Top Ten Tuesday

/ kellyfbarr / 11 Comments

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday theme is “Ten Characters Everyone Loves but I Just Don’t Get” or “Ten Characters I Love but Others Seem to Dislike” as per The Broke and Bookish.

Again, I’m going to have to tweak my list.  I have no idea for the first theme but I can easily tell you ten characters I love, but I do not know if others dislike them or not.  So, my Top Ten Tuesday theme this week is “Ten Characters I Love”.

  1.  Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. He is a wonderful, wise, loving father and exceptional role model, not only for his own children but for the entire community.
  2. Peeta of Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  Peeta is a sweet, devoted, loving and protective love interest.  He is the kind of love interest I believe every woman dreams of.
  3. Lucy of The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.  She is brave, intelligent, innocent and kind-hearted.
  4. Samwise Gamgee of The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien.  Sam is honest, faithful, loyal, wise and innocent.  He is the kind of friend everyone needs.
  5. Einstein, the golden retriever in Watchers by Dean Koontz.  Einstein is a highly intelligent, faithful dog.  All dog lovers would love to have a dog like Einstein.
  6. Dave Richman of The Negotiator of the O’Malley series by Dee Henderson.  He is a strong, intelligent, protective man.
  7. Jarrod Monahan of Kissed by a Cowboy by Debra Copton.  Jarrod is witty, charming, sexy, strong, and romantic.  He knows just how to warm a woman’s heart.
  8. Jake Bloom of Fire and Water by Betsy Graziani Fasbinder.  Jake is brilliant.  He’s an exceptional artist.  He is a romantic, loving husband.  He’s also temperamental and dangerous because he is tortured by a mental/emotional illness.
  9. Nicholas Stafford, Earl of Thornwyck of A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Devereaux.  Nicholas is exactly what the title of the book says he is and this is one of the greatest romance stories I have ever read.
  10. Jean ValJean of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.  Jean ValJean is a man who is strong, physically, mentally and emotionally.  Yes, he ends up imprisoned because he steals a loaf of bread to try to feed his starving family, and yes, he escapes from prison, but he does so many noble things and proves himself redeemed, honest and trustworthy.

 

Dauntless by Dina L. Sleiman

/ kellyfbarr / Leave a comment

Dauntless is the first book in the “Valiant Hearts” series by Dina L. Sleiman.  It is an historical fiction novel that includes adventure, danger and romance.

Born a Baron’s daughter, Lady Merry Ellison is now an enemy of the throne after her father’s failed assassination attempt upon the king.  Merry will go to any lengths to protect the orphaned children in her care.  The group becomes known as “The Ghosts of Farthingale Forest.”

Merry’s life becomes more challenging when an old friend finds her after thinking her dead for two years.

Ms. Sleiman did an excellent job creating characters that wind your care and your heart quickly.  Merry appears as a female Robin Hood, but her and her group are quite different.  As danger lurked around every corner, I found myself routing for Merry and her group.  Another situation arises that caused a dilemma for my heart and mind as I read and found it difficult to know who to route for in the romance department.

Ms. Sleiman did an excellent job of resolving the story line at the end without causing my heart to break for any one of my beloved characters.  I finished the book feeling happy for Merry and her group and satisfied that I had read a good book worthy of my time.

I recommend this story for anyone who loves to read about strong women, adventure, history and romance.  I look forward to digging into Book Two of the series, Chivalrous.

 

Flash Fiction Friday: Enough

/ kellyfbarr / Leave a comment

Dina lay in her bed.  She held her ears shut to keep out the shouting.

When she heard the slap followed by her mom’s sobbing, she ran to lock her bedroom door.  She tipped a chair under the knob and climbed into the deepest corner of her closet.  She sat trembling, tears streaming down her face.

As Dina heard his footsteps approaching, an idea sprouted.  Courage swelled within her.  She grabbed a pair of jeans, jumped into them, put on a sweater, slipped her bare feet into a pair of sneakers.  She had just opened the window, when he knocked upon her door.

“Dina, it’s Daddy.”

She hastened down the tree, jumping the last three feet.  Dina headed across the yard.  She’d had enough.  Never again.

The 7/7/7 Challenge

/ kellyfbarr / 1 Comment

7-7-7 challenge

Writing friend, Eve Messenger, tagged me for this fun 7/7/7 challenge.  I told a couple of writing friends about it already, and they can’t wait to participate too.

So, here are the rules (they’re really quite simple):

  • Go to page 7 of your work-in-progress.
  • Scroll down to line #7.
  • Share the next 7 lines of your manuscript in a blog post.
  • Tag 7 other writers (with blogs) to continue the challenge.

