The End to March Madness

In celebration of my new release, I'm giving away five copies of Mist on the Meadow over at Goodreads.com.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Mist on the Meadow
by Karla Brandenburg
Giveaway ends April 30, 2013.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Enter to win

Generally, my parents read my books prior to publication, but Mist on the Meadow went through the process relatively quickly. The ideas flowed, the story tracked, the edits were done and voila!, here it is. So when I told the folks it was published, they naturally asked when they could read it.  I don't know about you guys, but I still worry about what my parents will think, even after all these years of being "grown up."

When they read the original version of Living Canvas, my mother told me it needed more sex and violence! Imagine! My Mother! So I stopped worrying about what my parents thought. However, with Mist on the Meadow, I did provide them with a caution that there is "language" in this one. I know they don't appreciate "colorful" language in movies, but parents never cease to surprise. Again, they told me that if it fit the story, they could understand where that might happen. My hero, Wolf, is a little high strung. He has some major issues to deal with in his life.

When I went back to read what I'd written, I have to admit to a few moments of panic about Wolf's behavior. I write "in character." Often, the words tumble from my head through my fingers without any filter or forethought. Fortunately, I have a very good friend (hi, Jen) who assured me that Wolf's outburst was totally understandable given the circumstances, and she wouldn't change a thing. It was a normal reaction.

Yes, I worry about these things. One does not wish to offend, and yet, some behavior is offensive, no matter what you do about it.

March Madness at the day job has come to an end. The good news is that March is the most challenging deadline to meet. That bad news is that there's one more major deadline in April before we can take that collective sigh of relief and get back to our normal lives. This is where I usually start looking ahead to vacation time - that light at the end of the tunnel. The 14 hour days should be at an end, which means I can reclaim some of my life and have time to do some writing. Now if I can only find those misplaced brain cells that disappeared in the deadline melee.

Guest appearances

Appearing at fellow author Terry Odell's blog today.  Here's the link:

Terry's Place

Back with my regularly scheduled post tomorrow.

It's Here! It's Here!

Forgive the brevity of my post - deadline is but a few days away and we are going through what is affectionately referred to as "hell week."

The new book is now available!

For Kindle

For Nook

Paperback version (which will soon be available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon - and everywhere else - shortly)

St. Patrick's Day for the non-Irish

I have to say that growing up, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day, just like every other non-Irish person. We added an O' in front of our last name, and my parents used to get cards in the mail addressed that way.  It's all in fun, after all.  Everybody's Irish on March 17. For that reason, you might think it odd that I completely forgot about it this year.  Why does that matter?

My dear husband is a very caring man. He sees me working so hard this time of year and all he wants to do is relieve some of my stress. "Let's go to a movie." "Let's take a walk." "Let's go to a museum." He wants to get me away from my computer and the cursing that happens when the day job doesn't work the way it's supposed to. On St. Patrick's, it was "Let's go to the Art Institute." (You may remember my post a couple weeks ago where I'd seen they have this cool new app . . . ).  It worked out so that we could actually go - work was under control, my other duty calls were handled, and so we ran (yes, literally ran) to catch a train into The Big City. And what did we find on that train, you might ask?  Revelers. Hooligans. People wearing green hats and green hair and green "attachments" on their faces, celebrating IN grand style with disguised cans and bottles (alcohol is not permitted on the train during peak revelry times, the St. Patrick's Day parade day being one of them). Sure and begorrah, it was a loud and raucous ride. And THEN, after we got into The Big City, they were everywhere! Revelers. Hooligans. On a Saturday! We had to push through crowds to walk the mile to the Art Institute, but we made it.

My dear husband isn't all that interested in art. He is a very kind and caring man. (Did I say that already?) I asked him which exhibits he was interested in and he looked at me with that confused look on his face as if to say (and bless him, he didn't say it), "I'm not interested in any of it."  And so I saved him the effort by thanking him for taking me to the museum and told him I was going to assume he wasn't interested and this was for my benefit and he was tagging along and to correct me if I was wrong. Then he smiled and nodded. Yep. That about summed it up. Don't get me wrong.  He isn't completely disinterested (otherwise there wouldn't have been any trip, no matter how kind and caring he is).  We found some fabulous pieces of hand-crafted furniture that piqued his interest.  For me it was the impressionist paintings. Renoir. Manet. Monet. Degas. Toulousse-Lautrec. Van Gogh.  When I was little, it was the miniatures. We didn't get to see them this time.  There was a Roman/Byzantine exhibit from the British Museum.  I found some new painters that I didn't know before, and I wished for an exhibit of John William Waterhouse. His paintings are the inspiration for my latest writing endeavor - if I can ever get back to writing (two more weeks to the end of the month and the last major deadline).

When we left, we forgot to check the Chicago River - we walked right over it. The city dyes the river green on St. Patrick's Day every year. And I didn't make corned beef or cabbage. Maybe we'll remember it next year.

Mist on the Meadow is in production! I'm crossing my fingers that it will be available by April 1, but that depends on my availability to comb through the ARC and give it the green light.  I'll keep you posted!

From the back cover:

For her twenty-fifth birthday, a family legacy is passed on to small town pastry chef Marissa Maitland as a Kundigerin, which means she has come into secret psychic power. She will know things about people at the brush of a hand, and use this to help them—but she cannot talk about being Kundigerin without suffering pain. 

