Summer on the Farm -1960's

Summers on the farm were a far cry from summers in Los Angeles.  There were no lazy days at the beach or sun tanning by the pool. Summers were the busiest times on the farm.  They were hot, dirty and long. The days started at sunrise and sometimes didn't end until after sunset. 

Wheat harvest brought especially long days.  We were always slaves to the weather. When the wheat was ready, it was a race against time to get it harvested before the rains knocked it all flat and made it impossible to get into the fields. Once the combine dumped its load into the truck, it had to be hauled to town and stored in the huge bins at the elevator in town until you were ready to sell it. I started driving truckloads of wheat to the grain elevator when I was 14. The old farmers would lean against the pop cooler drinking grape Nehi and gossip while their loads were weighed and stored. When it was all finished, we had to rush back to the fields to be ready for the next load.

Haying season was the worst! Some of us girls would rake hay in our bikinis just to get a suntan.  You could always tell because the back of our legs were still winter white while the rest of us was cherry red.  Bucking bales was the worst.  Since there were no boys in our family, the job of catching and stacking bales on the wagon usually fell to me.  I would stand on the wagon as it moved slowly through the rows and catch the bales my dad threw up to me. Then I would stack them like bricks as high as I could before the load started to tip.

Back at the barn, I was relegated to the loft where there was no sign of a breeze and the air hung heavy with dust and dried leaves. Dad would unload the bales onto the loader and I would catch them as they came off and stack them in the loft. The alfalfa hay stuck to my sweaty skin and itched like crazy. The prairie hay sliced into my arms like thousands of tiny blades, so I had to wear long sleeves to protect myself.

If I was lucky enough to have a date on weekends, he usually showed up late having just come in from the fields himself. We would go into town and get a coke at the Giant Hamburger, cruise Main a couple of times, and head for home since we both had to get up early the next day.

I wish I could say that I missed those days, but to be honest, I much prefer lazy days at the beach and sun tanning by the pool.

COMING IN SEPTEMBER, 2016

Beta copies are out to readers. Final proof is in the works. Watch for the release in September, 2016!

Something was terribly wrong in the 1970’s. In some ways the decade was a continuation of the 1960’s.  In other ways, however, it was a repudiation of all that gone before. The American character had changed. For Tessa Kingsley and her family it was a decade of tears and triumph.

Finding herself alone and responsible for her two sons and an aging mother, Tessa must navigate her way through a world filled with fragmentation and skepticism. Tessa’s journey takes her through the glittering nightlife of Miami, Chicago, and Las Vegas.  But, ultimately, she is unable to escape the demons from the past that follow her. She soon finds herself drawn into a world of drugs, gambling and mob vengeance before she finally finds the strength to break free. In the process she also discovers her own sensuality and individuality.  It’s a legacy she will pass on to her children in the years to come.

The Steel Canyon Legacy is a gritty and poignant reminder of a lost decade. It is filled with passion and intrigue, and the divergent story lines will keep the reader guessing until the very end.

Confessions of a Teenage Wallflower

Like most teenagers, I struggled to find my identity. I was somewhat tall and gangly with a slight overbite and a too-narrow forehead to be considered really pretty. My hair was an unruly mass of dark waves that stopped growing just below my shoulders and ended in split ends. I knew I wasn't a real beauty, but I considered myself passably attractive. My grandmother made sure that I started each school year with a new outfit and a new pair of black shoes. Christmas brought underwear and another new outfit, and then I usually got another new dress and a pair of white shoes for my birthday in April. It wasn't high fashion, but I thought I dressed pretty well.

I rode the bus to school until I was old enough to drive the old Studebaker pick-up into town on my own. I played in the band and participated in whatever extracurricular activities were open to girls in my small country school. I even held class offices. (I should probably note here that there were only 15 students in my class, so we sort of passed this duty around each year.)

But I still felt like an outsider.

