Landing on “Right” with Amy Anguish

Landing on “Right” with Amy Anguish

by | Feb 7, 2018 | Author Interviews and Guest Posts

Today, please welcome guest author Amy Anguish to the blog! Amy’s here to talk about the, ahem, joy of renaming her novel, published by Tulpen Publishing. I had the pleasure of designing the cover for this book, which you’ll see below. But for now, heeeeeeeeere’s Amy!
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Didn’t
Shakespeare make it sound so nice? The thing is, once an author has given a
name to her work, it’s hard to consider changing it. Even if it makes sense.
When I started writing An
Unexpected Legacy in 2011, I titled it For
the Love of Smoothies. All I knew was that the boy and girl would meet at a
smoothie shop and that would be the mutual love that would keep them coming
back together through any or all trials. The more I thought about it, the more
I knew they were going to have some mutual history in their family that would
need to be worked through before their own relationship could work. Other than
that, I really didn’t know where all the story would take me. I set out to
write a romance, period.

By the end of the process, I had a rough draft that included
two intertwined stories, one the main story of my original boy and girl, and
one from the past. I won’t tell much more now because I don’t want to give any
spoilers away. But let’s suffice it to say that I was a little surprised when,
toward the end of the editing process this spring, my editor suggested that my
story was more than a simple romance. It’s a Romantic Suspense or Cozy Mystery.
A mystery!? I don’t even read mysteries most of the time! How on earth did I
pull that off? That’s what ran through my head.
Then, she recommended that I change the title. My working
title sounded too fun and flirty and silly, almost, for a book that had as much
depth and intrigue as mine evidently did. Don’t get me wrong. I was flattered
that she thought those things about my story. I was blown away by the thought
of changing something that had been my story’s name for almost six years. And I
was more than a bit bumfuzzled as to what to change the title to. 
We threw names back and forth, playing with various words
that included “Legacy,” “History,” “Surprise,” “Family,” and “Trouble.” I
didn’t want it to sound like just any other book that people would pick up. And
I hated the thought of giving up the fun title I had originally come up with.
But the more we talked (and polled her Facebook friends), the more it was
evident that it really did need to change. Finally, late one night, after being
up in the wee hours with my almost-one-year-old, I came up with “An Unexpected
History.” I’m married to a history teacher, so it sounded okay to me. My editor
changed it to “Legacy” because evidently some people think history is boring.
Who knew? Even though I still hated the thought of giving up my original title,
this was the first one we had come up with that I was comfortable with.
We sent the new title to the amazingly talented Roseanna who
had already been working with about three or four different ideas we had sent
her way for possible cover art. Once she had this title and the last idea, she
hammered out the beautiful cover that graces my book today. When I saw it all
together, I’m pretty sure my heart skipped a beat. After all, this is my first
published book, the work of six years of writing and thinking about, editing
and praying and talking over. And there was this perfect cover that you could
see on any great book at a store. But this one had MY NAME on it. And really,
isn’t that the most important name anyway?
Roseanna here, jumping in to say that we did work the smoothie theme in…on the back.😉

An Unexpected Legacy

Smoothies brought them together, but will the past tear them apart?


​When Chad Manning introduces himself to Jessica Garcia at her favorite smoothie shop, it’s like he stepped out of one of her romance novels. But as she tentatively walks into a relationship with this man of her dreams, secrets from their past threaten to shatter their already fragile bond.  Chad and Jessica must struggle to figure out if their relationship has a chance or if there is nothing between them but a love of smoothies.


Amy Anguish grew up a preacher’s kid, and in spite of having lived in seven different states that are all south of the Mason Dixon line, she is not a football fan. Currently, she resides in Tennessee with her husband, daughter, and son, and usually a cat or two. Amy graduated with a degree in English from Freed-Hardeman University and hopes in all her creative endeavors to glorify God, but especially in her writing. She wants her stories to show that while Christians face real struggles, it can still work out for good.

Word of the Week – Nun

Word of the Week – Nun

by | Feb 5, 2018 | Word of the Week


This week’s Word is another special request from Lynne F.
 ~ Remember that any time you have one you’d like me to look up, just let me know! ~
worn by the Sisters of Providence
Pinterest
Nun dates back to the very beginnings of English, all the way to the days of Old English, when it was spelled nunne. Its meanings were all within a similar refrain (a woman devoted to a religious life), but I was a bit surprised to realize that it was used both for those in the church and for pagan priestesses.
Interestingly, it derived from the Latin nonna, which is a word given by children to elderly people (and is still the Italian word for “grandmother”). Though the sources I found didn’t explain why this was also attached to someone of the religious order, I’m guessing it’s because of the respect one would give such a person, similar to what would give one’s elders/grandparents.
It’s also interesting to note that languages from around the globe have a word similar to nonna for “grandmother” or “aunt” (a nurturing female other than one’s mother, basically) – there’s nona in Sanskrit, nana in Persian, nanna in Greek, nena in Serbo-Croatian, the aforementioned Italian nonna, and nain in Welsh.
So to ask a question that diverges a bit from the word itself but echoes what it derives from…what do you call your grandmother?
Remember When . . . She Played the Violin?

Remember When . . . She Played the Violin?

by | Jan 31, 2018 | 17th-19th Centuries, 20th Century, Remember When Wednesdays

I thought it would be fun to take a quick look today at Willa’s violin…or, rather, violins in general, and some info that appears in A Song Unheard about this beautiful stringed instrument.