Named executor of his grandmother’s estate, Wolf Harper must find something called a “Kundigerin” before he can sell the place. If he could sell his remaining family too, he would. Keeping the family business afloat is his priority, in spite of his uncle’s bad management putting them in the red.

Wolf runs into Marissa—literally, at an icy intersection—and is enchanted by her beauty. One bite of her baked goods bewitches him and enflames a passion Marissa shares. But Marissa blurts long-buried details about the car accident that killed his parents, and knows far too much about the problems at Harper Electronics, neither of which she will explain. Should he be afraid of her?

Let's Talk about the Weather

My brain is overloaded.  March Madness means a whole different thing for the accounting industry. Creativity continues to poke me, but I don't have the time to jot anything down unless I want to give up sleeping.  I want to keep moving on the story in-progress.  I have another one I'm determined to write (Cinda's story, if you read Living Canvas - people continue to tell me how much they dislike her, so I figured she deserved a story of her own). And the second in the series that will start next month (fingers crossed).

I want to write!

Instead, I took some time off to go on a girls' weekend with three friends to celebrate a milestone birthday for one of them. How nice to go "unplugged" for a couple of days! Well, maybe not 100% unplugged, but mostly. Down time. Unwinding time. We rented a house in Galena, Illinois, and the weather kept us mostly locked inside, which was fine. We sat at the kitchen table all day on Saturday, in our pajamas. Fourteen hours of food, games, drinks, conversation and camaraderie. The weather was wet and gloomy and foggy, and we were in the backwoods where the fog doesn't lift. On Sunday, we went into town and got rained on, then back to the house where we built a fire in the fireplace and sat and talked some more. By the time we needed to vacate, it started to snow. Not serious snow, but snow, nonetheless.

Which brings me back to the climate.  Last year at this time, spring had started with a bang, sending us into a year where the seasons were all a month ahead of time. The long/late winter seems to portend that we will be back on schedule this year.

Yes, I'm rambling without much in the way of a thread to my thoughts except, "let's talk about the weather." That's what happens when the day job takes over my entire life. But we're halfway through March, and March is the most intense month of work, so in a couple more weeks, maybe I'll get my brains back. And more time to write. And maybe more interesting blog topics.

Maybe.

Bazinga!

I get a kick out of The Big Bang Theory. A lot of the gags are oversimplified, but they are all relatable. Who doesn't like Sheldon, in spite of his horrible personality? The writers strive to show you why he is the way he is and occasionally open his vulnerable side, a la "soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur..."

The goal of many writers is to accomplish just that. Portray a flawed character and make them likeable in spite of themselves. That might be one of the most challenging things, because as people relate to people, they tend to divide them into categories without taking the time to see beneath the surface. Writers need to take that extra look and find the redeeming quality.

I'm married to an engineer, so in many ways, Big Bang is even more relatable. Children defy logic. Women can, at times, defy logic. Try and explain that theory to an engineer.  This does not compute. That can't possibly happen given the variables, like Sheldon so often doesn't understand why people don't see the world the way he does.  That can make things extremely frustrating for all parties in the real world. As an author/writer, it can be fun to unlayer the neuroses.  It's called conflict.  Works in novels and on TV, even if those personalities make the real world a challenge some days.

So now I have to explain to my "Sheldon" about why you can't argue with a woman who is coming off a stressful deadline and expect it to make sense. (And I'm giggling as I share with you that even he doesn't always make sense when stressed.) Real life, as opposed to a novel, requires faster conflict resolution.  It might make for good reading to let the conflict go on for the next 100 pages in a novel, but in the real world, there aren't many heroes or heroines who will (or should) wait that long.

Peace.

Working on Deadline

A glimpse into my life - I work at a seasonal day job and we are now in high season.  I am on deadline this week, and while I've tried to get in some writing time, there are certain times of the year where my focus has to be laser sharp.  This week is one of them (which means my imagination is a bit blocked in order to earn my paycheck).

Working on deadline can be interesting.  Everyone is in a panic - "Will we get it all done?" Generally, we do. Adrenalin starts pumping, people push themselves to their limits, and beyond. Every year is a little bit different in terms of how much work comes in ahead of schedule and how much of it pushes to the last minute. Don't misunderstand, there is always a lot of work that pushes to the last minute, but sometimes . . . sometimes they actually do plan ahead. This year seems to be moving smoothly (hence the time to write a blog post). However, late last night I got a panicked email asking how many of my staff would be available to work how many hours to meet the deadline. Same staff we have every year, same staff we always meet the deadline with, in fact, I have additional staff this year. Calm heads actually make it easier to accomplish the deadline. Panic generally slows the pace and upsets the people involved. We are in better shape than we've been in some previous years, but panic is an almost essential element to deadlines. I used to panic. The powers that be seem to think panic kicks up the adrenalin and pushes people past their limits. Me? I already work at a very fast pace, so kicking it up a gear overheats my engine. For one of the supervisors who works under me, kicking up the adrenalin short circuits her brain.  We have capable people in place to meet the demands, race horses that will get to the finish line without the use of whips.

My role today is to be the voice of calm. Reason. We are pushing through the work easily. Deadline is tomorrow. Unless they back up a dump truck and bury us, I think we'll get through this one just fine, thank you.

Update on the new book - Mist on the Meadow will likely be available the first of April. I'll keep you posted.