Category Archives: My musings

Meet J.R. Bournville, Author

November 20, 2016 Lilycat 1 Comment

This month, I’m pleased to feature a fellow writer, who is part of the Ninja Writers Science Fiction and Fantasy book promotion on Instafreebie. Check it out here.

So allow me to introduce J.R. Bournville to you with a little interview and an invitation to check out her writing.

Q: Right off, please tell me about your books and the one included in the promotion, #NinjaSFF giveaway.

J.R. – I’m one of three contributing authors to the Prompted Musings series. Prompted Musings is a collection of flash fiction, based on visual writing prompts. As flash fiction is so very short, these anthologies allowed each of us to experiment with form as well as content, trying ideas which might well have been too intimidating to pursue in a longer piece of work.

Prompted Musings with flash fiction from J.R. Bournville.

Volume 2 is free as part of the #NinjaSFF giveaway, with Volume 1 available for free on https://www.instafreebie.com/free/VDBGS
I have also written two short stories; Company of the Raven, a reworking of the well-loved poem by one of my earliest influences, Edgar Allen Poe; and The Old House

Recently, I’ve branched out into non-fiction with my book, Embracing Possibilities, which talks about how a change in attitude helped get me to where I am today, and helps readers to take steps toward whatever would make them happy in life.

Q: Does writing energize or exhaust you?

J.R. – Both, equally, though not usually at the same time. When I’m writing, and the words are flowing, then nothing else exist. There is no fatigue, no aches and pains, no hunger. But if the flow of words is more a trickle, each one is a drain on my already-limited resources. On those slow times, my solution is usually to disengage from my writing, and dream.

Q: How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

J.R. – The first book I published was A Humourless Death. I’d spent several days not quite daring to click publish, and finally daring to was a great relief for me. Since then, I’ve learnt how to recognise when my writing is not ready to be released into the world, (which is why I unpublished A Humourless Death earlier this year). My writing process now includes more time away from the finished book, with added opportunities to discover weaker sections within my writing before publishing.

Q: How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

J.R. – At current count, excluding all books which only exist as scattered notes (there are far too many of those), I have four half-finished books. This includes A Humourless Death, the first book I released, which I decided to unpublish and revise earlier this year.

Q: How do you select the names of your characters?

J.R. – If the character is willing to “talk”, then I’ll write a scene or two, and see if their name comes to me. If that doesn’t work, I usually sit the character down and interview them. I’ll ask them all manner of questions, but crucially, not what their name is. I’m a firm believer that there’s power in a name, and a person’s name is a reflection of their personality.

Q: If you didn’t write, what would you do for work?

J.R. – If I didn’t write—that’s a difficult reality to imagine—then I’d want to teach. Smaller classrooms, working with children and adults with disabilities or learning difficulties. With my experiences of falling ill and recovery, I understand more of the challenges and frustrations which arise in learning something new.

Q: Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?

J.R. – Yes, I do. I like to know what someone has enjoyed (or not) about my book. No one likes a bad review, but I try to understand what exactly that reader didn’t like, and if it is a fault in my writing then I make note to improve. Good reviews, I sit quietly, smiling. If I can contact the reviewer then I do so, thanking them for their review, and wish them well.

Thank you, J.R. Bournville, for taking the time to answer these questions. You can learn more or connection with her at:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JRBournville
twitter: http://twitter.com/JRBournville
web: www.jrbournville.com

And now that you, my readers, know a little more about this up and coming author, go check out her books. You might find a new gotta-read author.

Author Interview Blog Hop: Read more about some of the authors in the Ninja Writers SciFi and Fantasy Giveaway by going here,

Book Promotion, My musings, NaNoWriMo

Read “Funeral Singer” for free!

October 31, 2016 Lilycat Leave a comment

Two years ago, on November 1^st, I participated in NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – for the first time and completed my novel, Funeral Singer: A Song for Marielle, which I went on to rewrite, edit, and publish in September 2015. While I’ve written other novels, this was the first one that I published and it is the first novel of the Funeral Singer series.

As I begin my third NaNoWriMo writing frenzy, I am celebrating by making the Kindle version of Funeral Singer FREE for the first five days of November.

neelaban-72dpi-1500x2000 — Available FREE from November 1 through November 5, 2016 at Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014QXQKSM

Gillian Foster is an energetic, bright young woman in her mid-twenties, who is trying to build a career as a musician and singer while paying the bills with a dog-grooming job. She’s pretty, sassy, and a hard worker. With her band, Spicy Jam – Ferris and Digby, musician pals from college – she plays parties, fairs, events, and clubs whenever she get a booking. When an accidental fall results in a concussion that triggers a paranormal talent, things begin to change. While singing at a funeral, she suddenly can see and talk to the deceased in an ethereal graveyard without missing a beat on her performance.

