Category Archives: Author type stuff

The Next Big Thing

Posted on by Lori Crane

I’ve been tagged in The Next Big Thing.

The Next Big Thing is a blog interview for authors to give everyone a sneak-peak at a work-in-progress.

Authors writing more stuff…Yay! Okay, let’s get busy.

What is the working title of your next book?

“An Orphan’s Heart” — planned release date Spring 2013.

Working on the cover….

AOH%20cover_web

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I finished writing a historical fiction novel called “Okatibbee Creek,” where Mary Ann finds herself alone during the Civil War, raising her four children and her brother’s five orphans. One of the orphans was Ellen. While I was researching the orphans (yes, “An Orphan’s Heart” is also historical fiction), I found that Ellen moved around a lot by herself, and I was intrigued with a woman traveling alone at that time in history. I also found that she had only one child who lived until 1986 and died at the age of 98. Ellen and her daughter spanned U.S. history from the Civil War until relatively recently, which I can’t quite wrap my head around. I ended up speaking on the phone with the daughter’s grand-daughter, who is currently 73 years of age and living in Abilene, TX. After that, I was hooked on telling Ellen’s story.

What genre does your book fall under?

Historical fiction.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Zooey Deschanel for the lead and a bearded Matt Dillon as her husband.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Ellen, with the broken spirit of an orphan and the soul of a gypsy, travels alone across the late 1800s rugged and dangerous United States, searching to ease the loneliness that fate has burrowed into her heart and hoping to find the only thing that is truly important…love.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I self-publish under Lori Crane Entertainment, Inc.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It took about five weeks. I worked on it every day. I tend to write just the story, then go back a second time and describe the people and environments. I go back a third time and add color, description, more conversations, and connect all the dots. Usually somewhere in the second pass, the story changes direction. I don’t know why that always happens, but I get more clarity of the plot and the characters after the initial rough draft is completed. The fourth time through is my author edit. I then send it to a real editor, and when I get it back, I can freshly see the holes and connect even more dots. Then the proofreader. Then I go through it about three more times in different formats. By the time it’s finished, I never want to see it again.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I don’t know a specific work, but I imagine any female character trying to make it on her own, especially with the flavor of the Old West.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I love genealogy and am completely in awe of my ancestors. I laugh, cheer, and cry as I give them life through their documents and records.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

This is the second book in the Rodgers family series. The first, “Okatibbee Creek,” will be released in paperback and Kindle December 2012. If you fall in love with those characters like I did, you will also want to read “An Orphan’s Heart,” to continue the love affair. (Shameless plug: There will also be a third book in the series, “Elly Hays,” coming Fall 2013.)

Now, I’m off to tag five more authors to write posts of their own about their Next Big Thing. Stay tuned for details once they have all agreed…

Weekly Writing Challenge: A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words

Posted on by Lori Crane

Well, here we go –  our yearly photograph. We are on our way to Easter Sunday Brunch with my sister and her family. The children love their aunt Margie, but I could really take her or leave her. Sure, we grew up together, but we don’t have much in common these days. She is the head of the church volunteer committee, a regular helper at the community food bank, and an upstanding member of society. I, on the other hand, am a shameless despot and a threat to society.

Last year, there were four of us in the annual photograph. This year, it’s just me and the kids. I feel bad for them that they are without a mother now, but there’s nothing I can do about it. She is gone and nothing will bring her back.

I may have had a few too many drinks that night, but I just couldn’t take her nagging any more. I had enough and she deserved it. No one suspects me at all, after all, I’m a poor widower with two small children whose wife died at the hands of an intruder. But it’s only a matter of time before these kids start asking questions about her, and I don’t know what I will do then.

For now, we’re going to have prime rib and mashed potatoes. And maybe apple pie for desert.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’m late on the DP Challenge this week, but the picture is so good, I had to jump in. For some reason the photo really struck me as something very dark, even with the little girl in her pink dress – or maybe in spite of the little girl in her pink dress. hmmm.

If you are not familiar with the daily post challenge, check it out here. 

My New Book “Okatibbee Creek”

Posted on by Lori Crane

My new book!! How excited am I???

Release date: December 2012.

Available in paperback , Kindle and Nook.

Based on a true story.

Mary Ann Rodgers is a happy child of a wealthy farmer in the early 1800s in Mississippi. She marries her childhood sweetheart and creates a wonderful life for herself and her children. When the Civil War begins, her world slowly shatters, not only from the economic trials and ravages of war, but from a typhoid epidemic that sweeps through her community, devastating her family. Between October 1861 and March 1863, she loses more than fifteen family members; including her beloved husband, four brothers, both parents, and her one-year-old baby boy. She takes in her brother’s five orphans, and along with her own children, struggles to raise them alone in an old general store that was her husband’s dream. Though with no paying customers and no way to re-supply her inventory, she is fighting her own war and losing.

