7 Reasons to Sign Up for My Newsletter, Freebies and the Latest News!

Sisters. Revenge. Murder.

Hi Gobsmacked Loyalists!

I launched my NOIR TRAVEL STORY SERIES with “Revenge in Paris,” and the reviews are streaming in! Here's one that gave me the good kind of goosebumps.

Do you have post-holiday hangover? Maybe you need to hunker down. If so, just make sure you read “Revenge in Paris”, the first installment in the travel noir series by Valerie J. Brooks. This story isn’t a marathon–it’s a fast-paced, sweaty-palms, heart-racing holiday sprint around the festive City of Light, told through the eyes of a wannabe killer. The plot winds through Parisian streets and cafes and museums, and into the crooks and crannies of the cold, calculating, passionate, and unmedicated mind of “Helen Craig”. You’ll wince at the glitter and feel the crush of holiday crowds. You’ll want to get up and pour yourself a Scotch. But don’t bother to guess the finale. Brooks will ambush you with it. 

—Tom Titus, author of Blackberries in July: A Forager's Field Guide to Inner Peace

I’m ready to pour myself a whiskey and salute Tom!

ANOTHER GIVEAWAY!

Yes, I'm doing it again. This time I'm giving away an Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (or an e-reader of your choice)! Get in on this. Drawing takes place around the Ides of March. 

To enter, sign up at MY WEBSITE

GIVE A FREEBIE to FRIENDS!

Don't you just love freebies? Well, here's one that will make you feel good. Send this postcard to friends and family! They get the free story "Revenge in Paris" and are entered in the drawing for an e-reader! 

Spread the love. Just drag and drop the postcard below into an email and add your own personal message. Don't forget Valentine's Day! What better way to say I love you than to send them a story of revenge and murder?

7 REASONS TO SIGN UP FOR MY NEWSLETTER!

• If you missed downloading the free first story "Revenge in Paris"
• Discover who shows up in "Portland Prey," the second story of my noir series!
• Hear about freebies & contests, and enter drawings for cool stuff!
• Be the first to hear news about the series.
• Learn what weird things I'm forced to do as an author.
• Find out what makes me tingle with excitement in all things noir.
• Read about my favorite noir podcasts, tv shows and movies. 

Click on the Cover to Sign Up on My Website

Thanks for following! If you have a favorite social media, you can follow me there for everything noir. 

I love the dark. How about you?

Ciao!

Valerie

p.s. "Revenge in Paris" will soon be available at your favorite bookseller site. Stay tuned! 

MY WEBSITE AND NEWSLETTER SIGNUP

2012 Resolutions? Best Served with Humor!

Ahoy, Lads and Lassies,

            Why humor, you ask? Simple. After being down with one of those venomous viruses goin’ round, I had to find a way to soothe my snarky pirate side that kept saying, “Unfair! Can’t celebrate on New Year’s Eve? Can’t party with Jess Maxwell and Red Moons on Sunday? Arrrggghhh!”

            After a little sniveling, I decided to give myself a good shake and say, “Turn this to your advantage, Captain! You’re being forced to stay in your cabin and leave first mate in charge. How best to use this time?”

Tour a Captain's Table

            Ah, lads and lassies, I needed humor to set me straight. When yer lookin’ a fright and your coughin’ could sail an armada, you need to do somethin’! I made a list of those naggin tasks that needed to be done and knocked ‘em down one by one.  I won’t go through the list. God knows, I don’t need to show you how far I'd gone adrift.

            So here’s what I've had waitin' for ya for the new year.

New Year’s Bloody Resolutions

            Throw 2011’s list into the brink. I’ve used and reused this list for years, created years ago by an online, fill-in-the-gap resolution generator. Sorry I can’t find the link.

