My Newest Space on the Web
By April Star | March 19, 2008
We’ve all heard of MySpace and I’ve had my space there for a little over a year. It’s been a wonderful place to meet other writer’s, new readers, and reunite with long lost friends from high school and my traveling days. But a few months ago I discovered another place that is similar to MySpace but also MUCH different and far more inspiring and soul-lifting.
This new place is called ShoutLife and it is also filled with author’s, reader’s, comedians, and artist’s, and musicians. If you haven’t yet checked them out, stop on by and visit me there and say hello. If you sign up, be sure to add me as your friend!
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It’s Check Out Time - Book Three In the Wanderlust Mysteries
By April Star | March 10, 2008
Okay, you’re seeing it first here - the beginning stages of that very ROUGH draft of book three in my series. What do you think? Toss it or get rolling? YOU be the editor.
David and Laura’s motor home shook its way down the highway like george Clooney’s boat in The Perfect Storm. They heard a rumbling from the refrigerator that told them the carefull stacked beverages would form an avalanche the first time the refrigerator was cracked.
“Turn it up,” Laura said.
As they rolled out of Georgia David was hurtling their home on wheels down I-20 howling along to Lynyrd Skynrd’s Sweet Home Alabama.
“How’s that?” David screamed out as he turned the volume to number eight.
Laura was twisting and swaying her hips from behind David as she held onto the back of his seat singing, “Big wheels keep on turning. . . carry me home to see my kin. . .”
Realizing she was lost in the music and excitement, David just smiled and started to sing along with her, tapping his fingers on the wheel.
NASCAR fans are serious about their fun, and David and Laura Jennings were no exception - showing up a week early to garner a prized camping spot within the infield of the Talladaga Superspeedway track. The race fans also filled every motel and campground from Birmingham to Talladaga. But then again, as one race fan told David upon their arrival, “There’s no place like Talladega Speedway, home of the world’s biggest Bubbafest.”
“What was that?” Laura asked.
“What was what?” David was setting the stabilizing jacks in place before climbing on top of the motor home to set up their grand stand seats to catch all the practice runs.
Laura shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.”
Less than fifty feet from David and Laura’s Passion’s Palace another huge motor home was parked. Along the side of it were two huge gold letters in between a race car - G and H.
“We can do this easy or we can do this hard.” As he bore down on NASCAR’s newest driver, twenty-seven-year old Greg Houser, with a huge knife in a darkened RV, he grabbed him from behind and jerked him upwards. “Well, what’s it gonna be pretty boy?”
TO BE CONTINUED . . . MAYBE!
Topics: writing | 1 Comment »
Excerpt - The Last Resort
By April Star | March 9, 2008
Prologue
The cloaking fog appeared strangely protective. There were areas along Anastasia Island’s coastline where no one could hear you scream. And it was in such an area that the bottle was launched, spinning through the air and landing with a splash. It bobbed and weaved quietly eight feet above the sandy bottom before deciding on a direction. Seemingly, it appeared to be floating a quarter mile off the northerly point of St. Augustine Harbor.
As the day progressed, feeling the pull of the tide, the bottle moved imperceptibly westward before making a gradual circuit around the jetty outward along Salt Run inlet. Starting its journey into the path of the sunlight. Glinting through the sparkling Atlantic, the bottle reflected blue, gold and pink.
Three days later it had cleared the inlet area and was moving north by northwest, about two hundred feet offshore, in fifteen feet of water along the Ancient Sand Dunes.
The rolling waves of the Atlantic and gentle westerly breeze blew across the tropics. Despite the westerly wind, the bottle continued to float west. St. Augustine, Florida has over four and a half miles of beach that stretch along the northeastern tip of Anastasia Island. It is situated right in the middle of modern Florida — a mere 40 miles from the glassy skyscrapers of downtown Jacksonville, 100 miles from the rocket ships of Kennedy Space Center and 100 miles from the fantasy theme parks of Orlando — but its nearly four and a half centuries of history make it seem worlds away. The bottle had floated aimlessly for over 200 miles and seven days before drifting into an offshore basin where the water circulated in a counterclockwise motion. The bottle was in the extreme south of this basin. The circulation moved the bottle westward, back toward home.
For two days, the bottle washed back and forth against the rock and wooden structure of the south end of the jetty; as if it were uncertain whether to go inside, toward St. Augustine, or outside, back into the Atlantic.
The romantic symbolism of bottles containing proclamations of love and being tossed out to sea have intrigued people for as long as there have been bottles. Oceanographers have charted these romantic journeys; Hollywood has made blockbuster movies out of the tenderness from the notion.