When General Sherman’s Union Army marches through her town on their way to destroy Meridian, she has no choice but to fight back. And fight back she does – not only with her rifle, but with her change in attitude and her rebellious spirit. Following the death of her husband, she is left with no option but to marry the only man who can help her – her widowed brother-in-law, William. Adding his four children to the eight she is already raising is a daunting task, but her marriage to William turns her life around in surprising ways. She becomes a strong and resilient woman who understands better than most the meaning of life and the importance of love and family.

Okatibbee Creek is a novel of historical fiction based on the life of my third great grandmother, including supporting documents and family photos at the end of the book. It will have you crying and cheering through a real-life story of love, loss, and survival.

“Okatibbee Creek” facebook fan page.

“Okatibbee Creek” video trailer.

Tracing Your Roots: Courtesy 101

Posted on by Lori Crane

I’ve traced my family for over 30 years. I currently have 8548 people in my family tree, including 16 great great grandparents, 26 third greats, 36 fourth greats, 49 fifth greats and 61 sixth greats – there’s more, but I won’t bore you any further. At one point, part of my tree opens up and the male side dates back to 1190 England, and the female side dates back to 70 B.C. I have family from England, Ireland, France, Scotland, and places so far back, they aren’t even on the map anymore. I am passionate about my records and my new discoveries.

Do you want to know what my BIGGEST pet peeve in the whole world is??

My biggest pet peeve is getting messages and/or emails that say things like: “Please respond and let me know who you are and why you are tracing my family” or “Please transfer my uncles memorial page to me because he is my family” or “Thank you for posting headstone photos of my family.”

Yeah. My My My My. Let’s make it clear. If you have ancestors, you are probably not the only one in your family tree. The above comments need responses from me including, “I am tracing my husband’s family, not yours”, “The man is also MY uncle”, and “I drove 14 hours one-way to visit that cemetery and posted headstone photos of MY family, not yours, but you are welcome, I guess.”

One of my biggest pleasures is finding distant cousins all over the world, but not when those cousins send rude emails.

I’m currently working on a book about a cousin who was an orphan. My third great grandmother raised her deceased brother’s five orphans for a while. One of the orphans has a great story, so I’m writing a book about her. She lost her parents at the age of nine in 1862 in Mississippi. She is found in the 1870 census living with her other aunt in Alabama, and found in the 1880 census living back in Mississippi. She is then found in 1890 in Texas, married with an infant daughter, and died that very same year at the age of 36. My questions were, “Why did she go back to MS? and “How did she end up in TX?”  I did find the answers to my questions, but still wanted more information. Through some family searching (emails to a cousin of a cousin of a cousin), I ended up on the phone with the infant daughter’s GRANDDAUGHTER, who is 73 years old and living in Abilene, TX. She told me all about her family and her grandmother, but she did not know anything about her orphaned great grandmother or the family line before that, so we filled in a lot of family history for each other. She emailed me a photo of the orphan and a four-page hand-written letter from the orphan to her brother, dated July 1890, a month before she died. And I emailed her stories of the family along with a photo of the orphans grandfather, her THIRD great grandfather whom she never knew existed.  It was amazing. We are cousins connected 150 years ago. Wow!

So, lesson to be learned:

If you contact someone about their family research, do not say “MY family,” because if they are researching and have records, it is more than likely their family also, and you never want to be rude to your cousins.

Class dismissed.

My Missing Muse

Posted on by Lori Crane

I’ve been thinking of my muse, who apparently used to live in my car. Since I wrecked my car two weeks ago and have been car-less, I have been in a funk. All inspiration vanished into the barren junk yard with my poor, deer-slaying automobile. I was going to go on a vacation last week, but without a car, that got cancelled. What should I do instead? Spring clean! Yes, I totally missed Spring because I was working on my last novel. On Wednesday,  with only one room finished and in the middle of my much-needed vacation, I received my manuscript back from my editor. I reluctantly crawled into the black hole of 1860 for the next five days to do the FINAL edit/proofread/format on my book. The rest of the cleaning did not get done.

Now, I’m in limbo.

The novel has been transferred to other creative hands and is completely out of my control. Yesterday I bought a new car with nine whole miles on it, my house is still a mess, and I am still in desperate need of a vacation. But alas, in nineteen hours, I go back to work.

I am on chapter eight of the sequel, but I am spent and exhausted. I need a muse. I need inspiration. I need someone to put a gun to my head and demand the next few chapters right now.

Right now, I need an aspirin and a nap.