Convinced she is having hallucinations, she looks for a physical reason for the problem. While she won’t tell her bandmates or the handsome doctor she’s started dating, she does confide in her best friend, Janna, who believes in all things paranormal. As Gillian gets more jobs to sing at funerals, she encounters more deceased who need her assistance. One of these clients needs more than an assist to the next life. She demands that Gillian find her murderer. Can Gillian find the man and what will she do if she does?

While I don’t have many reviews on Amazon for it, the ones I do have give it a 4 1/2 star average rating. A few of the comments about the book:

I liked this story very much. It’s very well written and has great character development. The author just made Gillian’s journey easily comprehensible. The use of two point of views (Gillian’s and the detective’s) paid off well. The suspense that was build kept me intrigued despite the plot being a bit foreseeable. – Amazon Reader Coral Fang

I’ve been reading this book as what I call my “lunch time book” but yesterday, I couldn’t stand the suspense any longer and read it straight through although I must admit, my curiosity got the better of me by chapter 18 and I swiped to the last two chapters, read the ending , then went back to where I left off. I once read that a good book or movie is defined by the ending whether one cares about what will happen to the characters when it’s done. “Funeral Singer: A Song for Marielle…” gave me that feeling and therefore I recommend this book to anyone and everyone and can’t wait for the next installment!!! – Amazon Reader Cindy Western

This is what a book should be, well-written, well plotted, with engaging characters. It was a privilege to visit this world. – Amazon Reader PRBC

If you enjoy a suspense story with a paranormal twist, here’s your chance to take Funeral Singer for a test drive. If you’re on Kindle Unlimited, the book is available there also, even after the five day promotion. Find the book here.

Don’t forget that if you sign up for my mailing list, you will have a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card in my quarterly promotion.

Back stories, My musings

Preserving the Past

October 24, 2016 Lilycat Leave a comment

When I went scouting around the cemeteries in the Reno, Nevada area before writing my Funeral Singer novel, I spent some time on the outside of one near the University of Nevada Reno campus. The cemetery appeared run down, forgotten, and forlorn with crumbling or missing monuments, no greenery to speak of, and a general feeling of utter neglect, particularly on the south side of the bluff that overlooked the city. A dirt road ran between this side and the other side where the monuments were newer and a smaller section to the northeast that flaunted a Nevada state historic marker.

oldhillaisecemetary-02923_100 — Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery in Reno, Nevada.

This is the Old Hillside Cemetery that dates back to the 1800s and is the final resting place of many of the early settlers and prominent members of the community in the Reno-Sparks area. But is it final?

Now the owner and a developer plan to exhume the bodies, relocate them, and possibly build student housing or some other dwellings on the property. This has caused an uproar with the relatives of people buried in the south section, who see this as disrespectful of their ancestors and for some, a violation of what they hold sacred. According to this article in the Reno Gazette Journal, the plan the developer proposes is to re-inter the bodies on the northern side.

However, there are over eight hundred remains in the south side and I don’t believe they have enough room to move them. The other cemeteries are the Pythian Cemetery, which is maintained well, and the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery, which holds the remains of eight-two Civil War veterans from Nevada.

Before I learned all the details of the cemetery, I decided to include it in the second Funeral Singer novel, A Song for Menafee and began researching it further. I learned that the cemetery was willed to the University, and the authorities had hoped to build student housing on the site, but they soon realized the hurdles of trying to clear and move the graves would be more than they wished to endure. They sold the cemetery to Sierra Memorial Gardens and the new owners fenced the property and began to clean it up some. From my perspective, it provided the ideal location for my book. Shortly after I published in August, 2016, the issue blew up with the plan to move the bodies, clean up the property, and then decide how it would be used.

grave05790_100 — Confederate trench honors the fallen in anonymity.

For me, it struck a discordant note. In my research, I’d taken a trip to the Shiloh Battlefield, a national monument and cemetery that preserved as many graves from that battle as they could, including discovering and marking the several burial trenches where the Confederate dead, the losers at Shiloh, had been interred in mass. I’d felt a sense of connection with these people from the past and their history. Other cemeteries that are hundreds of years old also honor the dead and provide a link. Yet here, in my city, in a cemetery not even one-hundred-fifty-years old, people want to dig up some of the founders of the city and move them to a different place breaking the connection, and the energy, that exists in the burial ground.

Ghosts have been sighted at the Hillside Cemetery, or so many people report. Whether you believe in such happenings or not, there is an energy at burial sites that you can feel. For me, I’ve encountered enough odd events to make me think that ghosts are quite probable. From that standpoint, you can move the bones, but that doesn’t mean the spirit will go with them. Someone living in an apartment in a building constructed on the site may still encounter paranormal activity. Would you want to live there?

blog, My musings

Is psychic ability real?