At a time when most of my friends were beginning to pair off at school dances, and go to parties, I was usually not invited. Some of my friends felt bad about leaving me out so they would invite me to a party and hand me a broom to dance with on the slow tunes. At one "sweet sixteen" birthday party, the host tried to mix things up by having all the girls place their shoes in the center of the room and the boys had to pick a shoe to find their partner for the next dance. This was supposed to ensure that every girl got chosen.  When all the shoes were retrieved and I was still waiting to be collected by my partner, it became clearly evident that I was going to sit this one out.  The host's father finally took pity on me and asked me to dance. I tried to pretend it didn't matter, but inside I was crying.

Like most teenagers, I longed to fit in with everyone else.

I have carried some of these feelings with me into adulthood.  Although, my life is good and I have achieved a modicum of success, I still struggle with feelings of inferiority. The fear of being the last one chosen is always there in the background. But what I've learned is that there are more of us out there than I originally thought.

As a teenager, I felt alone and abandoned. As an adult, I believe that no matter how successful we are, we all harbor some of those same feelings.  It's what drives us to achieve and succeed. It's also what dooms us to failure if we succumb to it.

This is the underlying conflict that all my characters must struggle with.  Whether they succeed for fail, determines the outcome of the story. It is also the unifying characteristic that I hope my readers will identify and connect with. If literature is the mirror we hold up to life, it should reflect not only our hopes and dreams, but also those secret feelings we hold closest to our hearts.

Windborne, by Wanda DeHaven Pyle

The windswept Flint Hills of Kansas promised bountiful wildlife and fertile valleys, but for Virginia, Helen and Leah it was an empty promise. Dreams here often withered and died from starvation or the harshness and unpredictability of the climate. Eventually, each woman must face the decision to set aside her own hopes and dreams in the struggle to maintain home and family against impossible odds.

Skillfully creating compassionate characters with a range of emotions, Windborne is a novel unique in style and scope.  Set against a historical backdrop of major economic and cultural changes of the past century, it is an elegantly timeless tale about the nature of love, love and awakening.

“Heartfelt and at times quietly moving, this memoir-like work of fiction uses the tapestry of one family in the Flint Hills of Kansas and their struggles, triumphs and tragedies over decades to paint a portrait of a country as it grows and changes with the world around it. Wanda DeHaven Pyle uses a fast-flowing narrative more than dialog to cover much ground within only a few chapters or pages, yet there exists an intimacy, as though we the reader are being offered a view from heaven of this particular family and the decisions which shaped their future and those of successive generations.” – Bobby Underwood, author of the Matt Ransom series of novels

Cover Design: Curb Appeal for Readers

First impressions make a difference when it comes to selling anything in today's marketplace. In most areas, supply still outweighs demand. Whether you are selling a home or the next Great American Novel, you must create interest at the first glance.

While the focus in home sales is often on what can be improved on the interior, many sellers neglect the outside of the property. However, most buyers form an opinion on whether they like a home before they step in the front door.  The same is true for book sales. The work you do in the kitchen or the updating the fixtures in the bathroom of your home is a lot like editing and fine-tuning the interior of your book. It may be great, but by that time it may be too late.  If you want to maximize your property's value, you need to focus on curb appeal. If you want to maximize your book's appeal to readers, you need to focus on the cover design.

Improving the exterior of your book may not be as exciting as trying to figure out what to do with the plot or how to motivate a character, but in many ways it is more important. At first glance, you want your book to have a wow factor.  At a minimum, it shouldn't turn off a large majority of readers. Your book cover is your three-second introduction to the reading public.  When readers are browsing the bookstore shelf or the internet, your book cover needs to grab their attention, but also make a promise about what readers will find on the pages inside.

One of the most important things to consider in good cover design, is your title. Place yourself in the reader's shoes when making your final decision for your book's title. The title should be legible at a glance, so you should avoid small or faint text as well as busy backgrounds. Make sure your title conveys your message clearly and simply. Be straightforward.  Sometimes creativity can interfere with clarity.

Choose a strong image that helps people remember your book and integrates with your title.  A single image usually has a stronger image than multiple images. The image should not overwhelm the title, so beware of overpowering your words with pictures.

Just as many home buyers will associate the condition of the exterior and landscape with the condition of the interior, the same is true for readers.  In fact, curb appeal is so important that if a potential buyer thinks that the exterior is unattractive, they won't even look at the inside.