Author Extraordinaire….part two

Posted on by Lori Crane

The last time I wrote a blog about writing, I was in the middle of writing a ghost story that came from a dream I had. I’m still in the middle of it. Sometimes you just get side-tracked, ya know? During that process, I took a little vacation down to Mississippi to take pictures of ancestor’s headstones at cemeteries (Yes, another time-consuming hobby). While at a little cemetery in the middle of nowhere taking a picture of my 3rd great grandmother’s headstone, my husband, who gets dragged around incessantly on my jaunts, asked, “Now, who is this again?”

“What do you mean ‘Who is this?’  This, sir, is my great great great grandmother, Mary Ann Rodgers, daughter of Hays Rodgers, wife of Rice Carpenter and William Jolly.”

“Well, what’s her story?”

“Mary Ann lived through the Civil War and a typhoid epidemic and lost about SEVENTEEN family members to one or the other in an 18-month period. She was a strong and amazing woman. Just a taste in chronological order: she lost her brother and sister-in-law to typhoid in October 1862 leaving 5 orphaned children. In December 1862, her father died of typhoid. On December 31, 1862, her husband was killed in the Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. On January 30, 1863, she lost two of her sister-in-laws, her husband’s sisters. Three days later, her 1-year-old son died. A month after that, her mother died. She survived hunger and pain and loss the way none of us could even imagine today. We would be devastated today if we lost one family member. We would need anti-depressants if we lost two at the same time. How did she survive that kind of loss without going insane?”

“What happened to her?”

“Well, her husband Rice had a sister, yes, one of the sister-in-laws who died in January, who left behind a widower and four children. His name was William Jolly. In 1864, they married.”

“In those days, a woman needed a man to farm, and a man needed a woman to raise the children.”

“Yes, but it became more than a marriage of convenience. They were together for 26 years until his death, and they ended up having three children together, so they must have like each other. And, she lived a long life and died at the age of 70.”

“So, you come from very strong stock, eh?”

“Apparently. The women in my family had some serious backbone.”

“That’s a great story. You should write it down.”

Hence, my new historical fiction novel “Okatibbee Creek.” It is currently at the editor, and I hope to have it published on Amazon.com in December.

Back to the ghost story, right?

No, it turns out that one of the 5 orphans of her brother and sister-in-law had an amazing story as well. I’m currently working on my new historical fiction novel called “An Orphan’s Heart.”

Maybe I’ll get back to the ghost story after that.

Maybe not.

If you feel so inclined, please join me on the “Okatibbee Creek” fan-page on FaceBook. The story’s time-line and other surprises and information are available on that page. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Okatibbee-Creek-the-novel/369862926416517

Author Extraordinaire… more or less

Posted on by Lori Crane

Who knew writing a book would be so complicated and time consuming?  I had a dream about 6 months ago. You know how you wake up from a dream and think it would make a great movie, but the more you think about it, the more it just doesn’t make any sense? Well, I woke up from THIS dream and could not go back to sleep. The details were so vivid, and the emotion was so raw. I got out of bed and jotted down the whole story…and was still obsessively writing when daylight arrived.

The next morning, I told my husband about it, and he said, “You have to write the whole story down. That would make an excellent movie.”

Later that evening, we were having dinner with our kids. I told them about it, and my daughter said, “Oh, I just got goosebumps. You have to write a book.”

On the way home, my husband and I were discussing how to write a book and what to do with it once it’s finished. We passed a billboard that said something like, “Publish Your Book! Go to blahblahblah.com”.  Are you kidding me?? Okay fine. I’ll write the damn book already.

I did some research as far as getting a manuscript to a publisher vs. self-publishing and found that it was all do-able. Getting the finished product into the hands of readers is a whole different story. Marketing, social media, book readings, etc. I don’t know that I want to be a world-renowned author. I just have a story to tell. But then again, so did some very successful authors.

So…I’m writing a book.

Six months into it, and about 1/2 way done, I’m losing my focus. I know that the process of any creation is to lose some drive at this point, and that it will come back in full force soon, but I’m anxious to have it finished. The hardest part is done. The chronological order of sequences and histories was the most difficult part to tackle. I almost put a full-blown life-size story board on the walls of my office to make sure all the pieces fit together. That was a pain in the you-know-what. But thank goodness, that part is now done and over.

Now, I’m at the next hardest part…the second half of the book is a ghost story. I can see living people and ghosts communicating on the big screen, but I’m finding it extremely difficult to put that same vision into print. I guess I just have to tackle it and see what happens. Maybe I should forego the book idea and just write a screen play.

And, maybe when it’s finished, I’ll post the first couple chapters here.

….in about 2 years….