My Little Morsel

He reached the bottom of the stairs, turned to enter the dining room and collided with a pretty, young lady.

“Oh!”

“Uh, excuse me, Miss.”  Johnny could feel the heat creeping into his face but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the pretty face in front of him.  She had a narrow nose that turned up just a bit at the end, brown eyes with golden flecks and full lips.  A couple of strawberry blonde curls had escaped her hair knot and were framing her attractive face.

“Be more careful turning corners around here,” she said.

“Well, I see you’ve met the mistress of the house, Johnny.”

NOMINEES:

Laura L. Zimmerman

Donna L. H. Smith

Lisa Betz

Jill Printzenhoff

(I apologize but four is all I can come up with.  I know quite a few other writers, but many are already published and established and don’t do these kinds of posts or other writers I know don’t have blogs yet.)

 

 

Top Ten Tuesday

/ kellyfbarr / 1 Comment

The theme for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday as determined by The Broke and Bookish is “Ten Books to Read If You Are in the Mood for Something Sci Fi”.  However I am substituting “Romantic” for “Sci Fi” because I have not read any Sci Fi books.

1.   A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux

I read this book years ago but it still stands out as my favorite love story because I             have always loved stories of knights in medieval times, and this story has that plus a         wonderful spin on it.  It includes time travel.  Ms. Deveraux does a wonderful job                 capturing and holding my attention.  She creates wonderful characters and I just get       completely swept up in this story.  I hope to reread this treasure again soon.

2.  The O’Malley series by Dee Henderson (I know we are supposed to give a list with a          total of 10 books, but this is a series and it’s nearly impossible to choose just one                from the series.)  This series is so good.  I totally love it.  Each story has a suspenseful        plot and the characters are so well developed that I felt like I really knew them.  I fell        in love with the characters and was sad when the series came to an end.  I would still        like to see more books about these characters, but I will definitely read this series              over again, probably several times.

3.  Fire and Water by Betsy Graziani Fasbinder

This story drew me in immediately and held me fast.  Jake and Kate have such a                   strong love for one another, but they face some serious struggles.  I kept routing for         them throughout the story.  I think I loved Jake just as much as Kate did and as he               sank deeper and deeper into his mental illness, my heart ached for both of them.               After finishing the book, I was affected as no other book had ever affected me.  I                 literally had to take a week or two to process the story and to deal with the emotions     it had evoked within me before I could move on and read another book.

4.  Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I read this story years ago and my husband and I went to see it performed on stage in     the early years of our marriage.  It still remains one of my favorites.  Who can ever             forget Catherine and Heathcliff?  I look forward to reading this story again soon as           well.

5.  The Hunger Games trilogy (I know, again this is more than one book.  I can’t help it.)          I just love the love between Catniss and Peeta.  Peeta is the kind of loving man any            girl would want to have loving her.

6.  Kissed by a Cowboy by Debra Clopton

If you want to know why I like this book so much, you can read my review.

7.  Love Unexpected by Jody Hedlund

This story is a wonderful story about a lonely lighthouse keeper and a young woman       who ends up on the same island after a storm.  Emma, the woman, seems to be                     unwanted at the home where her brother, Ryan was taken in.  She is intrigued by               Patrick, the lighthouse keeper and reaches out to his little boy.  It’s wonderful to read     how the relationship between Emma and Patrick grows.

8.  Prison by Toni V. Lee

This is just a fun story that includes danger, suspense and romance.  The two main             characters are very entertaining and I couldn’t help but chuckle often while they were   falling in love.

9.  Mermaid Moon by Colleen Coble

This book is a wonderful book about an old love rekindled and old hurts healed.  It’s          got suspense, danger, and romance and wonderful characters.

10.  Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke

I will refrain from including this entire series because I haven’t read the entire series       yet, but I know I’ll love the books I haven’t read as much as the ones I have.  This                 series is Janette Oke’s most popular series.  It follows the life of pioneer woman                 Marty and the man she marries for convenience, Clark Davis.  This series was made         into a series of movies which I recently ordered on DVD from Amazon.

 

Winter Writers’ Retreat

/ kellyfbarr / Leave a comment

Several months ago, I received an email from my writing friend, Lisa at Lisa’s Musings, talking about the possibility of having a Winter Writers’ Retreat.  She asked me for ideas and she shared her ideas with me.  Then we talked about what the schedule might look like and how we could keep it very low cost by simply having a simple lunch of sandwiches and salads and a dessert, with drinks and snacks available throughout the day, and the lunch would be all that each person would have to pay for.  Lisa also ran the idea by our friend, Donna at Donna L. H. Smith, who helped with some activity planning, getting the word out and registration.