September 28, 2016 Lilycat Leave a comment

What would you do if you suddenly discovered that you have paranormal ability? Would you want it? What if that ability allowed you to talk to the dead? Made you psychic? Put you in danger?

Our brains use very little of the capacity that we have and many scientists feel they are capable of much more. Over the years, even the military has tested people to see if they have an extrasensory ability that might allow them to read minds or see into distant rooms. There are reports of people acquiring a psychic ability or sixth sense from a head injury. Is it possible? Here an article from Newsweek that talks about the Star Gate project that ultimately was shut down, but was not totally discredited.

Just a search on Google of abilities gained from a head injury yields about 400,000 results. Some of them are may actually be true, but many are perceived claims. Yet, there is enough doubt in it to suggest that it could happen. I have had a couple of experiences with precognition, but not anything that I could point to and say that I had that skill.

I think that sometimes the brain can pick up on something happening in the universe if you’re tuned in to it at the time. For instance, when I was living in Los Angeles, I was lying in bed late at night with my significant other and not quite asleep when I heard a distinct snap/crack sound and I said, “Earthquake.” I was certain that I literally heard the earth break. But nothing happened in our area. However, the next morning, I learned that at that time, an earthquake had occurred in Mexico. I truly believe I heard the initial snap of it.

Is intuition a sixth sense? I think it may be. Several times, I have gotten feelings so strongly about something that I was going to do not being right that I’ve changed my mind. Was I right about it? I don’t know, but I learned to trust my feelings on it. One time I looked at an airplane I was scheduled on and had such a negative feeling about it that I changed my flight. Nothing happened to the other plane, but for some reason I felt I couldn’t go on it.

Tapping into these possible senses is what impels the story behind the Funeral Singer series. My heroine, Gillian (pronounced with a hard g like a fish gill) Foster has a fall, hits her head, and ends up in the hospital with a concussion. After she is released, she’s hired to sing at a funeral and she discovers she has a psychic ability so bizarre that she thinks she’s hallucinating . As she begins to come to terms with it, she finds that it is increasing and encompassing more.

Her clients are deceased and she’s pulled into helping them so that they can move onto the next plane. To add to it, she dreams guidance from a presumed angel named Zac who offers a little advice and direction, but doesn’t tell her everything she thinks she needs to know.

For Gillian, the whole situation makes her question her beliefs, soul survival, good and evil, and her sanity.

If you haven’t read Funeral Singer: A Song for Marielle and A Song for Menafee, why not do it now? It might make you think about what happens after death and if our souls are eternal or may just prove to be an intriguing story to read. Both books are available now from Amazon in both paperback and Kindle. They are also on Kindle Unlimited.

Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think might be interested in these paranormal suspense novels. For more interesting posts on all kinds of subjects, sign up for my mailing list in the box on the right hand side. Thanks.

blog, My musings

Amazon Pay Per Page – Good or Bad?

June 26, 2015 Lilycat Leave a comment

Within the last few days I’ve seen many posts from authors who are upset with the proposed new plan that Amazon has to pay authors, whose books are in the Kindle Select program, by the pages read rather than by if the reader turns the pages on at least 10% of the book as they are now doing. First off, this applies to the Kindle Unlimited plan, the one where clients pay $9.95 a month to borrow any book that is in the plan and it only applies to digital books. If they read the whole book, then the author gets the full royalty payment on it. If they only read 42 pages, then the author gets paid for the percentage of the book that is read.

Unfair, the authors scream. How is this unfair? First, the author has the choice of enrolling the book in the Kindle Select plan for 90 days. The author can also remove the book from the plan. As it is, the author is committing to giving Amazon exclusive digital distribution in order to enroll it in this plan. Once the plan expires or it is removed from the plan, then the author can place the digital book with any and all distributors. In return, Amazon markets the book, places it on sale, and may make it available to the Kindle Unlimited plan for a period of time. Meanwhile, the writer promotes it on social media or via a web site and collects royalties every time the book is sold and for whatever percentage of the book is read on Kindle Unlimited. Incidentally, if Amazon puts the book on sale or in their free for a few days, it’s my understanding that the author still gets the royalties.

Short Books

With the current plan, any book that gets the target percent read will receive an equal share of the pool, based on the book price the writer sets, that Amazon has for royalties for the month. I have seen more than one “writing guru” advising followers to write shorter books or even put short stories on Amazon. People are paying 99 cents for a 25-page short story. Is this fair? Is getting the same royalty for it as someone who writes a 150-page novella for the same price fair? Authors have been complaining about this. I have a book that is 330 pages and someone else has one that is 510 pages and we both sell the book for $2.99 (theoretically), is it fair that we both get the same royalty?