The bottle that had been hurled out in the Atlantic on a balmy spring day from St. Augustine Harbor contained no messages of undying love and passion. Nor did it contain charts or maps of shipwrecks. What it did contain was secrets, lies, betrayals and the most unspeakable of crimes—murder. And just as the journey of the bottle itself, it would alter the course and direction of many lives beginning with the life of whoever discovered this message in a bottle.
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Spring Fest & Spring Fever At Camping Resort
By April Star | March 7, 2008
I LOVE my job! But I think I’ve mentioned that a few dozen times in the past few months. Take today for instance, Leslie (my manager) and I took the afternoon off to attend part of Spring Fest week celebration. The golf carts were lined up when we arrived at 2 PM for the men’s fashion show. And what a show! The men were dressed as the opposite sex and and they had a skit of attending a baby shower! I never laughed so hard and for the entire hour and a half!
It’s true that a picture speaks a thousand words and although I took a total of 117 photos today I will only share some of the highlights of today’s Spring Fest in action and some really sexy babes!
The rec hall was packed for this event!
One of the Babes I mentioned!
The “pregnant” guest of honor and her baby shower!
You might have to click these pictures to get the “full” view. I’ll never look at these guys…I mean babes, the same way again when they come in to the office!
There was even a “dirty old man” in the group of shower attendants! We think he got he … um, I mean her - pregnant.
This was the hussy stripper of the group.
Another decked out doll for the shower.
The doctor!!! Good thing he was there, too. All the excitement made our guest of honor go into labor early and when we called out, “Is there a doctor in the house?” Lo and behold there was. Well, sort of. He said by trade he was a plumber but did do some gynecology on the side.
Dr. Plumber proceeds to deliver the baby as the audience laughs their heads off!
Doc had all the necessary equipment - a plunger and forceps.
Delivery was a success! The doctor told Bubbles (or whatever her name was) if she had any complications, to call someone else!
Our emcee was introducing a “woman” who just returned from rehab - she was hooked on phoenics! I love these people!!!!!
They were literally coming out of the wood work dressed in their spring best!
All good things must end! But tomorrow…Spring Fest continues!
Down the road we go…
Laughing all the way …
Back to the office!
I love my job!
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All The Write Stuff: An Interview With Fiction Scribe
By April Star | March 6, 2008
Following is an interview I just had with Fiction Scribe out of Australia. You’re seeing it first here!
Hello and thank you for stopping at Fiction Scribe, Ms. Star. Tell the readers a bit about yourself.
What brought you into the world of writing? When did you start?
You’ve written the book Tropical Warnings. Could you tell us a bit about the book?
What inspired you to write Tropical Warnings? Where did the idea begin?
What character do you relate to the most and why?
What is your favourite part of the book?
What draws you about writing mysteries?
According to your website, you have travelled a lot. How much does your travel and experiences come into your writing?
Are there any authors who have inspired you in your writing?
What are you working on now?
What are your dreams for your writing?
When you’re not writing novels, what do you do? How do you find time to write?
Do you have any advice for writers?
Thank you very much for your time.
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Daydream, Relax, and Write
By April Star | March 1, 2008
When I’m doing my most intense, creative work, my husband usually comments, “Shouldn’t you be writing?”
Some of my best ideas, characters, and plot lines have come through the art of daydreaming—brainstorming with all my thoughts. The real version of me hard at work is lying on the floor looking at the ceiling or lying on the grass and staring up at the sky. Hoping—and trusting—that in the emptiness of the ceiling, the wall, the vast openness of the sky above, life will suddenly take form like the first primitive organisms in the empty prehistoric sea. And the awesome thing is, it usually does. Vague, not quite visual shapes, not quite heard lines of dialogue, random motions of people and places that will select themselves into a story line pop into my mind.
TROPICAL WARNINGS began to take root in my mind lying on a lounge chair at the pool of the campground I was managing. All the guests there assumed I was sleeping—sun-bathing, when in fact I was listening to conversations, watching out of the corner of my eyes. Characters began to take shape, plots began to form. I was again, hard at work.