You may have spent months and maybe even years working on your manuscript.  Make sure you take the time to give your cover the attention it deserves.  After all, it is the first impression most readers will have of your book.

Watch for the cover release for my new book, The Steel Canyon Legacy, in June.

Guerrilla Marketing for Authors

Like most writers, I hate marketing my work.  Even with publisher-backed works, it still falls to the author to do much of the marketing. There is a high degree of snobbery in the publishing world today. After all, it took Rowling years before she was able to realize her phenominal success. But it is even more difficult for indie authors. The assumption is that because a work is self-published, it is somehow not worthy. Sadly, it is up to authors like us to change that mentality through the quality of our work.

I am convinced that the key to getting recognized as an independent author lies in our ability to create a personal brand for ourselves, and the best way to do that is through some of the creative and innovative, low cost strategies used in guerrilla marketing. This technique involves high energy and imagination and focuses on grasping the attention of the public at a more personal and memorable level. Guerrilla marketing is designed to cut through the clutter of traditional advertising so that there is no mystery about what is being advertised. The message is clear and concise.  "This book is unique and different from all the others in this genre because ________."

This type of marketing works on the subconscious mind where most purchasing decisions are made. But keeping the book in the mind of the the consumer means repetition is needed. The challenge with any guerrilla marketing campaign is not only finding the correct time and place to launch the operation, but also investing the time to sustain the operation. You must promote regularly. Prospective buyers need to see or hear your message multiple times before it will drive them to purchase your book. You must create a buzz around it so that it will be shared among friends and acquaintances. This increases engagement with readers and improves the likelihood that they will share the memorable experience with others. The key is to reach the most people in your target audience as frequently and inexpensively as possible.

As a final word of caution, beware of expensive programs that promise to make you an Amazon Bestseller.  These programs take a fraction of the money you pay them and use it to buy copies of your book. While this may make you a temporary best seller, it usually doesn't affect your long term sales in any significant way. 

But take heart. Indie authors and Publish on Demand (POD) is changing the face of publishing in the world. Just 15 years ago, there were legions of travel agencies and agents ready to help busy people with their travel plans. Online travel planning and ticket purchases essentially sent those agencies into extinction.  Literary agencies and agents are already feeling the economic heat of self-publishing, and are next on the list. Groups that ignore self-published works will eventually find themselves in the history books along with Western Union Telegrams.

 

Heroes and Villains

As a writer, I am also a student of human nature.  I expose human frailties through my characters.  It’s what identifies some as villains and some as heroes. Villains often feed off hatred or utilize hate to manipulate others. They are often hate mongers who utilize the lowest aspects of human nature to provoke feelings of hatred in others and seek nothing more than to spread hate throughout communities, nations or entire worlds.

How they use hatred varies. They may tap into hidden prejudices in other people’s hearts and use it as an advantage, or they may directly feed the hatred from their own hearts to amplify their powers.  Adolf Hitler used hate to his advantage.  His method was simple and straight forward.  He said, “I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.” He used bigotry, racism, xenophobia, and misogyny to promote violence.

Hate raises its ugly head when we feel under attack or threatened.  It seems as though we, as human beings require a scapegoat.  It’s as if we need someone or some group to look down on, to blame for the ills in our society and our own inadequacies. In fiction, this weakness is exploited to manipulate the reader’s sympathies in favor of the hero.  He refuses to stand idly by and, by his silence, let this hateful message be perpetrated.

The conflict arises out of the need for the hero or heroine to combat this hatred.  It is tempting to pit the hero against the villain in a classic battle of good vs. evil.  However, as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.” This makes for a more difficult plotline.  The winner is not always clear and sometimes the hero must lose the battle to enhance the outrage against the villain, and in this way, incite the masses to action against him.

In this year of political upheaval, it is important for us to guard against the volcanic eruption of political propaganda that feeds on human passions and emotions. We must remember that all propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.  Hitler recognized this weakness when he said, “How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.”

Therefore, I urge you, if you are going to make an important decision regarding religion or politics, listen to many points of view and not just those of the hate mongers. Be a hero.