I have heard that some authors are breaking their books into chapters and selling them chapter by chapter to take advantage of getting 10% of the book read so they can get paid if someone only reads 5 pages and they can increase their sales by turning a 20 chapter book into an almost $20 series of Kindle books.

The new payment model that Amazon is proposing will address this issue by paying according to page count, not book. Amazon will also ensure that the books are not padded with extra pages by using their own format for size and word counts, so extra spaces between lines and extra large print won’t increase the pages.

It’s a Library

Consider this. If you have a book on Amazon, on another distributor or in a bookstore and someone purchases it, then you are paid a royalty for the book. If the person then loans it to someone else, swaps it for another book at a used book store or gives it to a library where others may read it, the author does not get a royalty. If you think of Kindle Unlimited as a lending library, which it is –the reader does not keep a copy of the book – then you are getting paid if someone borrows the book and reads part or all of it. You just don’t get as much if the book isn’t the reader’s cup of tea or doesn’t hold attention. Is that unfair? I don’t think so.

As I will be publishing my first, actual “for sale versus free fan fiction”, book soon, I am looking at the Kindle Select program. If it helps to get my book out to potential readers, then I am a step ahead in the marketing. If the readers like my book, then I will get a royalty. If they only read 30 pages and drop it, I still get a little money and some important feedback. If Amazon will let authors know how far the reader got into the book by letting us know the page count, then we can look at the pattern of drops and see where they reader might have lost interest in it. This then allows the writer to see if there is something at that point that could be improved to keep the reader engaged. This can be a valuable tool.

Mindless Lemmings?

Will this stifle creativity, as a few authors have cried? Will this force them to conform to the same standard that traditional publishers require with the same format of arcs, highs and lows that sell books? Will everyone become lemmings following the leader off the no-creativity cliff because that is what the publishers expect? I don’t believe that will be the case. I do believe that the book will need to interest the reader and be well-written. It doesn’t have to follow the standard but needs to be coherent. You can write and publish any kind of book you want through Kindle, but it needs to engage the reader or your book won’t find any takers.

If you write about something you’re passionate about and no one else cares, then you won’t sell that book to anyone. If you put it under Kindle Select and the description is misleading, it might lead a reader to download it, read a chapter or two then decide this isn’t what was expected. This happened to me recently. The book sounded like something I would enjoy, but when I started reading it, I found it wasn’t what I thought it would be. While I normally read a whole book, even when it isn’t the best, I had to abandon this one. Under this new program, the writer would get paid for the 50 or so pages I read. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad book, just that it wasn’t one that I enjoyed.

Not Ready for Kindle Writers

More people than ever are writing books and Amazon and other publish-yourself publishers are making it easy for them to get their books published without it costing the fortune that vanity presses charge. I priced one many years ago and it was about $3000 to publish a book, which I would then have to go out and sell myself. It’s much more expensive now. Amazon publishes the book for no cost to the author. Anybody can write a book. That doesn’t mean it’s a good book. It doesn’t mean they are good writers. I have read some that really needed work before they were published, some that didn’t make any sense and I tried to read some that were really poor books. Possibly this approach from Amazon will help to weed some of the books that need more work, editors and better writing to be a success out of the pool. If readers consistently dump the book after the first chapter, then there’s a problem with the book. It failed to hook the reader.

Preview the Book

Most books on Amazon have the first chapter available to read before you purchase and this is true of the Kindle Unlimited books as well. You can read a few pages to see if you like the writing, the author’s voice and if the story sounds like something you’d enjoy. From this standpoint, with Amazon’s policy of refunding money if the customer isn’t happy, I feel that any book that is purchased, whether it is Kindle or hard copy, should not be refunded if the purchaser reads it, then claims not to like it and asks for their money back. I couldn’t believe that people do that with a book. You can’t do that in a book store. Especially when you can preview the book. You read the covers, you read a few pages, then you buy the book or put it back on the shelf. You don’t buy the book, read it, then return it and get your money back. That’s a scam as far as I’m concerned.

So bottom line, I am willing to give the Kindle Select program a try because:

It will help to get my book out to my potential readers, which will help me build my brand.
It may bring me royalties I wasn’t expecting to get from readers willing to read new authors.
If it doesn’t get full reads, then I may gain insight into why the reader quit reading the book, even if I don’t get a report from Amazon, but I really hope they will provide some feedback to the writers.
Readers who really like a book they read on Unlimited do sometimes buy a copy to keep on their Kindle or even purchase the print copy.
I have nothing to lose by trying this program and all the above to gain.

Comments on this post are welcome and encouraged.

Lillian's Loft