. It’s part of the ego-centricity that a writer must have to even pursue this career or hobby, but sometimes we take ourselves a little too seriously. Much like Elijah. We have to come out of our caves and open ourselves up to the possibility that the next great scene may not be in our immediate grasp. Oftentimes the inspiration will not come in the obvious, but instead from those moments where perhaps writing is the furthest thing from our minds. That is why it is just as important to work on our habits and character away from the pen or keyboard as it is when we are actually there, seeing the words spray across the page. Doing so will form inside us the stable environment necessary to hear the whispers amongst the storm.

Even when the whisper is a storm itself, shattering rocks in its path.

The Hurricane Series: Part 2 - When Real Life Meets Fiction

Jeff LeJeune is the author of The Final Chase and Postmarked Baltimore. After a deadly disease during college redirected the course of his life, Jeff became a teacher at St. Louis Catholic High School in Lake Charles, LA where he was recently named a Claes Nobel Educator of Distinction.

Those With Writing Experience Need Not Apply

By C. Sterling

You too can be a successful novelist in just THREE weeks. It’s easy. Just sign up for our complete course study. It’s only $99.99! Hurry…classes fill up quickly. All you need is a computer and a working knowledge of the English language. Enroll now and receive a FREE copy of Vomit Writing: The Safe, Quick Way to Purge Your Story.

For more information call 555-555-5555. Have your credit cards ready.

It may sound like a fictional place but the Vomiting School of Writing does exist. It has to. Just look around at the multitude of “authors” that have graduated from the place. They’re everywhere. Agents and publishers know what I’m talking about. They see the Vomit graduate’s work every day. The following is a reenactment of true events. The names have been changed to protect the writer from further embarrassment.

It was a usual day at the office. Stacks of manuscripts were piled on Ted’s desk waiting in silence for the verdict: Would they be tossed in the trash? Expressed mailed back to their creator? Or live on as a book? He was the decider. The person who, on a bad hair day, could simply with a stroke of a pen kill a story and end a dream. But today was a good day. No wild hairs. He picked up a manuscript, sat back in his chair and began to read when Larry entered the room.

“You gotta take this guy’s call,” Larry said, handing the receiver to him.
“Who is it?” Ted asked, reluctant to take the call.
“A writer.”
“One of ours?”
“Nope. But trust me, this one will make your day.” Larry took Ted’s hand and firmly placed the receiver in it. “Trust me. You don’t want to miss this call.”
Ted’s curiosity was peaked. Maybe it was a famous author. Maybe…just maybe…it was James Patterson.
“Hello, this is Ted Andersen,” he introduced himself in his best “I am the publisher” voice. “How can I help you?”
“Ted, Ronnie Greer, here. I was just telling Larry, er, somebody, that you have a manuscript of mine. I Fed Ex’ed it to you yesterday. It should be on your desk. Anyway,” he continued without taking a breath. “ I just want to you know that before you make any decision I won’t accept anything less than a $5,000,000 advance and a promotional budget of $2,500,000. Got that, Ted? I won’t accept anything less.”
Ted glanced up at Larry who was actually giggling like some high school girl sharing secrets about a new boyfriend. “It gets better,” Larry whispered. “Honest.”
“Ronnie, have you been published before?” Ted inquired, uncertain whether or not he was falling victim to a colleague’s practical joke.
“Nope, can’t say I have Ted.”
“Then why do you think you deserve such a high advance and promotional budget?” Ted was sincerely interested in Ronnie’s response.
“Well Ted, because the novel is unique. I guarantee that you have never read anything like it. Everyone says so. Even my mom, who reads a lot of books, just loves it. My wife who doesn’t like much of anything I do encouraged me to send it publishers. And my instructor wants to use it in his class as an example.”
“As of example of what?” Ted inquired, shaking his head.
“Not quite sure yet, Ted. I’m guessin’ that I’m his best student.”
“Why not get yourself an agent? I’m sure your instructor suggested that to you.”
“Don’t need an agent when your work speaks for itself. It says so right here in my handbook.”
“I guess there’s some truth in that.” Ted rubbed his forehead with fingers.
“And I read that writers should be paid, Ted. Paid. Writers shouldn’t pay. And all those agents want is your money. Most are scams.”
“You don’t say?” Ted cast a disapproving look in Larry’s direction.
“Ted?”
“Yes, Ronnie?”
“I think there’s one more thing you should know. I worked real hard on this book. I deserve to get paid for my creativeness and my time.”
“How long did it take for you to write your novel?” Ted asked, innocently.
“Three weeks,” Ronnie answered. “Three long weeks.”
By now Larry was on the floor, rolling with laughter. He stopped for a moment and whispered to Ted, “Give the guy the five million.”
“Ronnie?”
“Yes, Ted.”
“I have some bad news for you. We were going to offer you a two million dollar advance and a half million advertising budget. But since we are so far apart in our thinking, I’m going to have Larry Fed Ex your manuscript back to you today. Hey, but thanks for thinking of us.”
Before Ronnie had the chance to say any more, Ted hung up the phone and joined Larry on the floor, where to this very day, they are still laughing.

Before returning the manuscript to the author, both Ted and Larry took turns reading from Ronnie’s work entitled The Old Man and the Ocean. They shared it with the entire editorial staff. Production even did a mock cover complete with visible watermarks from tears…tears of laughter and intense sadness.

The views expressed in this editorial are not necessarily the views of the WritersNewsWeekly staff, its advertisers, columnists or SterlingHouse Publisher. If you have any questions or would like to submit a rebuttal, please email editor@writersnewsweekly.com. Submitted editorials and queries will automatically become the property of WritersNewsWeekly and may be used in any future publications.