So, this past Saturday, February 27th, seven (counting Lisa) of us got together at Lisa’s house for this retreat.  Donna asked us to introduce ourselves and share what type of writing we do and how long we’ve been married and how many children we have.  Then she opened with a devotion and prayer.

Lisa had asked me, during the planning, if I would be willing to lead an activity.  She gave me two choices and I chose the one I felt was the less daunting of the two.  🙂

Therefore, after the opening devotion and prayer, I led a creative writing exercise.  I was relieved when everyone found the exercise to be so much fun.

After the creative exercise, Lisa gave us two characterization exercises and two setting exercises and we spread out around the downstairs of Lisa’s beautiful home to spend some time writing, using at least one of these exercises.  I actually used a combination of one of the characterization and one of the setting exercises and I applied them to my current work in progress.  I think the creative writing exercise we started with helped to get my brain into writing mode.  (Of course that was the purpose.)

The next thing we did was break into two groups and we each shared about something we are currently struggling with in our work in progress, whether it was a plot problem, problem with a character or with the setting, or something else.  Then the others in the group helped to brainstorm to come up with ideas to work the problem out.

During lunch we had conversation about upcoming writers’ conferences, what we thought of the retreat up to that point, self-publishing and the possible challenges that would include, flash fiction and blog writing.

After lunch we had a critique group, where Lisa shared the critiquing process — a way to help and encourage the writer, not rip their work to shreds — to begin with a positive, then point out something that could use some work or fixing up with an idea or suggestion for that, and concluding with another positive.  These things need to be specific to be of any real help to the writer and the people doing the critiquing need to consider the Big Picture.

We ended with another prayer and an excerpt from a book that Lisa recommended for encouragement.

I cannot speak for any of the other ladies, but I found this day so very helpful.  I was able to leave there with a fresh excitement about writing, especially working on my work in progress.  I had been struggling with something before that and so the brainstorming for story problems was a huge help with that.  I also really enjoy being able to share with other writers because they understand me and I understand them.  We can help and encourage one another and that is so valuable.

Everyone left with a desire to do another retreat in the future.

V__49A7

This was the great group of ladies who attended, minus Donna, who took the photo.

I encourage all of you who write to find a group of writers you can spend time with talking, sharing, brainstorming, problem solving, and encouraging one another.  You may even want to consider starting your own small writers’ group or hold your own small simple retreat like the one we just had.  Writing is a solitary activity and can be stressful.  It’s good to step out of your writing closet and breathe some fresh air and spend time with others who understand your struggles and the way your mind works (you know, that you talk to your characters and stuff).

Have you been to a writers’ retreat?  Do you belong to a writers’ group?

Flash Fiction Friday: Heartache

/ kellyfbarr / 4 Comments

Cal walked into the bar.  He sat at a small table in a dark corner.

The piano man sat down.  He started playing just a few feet away from Cal.

The waitress came to take Cal’s order.  He ordered four shots of whiskey.  He hoped that would kill the pain, at least temporarily.  Then the piano man started playing that song; their song; her song.

“Play something else,” Cal demanded.

The piano man switched songs without pause.  Cal sat back.  He downed his shots.  He put his head in his hands.

The whiskey quickly went to his head.  He wasn’t a drinker.  He just couldn’t stand the pain but even the whiskey wasn’t deadening it.

He put money on the table, rose, stumbled.

“You okay, honey?” The waitress asked.

“I’ll never be okay again,” he said as he weaved toward the door.

 

My Crazy Life

/ kellyfbarr / 1 Comment

I began a post for Wordless Wednesday yesterday but before I could get it up the major thunderstorm we were having knocked out our electricity which knocked out my wifi.  What a bummer!

Today I have no specific theme, so you get to read my ramblings.  Ha ha!  I’ll try to be brief and make sense.

For those who don’t know, I homeschool my children.  My oldest graduated our homeschool almost four years ago, took some time off and is now attending college.  This is his freshman year.  He is an hour-and-a-half away and doesn’t drive or have a car.  Tomorrow my other two sons and I will be picking him up.  He’ll be here for about a week!

My second son will graduate our homeschool this year and he wants to go to a two (possibly three) year Bible school that is ten hours away!

My youngest will begin middle school next year.

All of that to say that as homeschoolers we’ve been extremely busy.  We’ve been involved in co-ops, sports, music lessons, a writers’ club, and, this year, a Literature discussion group.