Violins and other stringed instruments like them began appearing in the 1500s. They were invented in Italy, and some of the first evidence we have of their existence is from paintings by Gaudenzio Ferrari.
Glory of Angels by Gaudenzio Ferrari.
Not to be confused with Enzo Ferrari.
Or, you know, other painters with the same surname.
There also exists a treatise written in 1556 that details the string family as we know it now.
Stradivari Violin
Pinterest

Willa, of course, didn’t know all this history. What she did know was that Stradivari was always heralded as THE luthier whose instruments everyone wanted to own. That’s certainly true today just as it was a hundred years ago.

It’s only been recently, however, that scientists have discovered why Strads sound better than other violins. I happened to catch a documentary on this just before I began writing A Song Unheard (thank you for that, Lord! LOL), which obviously proved useful. 😉
So the secret to the amazing sound of these instruments? The Little Ice Age.
Yep. See, these drastically colder temps resulted in trees’ growth drastically slowing. If you recall your middle school botany, you know that each year trees add a ring of growth, hence how we can count a tree’s age with a cross-section. Well if you’ve ever seen the stump of a really, really old tree, you’ll have noticed that some rings are very wide and others very narrow. The wide rings are the years that were perfect growing years–nice temps, good rain, lots of sun–and the narrow rings are harsher years.
Pinterest

During the Little Ice Age, trees couldn’t grow very much. So the rings were narrow, and the wood, therefore, was very dense. The forest from which Stradivari sourced his wood was full of Little Ice Age trees, whose wood was heavy and dense. Meaning the instruments, while the same size as others made from different wood, would be a bit heavier and denser, and that of course effected the sound.

Now, this is a relatively new discovery–certainly not something they knew in 1914. But I wanted to hint at it, so I had Willa observe several times that Lukas’s Strad felt heavier and more substantial than the battered, cheap instrument she’d rescued from a rubbish bin.
She got up again and strode to the
wardrobe. Not set on grabbing a hat for the trek she had to make, but to pull
out that battered violin case. She set it on the bed and extracted the
equally-battered violin.

Poor thing. It looked like a rag
next to the memory of the Stradivarius she’d held last night. Dull and scarred
and . . . lighter, even, as if the wood were too thin. Perhaps it was. Still,
it was one of her oldest friends, and her fingers caressed the familiar curves
and corners, ran along the strings.

                                  ~ A Song Unheard, Chapter 6
Do you play an instrument? Or is there one you particularly enjoy listening to? One you’ve always dreamed of owning?
I’m a piano player, so I may occasionally drool over baby grands…though not the newfangled electronic ones. Those are just WRONG. 😉
Word of the Week – Nurse

Word of the Week – Nurse

by | Jan 29, 2018 | Word of the Week

Today’s Word of the Week is a special request from Lynne F. (and as a reminder, if ever you have a word you’d like me to look into, please feel free to let me know and I’ll add it to my list!).

Nurse is rather interesting, in that the noun and verb forms evolved a bit differently. The oldest form of this word is nurrice, which dates from the 1100s, meaning a “wet-nurse or foster mother to a young child.” This word was borrowed directly from the French, which came in turn from the Latin nutricia (wet nurse) which in turn is a variation of the Latin word for “suckle.” Look familiar? This is the same root from which we get nourish and nutrician.

The extended meaning of “one who cares for a sick person” evolved rather naturally from the idea of “one who cares for a child,” but it took quite a long while to do so! That noun didn’t enter English until 1580. And the verb form, “to care for the sick” is from 1736! (I had no idea that was so late!!)

As for the verb meaning “to suckle an infant,” that’s surprisingly late to the game as well, though not as much as the one mentioned above. This dates from the 1530s and is a Middle English alteration of a similar word, nurshen, which is taken from the same root but had previously been pronounced differently.

So there we have it. Our modern member of the medical community derives its name from women caring for children. =)

Thoughtful About – A New Adventure

Thoughtful About – A New Adventure

by | Jan 25, 2018 | Thoughtful Thursdays

I totally stole the title inspiration for this blog…from the other person embarking on this adventure with me. 😉 I think she’ll forgive me. (Check out her post here) 
So, a few weeks ago my husband said, as he has said many a time before, “You need an assistant. You should really consider hiring someone.” In the past, I always just waved off that suggestion because…well…I don’t know. Because figuring out how to delegate work is work in and of itself, I guess.
But I’m staring down the barrel of quite a lot of deadlines, and this time the advice really hit home. I do need an assistant. Someone to handle some of the minutia of book releases and promotions, to help keep me on schedule and do some of my scheduling. Someone who can handle the non-creative parts of my job, so that I can focus on the creative parts.
The next morning, I shocked my husband by putting together a list of things I could have an assistant do, and posting to my launch team that I was looking for someone. To my mind, who better to go to first than the readers who are already my cheerleaders and promoters?? I was shocked to get a big response from my post. I thought I might get one or two interested people, who may or may not be serious. Instead, I was flooded with emails from a collection of wonderful, gracious people with experience and a passion for helping authors.
After a whole lot of prayer and quite a lot of emails, I’ve hired Rachel Dixon as my virtual assistant, and I’m so excited to begin this new chapter with her! Maybe most people wouldn’t feel the need to post about hiring someone, LOL, but I do. Because the way I view it (and the way Rachel views it, hence why she was a good match for me) is that what we’re doing is building a team. We’re working together toward a common goal. Serving authors as an assistant is Rachel’s calling, and serving readers as a writer is my calling. So the fact that we can work side by side for the Lord…well, that’s pretty awesome.

So to Rachel, welcome to the team–your heart for this work really touched me, and I’m super excited to be working with you!
To my readers, I know this move is going to help me get more, better stories to you, and also allow me to be more interactive.
I can’t wait to see where the adventure takes us. Here’s hoping and praying it’s to new heights in faith, friendship, and productivity. 😉
Cart
Checkout - $0.00
  • 0
  • 1