We have stored in our brain every article we’ve read, every experience we’ve had, and every image that has passed before our eyes. It is all there. The challenge — one of the keys to constant creative inspiration — is to retrieve this information deliberately. All this information is the corridor to a writers creativity. Recognize and realize that your mind is more powerful than any computer. It holds far more information than the Internet and is a database for whatever it is you choose to write. Take the first step through the corridor of creativity by opening the door to your mind—a mental atlas filled with scenes, characters, plots, conflicts…all the ingredients for blockbusting novels, short stories, poetry. To enter through this door you must first free your mind of all other distractions and those inner critics who speak loudly and negatively in an attempt of keeping you from this first step. Spend a few moments quieting yourself through meditation. It will help you stay focused and remain creative.
Topics: Daydreaming, writing | No Comments »
Writing
By April Star | February 26, 2008
Writing. When I see or hear that word it fills me with a sense of self and connection. When I act upon that sense of self and connectivity, like now, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that I am joyfully and passionately doing what I was placed here on this earth to do. Writing. Ever since I was a little girl and held my first pencil to paper I have engaged in this art. The older I got the more I wrote. This artful journey has led me through so many exciting and adventurous genres. I have written nonfiction and fiction, romance and mystery, plays, poems, journals, essays, columns, and children’s stories. I have written for love, for money, for escape, for therapy, to tune out, to tune in. Writing. For fifty years this is what has been my constant companion, my lover, my friend, my job, my passion. It is what I do with myself and the world I live in. I live to write. Writing. It has always given me a feeling of great discovery. For instance, like now, when I’m really in the mood to write – it becomes a mixture of both a blessing and a necessity, a tremendous need – like breathing. The act of writing, of getting it right as in the perfect description of something I see, feel, hear, taste or smell can only be compared to how a hunter feels when he hits a bull’s-eye. I love it when I write like that – perfect and splendid; but in all honesty, I love it equally when I write period. Writing. As I look out my window I think how much it is like the weather. Full of drama – calm or stormy; sunny or dark. Twenty minutes ago it was bright outside and the wind had a gentle breeze to it. I could smell the fresh earth outside, in fact, I think that’s what filled my psyche with a need to once again put pencil to paper. I experienced an exhilarating aliveness to one of my senses and had to try to express it. Since doing that the weather has changed as has my thoughts and reflections on writing. Outside, it is now dark and the wind is gusting and blowing the pretty yellow puffy flowers from my tree to the ground. The rain pinging against my windowpanes reminds me somewhat of the sound of my keyboard when I’m really on a roll! Writing. Is how I define who and what I am and have always been. I write the old fashioned way – just as I have from the very beginning, with pencil or pen to paper. Later it will make its way into my computer. But for now I just write. And as I do I am aware of the feel of the paper that the side of my right palm rests upon and the smoothness of the metal pen between my fingers. Silence as pen meets paper. Writing. Is and always will be rapturous to my soul.
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Bad Haircut Blues
By April Star | February 19, 2008
Okay, we’ve all had it happen. A haircut gone horribly wrong. And what can you say when it was your own Mother who did this to you? Did she forget I’m a Maltese? That I liked my long silky mane? I look like a poodle! With a very bad poodle perm. And what really hurts is that Mom thinks it’s cute. “It’ll grow back,” she said. Some comfort that is. What’s a beauty queen to do but hang her head in sheer embarrassment. I just hope my pals Dobie and Max the Mutt don’t see me. I’ll never go out again. Or at least not until my hair grows back. I wonder if that stuff Mom put on the plants the…um, Miracle Grow! That’s what it was. I wonder if I could get into a bag of that stuff and roll around. Maybe it would speed things up here a bit.
Or…When all else fails - I’ll just wag my tail and smile. No sense letting this ruin my whole life. Walking around with a scowl on my face and growl in my throat isn’t going to make me look (or feel) any better. Why turn an ugly haircut into an ugly personality? Smiling always looks good and who knows, maybe the glare from my pearly whites will blind everyone from the not-so-hot poodle perm on the Maltese.
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New review
By April Star | February 8, 2008
This novel, Tropical Warnings, by April Star is the first in the Wanderlust mystery series of books which feature amateur sleuths who find murder and mayhem in RV parks and as they travel across America in their Bluebird Wanderlodge motor home. Star has found a niche with great potential and a wealth of material in the diverse populations of the often stable but sometimes threatening misfits who travel and cluster haphazardly in these widely disparate worlds of camping resorts.
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How Did You Start Writing?
By April Star | February 5, 2008
Someone asked me today, “So, how did you start writing?” I replied, “Huh?” I mean, were they asking me how I started writing as in–did I pick up one of my dad’s paint brushes and begin to slap my ABC’s on the wall? Or, did I take a Crayola and scribble some of those fascinating words like Spot, and Jane, Dick on the top of my desk?
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