Beginnings Blogfest and Solomon's Compass

L.G. Keltner at Writing Off The Edge is hosting the Beginnings Blogfest today about the beginning of our writing.

I was always an avid reader. I won any reading contests at school. By the time I entered Jr. High, I was reading at the college level. I was also in all of the advanced classes, although I wouldn’t say I really excelled at English. I wrote for school and that was about it.

And then when I was 13 years old, I picked up a book by an author unknown to me. I loved the cover (a framed print of Whelon’s artwork hangs in our media room today) and I hoped that the book really was about dragons. I mean, don’t you hate it when the cover has nothing to do with the story? Fortunately, The White Dragon was really about a white dragon named Ruth.

And it sparked my imagination.

I began writing short stories. Hundreds of them. I tried my hand at song lyrics. (I refused to call it poetry. It didn’t fit a style of poetry anyway.) Wrote hundreds of those as well. And by the time I hit high school, I was journaling every day, too.

And it was at that time I set the goal of author. (Along with professional photographer, something I achieved much sooner.)

All because of that book.

What sparked your writing?


Monday was the big reveal for Carol Kilgore’s upcoming book, Solomon’s Compass, which I completely missed. (I blame the fact I bleached my hair blonde for so many years.) Here it is now though:

Taylor is in Rock Harbor, Texas, on a quest to unearth her uncle’s treasure—a journey far outside the realm of her real life. There’s one glitch. Taylor's certain the buried treasure was all in Uncle Randy's dementia-riddled mind. Now he’s dead.

Former SEAL Jake Solomon is in Rock Harbor under false pretenses to protect Taylor from the fate that befell her uncle and the other members of a tight circle of Coast Guardsmen called the Compass Points who served together on Point boats in Vietnam.

Jake is definitely not supposed to become involved with Taylor. That was his first mistake. Taylor is attracted to Jake as well, but she refuses to wait for him to locate the killer when she knows her plan will force her uncle’s murderer into action.

But the killer's actions are just what Jake is afraid of.

And thanks to those who signed up to announce my next book the first week of February. I’m giving away three copies of How to Publish and Promote Your Book Now, so if you’d like to participate, go HERE.