Almost two weeks ago, my van died, and so now we are down to one vehicle, and it looks as though we will be for at least a year.  Ordinarily I would have freaked out about this, but I have really been feeling a need to scale things back and not be so busy.  I’m looking forward to a much simpler life for a while.  Therefore, today was our last time at the Literature discussion group.  Monday will be our last day at our small co-op.  Tomorrow night is the final basketball game.

This will give me some more time to enjoy schooling our youngest son before he gets to the busy teen years.  Hopefully, it will also allow me more time to do a lot more writing, and hopefully finally get into a set schedule for my writing that I will be able to stick to.

* * * *

Now, for some writing talk.  This Saturday, I will be attending a small Winter Writers’ Retreat.  It will include Creative exercises, which I will be leading.  I am excited about it, but was at first found the idea quite daunting.  I found some great resources online that I think will be a lot of fun and help us with some of the more common items that writers sometimes struggle with.

There will also be a Brainstorming session, Critique time and free writing time.  I am hoping it will give me a boost as I have been struggling with my current story, which I was originally so excited about.

 

Top Ten Tuesday

/ kellyfbarr / Leave a comment

I know I’m late posting, but it is still Tuesday.

I decided to join the Top Ten Tuesday determined by The Broke and The Bookish.  Therefore, today’s Top Ten Tuesday is focused on “Books I Recently Enjoyed that Weren’t my Typical Genres”.   NOTE: After completing this list, I realize that it is actually not exactly following The Broke and the Bookish’s topic, because I must’ve missed the word “enjoyed” when I read the topic. My list is definitely  Books I Recently Read that Weren’t my Typical Genres, but obviously, I didn’t “enjoy” them all.

Details about NEW <b>Mystery</b> <b>Mountain</b> <b>Four</b> <b>by Marie</b> <b>Grace</b> <b>BOOK</b> (Hardback ...

1.  Mystery Mountain (Book Four) by Marie Grace

This book has so many plot lines, I really can’t say what specific genre it is.  However, I read it and found it hard to follow because of the long list of characters that were difficult to keep straight as well as the multiple plot lines.  Also, by the end of the story, since another book is planned, the author didn’t really tie up any loose ends or resolve any of the plot lines.  For more information you can read my review.

2.  Inspirational Reflections by Ian J. Roberts

I don’t normally sit down and read through an entire book of poetry, but I did this one.  It was a fast, easy read.  I felt most of the poems were fairly good but did find that most focused on the same theme or topic.  I thought since it was “Inspirational” a little more variation that included more Biblical truths would have been more enjoyable.  You can read more of my thoughts on the book by reading my review

.Lady of Devices

3.  Lady of Devices by Shelley Adina

This is the first ever Steampunk book I have read and I loved it.  Shelley created wonderful characters with an interesting and exciting plotline.  She also offered a couple of wonderful scenes that were reminiscent of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, one of my favorite classics.  This is the first book of Shelley’s series and I look forward to reading every single one of them.  Feel free to read my review.

4.  A Just Man by Helen Daniel

This is a sweet story that follows several generations of one family through the trials and successes of their lives.  However, I found it a bit calm for my liking.  I prefer a book with a bit more meat and a little less perfection.  This is not my usual genre choice either and you can learn more by reading my review.

5.  The Golden Braid by Melanie Dickerson

This book is and isn’t my typical genre.  It is because it includes romance and history.  It is not because it is a fairy tale retelling.  This was the first book I have ever read by Melanie Dickerson and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I am sure I will read more books by Ms. Dickerson in the future.  Check out my review for more about this good read.

6.  Beneath the Pines by Sandra Gowan

To be quite honest, I don’t remember much about this story.  That could be because I felt the plot was rushed and the characters not fully developed.  You can read more about my disappointment about this story by reading my review.

7.  The Big House on Adams Street by Alberta Sparks

This was a wonderful heartwarming story outside of my typical genre.  I enjoyed this story and its characters very much.  Read more at my review.

8.  When Mockingbirds Sing by Billy Coffey

As a supernatural story, this book is out of my normal genre.  However, I found this story intriguing.  It held my attention and I couldn’t decide what I thought of the main character.  To find out more read my review.

9.  20 Short Ones (20 Short Stories) by Dan Salerno

I don’t typically read short stories, but I did enjoy most of the stories in this book.  All of the stories in the book are about relationships.  No, they are not all romantic.  Read my review for more details.

A Thousand Sleepless Nights

10.  A Thousand Sleepless Nights by Michael King

To be quite honest, I read this book because it was written by a gentleman I have had the pleasure of meeting on several occasions.  He writes a completely different genre under a different name and I really enjoy those books.  But I have to say I was not disappointed with this story.  It was well written and very realistic and believable.  Read my review.