            Lose 1 pound

            Be more magnificent

            Be less inexhaustible

            Stop gathering

            Start creating

            Write every day

            Keep my damn sense of humor

For Those Who Woke Up Jan. 1 and Wanted to Write a Novel

            If you woke up on January 1^st and thought, “I’d like to write a novel!” (ok, maybe a “friend”  said that), before you take one step in that direction, consider what Dorothy Parker had to say about becoming a writer:

“If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”  -- via Stacy Clark on SheWrites

            If that doesn’t work, here’s a humane way to discourage yourself your friend from taking up the writer’s life. Watch all the way through. It's irritating at first, but gets funnier!

            That’s all for now, until Friday, when I’ll be back in semi-serious form with my must-read interview with Diane Prokop, book reviewer extraordinaire

Hold On!

            You didn’t think you’d get off that easy, did ya? Nay. Your Captain has an assignment for you.

            To keep your humor afloat when you’re weak and can’t tell the arse end of galleon from a rowboat, find a funny quote or cartoon that makes you smile. But before you tape it to your computer monitor or fridge or car dash, send me a copy at ValinParis [at] earthlink [dot] net! At the end of January, I’ll post them all on my blog.

Galleon!

Rowboat!

            If you can’t do this for yourself, do it for your sisters and brothers! There’s good karma in keepin’ your shipmates in fine fettle. If the Mayans were right and this is the year we go “phewt,” let’s at least be laughin’. One thing I learned from Girl Scouts—other than how to make a S-Mores—is  “Always Be Prepared.”

Signing off for now!

Here’s to smooth sailin’ in 2012!

Your Captain Val

Coming Up!

Interview with book reviewer Diane Prokop

Humor! Helping Each Other Thrive; Bring Your Writing Alive

Confirmed Gossip and News from the Writing World

My Research Trip to Paris: How to Let Go and Follow your Instincts

More News & Confirmed Gossip from the Writing World

Ahoy, Buccaneers!

            Busy on the high seas this summer? Ai, me, too.

            This past weekend I was shanghaied by the Oregon Writers Colony crew to work at our annual Founder’s Day Celebration in Rockaway Beach. Saturday morn we offered a class on publishing non-fiction. After the noon meal, we gathered for a reading at the library followed by the dedication of a poetry pole at Colonyhouse, our OWC home. Sunday, fifty-five writers took over City Hall for presentations, book sales, good eats, and round table discussions. Here be the highlights according to yours truly:

At the Rockaway Beach Library

            Library readin’s began wi’ Barbara Corrado Pope (Pirate Award here for her name). She talked about research she did for her new novel Blood of Lorraine. She’s a right fascinatin’ woman with a bounty of information, no bones about it. Here be an interview with Barbara, if ye be interested in anti-Semitism in 19^th Century France following the Dreyfus Affair—oh, and a murder mystery. The story, besides being a damned good yarn and set in France, examines how suspicion and prejudice can seep into even those who fight against it. Forsooth, I be gobsmacked with her detail of place, a writer’s jewel of “place as character.”

            Oregon Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen followed Barbara.

Photos  by Sandy Schmidt Wilson

            Ai, I be a pirate who loves poetry. As a writer, I chum me prose by reading poetry, lovin’ it for its musicality and imagery. Paulann be everything a PL could be—gracious, classy, great sense of humor, and a Buddhist stillness combined with a brilliant mind and creative blood. I bought her first collection. But before reading her poetry, she offered this quote from Meister Eckhart:

"When the soul wants to experience something, she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it."

Shiver! And not me timbers.

            Later, she dedicated our Colonyhouse poetry pole. Not familiar with poetry poles? They hold sheets of poetry for those hungry for a slice. Just drop by and take a page.

On Sunday

            Sunday at Rockaway Beach City Hall we opened the official Founder’s Day with author Bill Cameron. Blimey! What a funny bloke. A true pirate, that man! Readers can see his funny bones in the first few things he threw at us writers, includin’ this gem in the intro:

Writing is like religion; everyone has their own beliefs, so nay to right and wrong. Adopt what works for you. (I’m paraphrasing here, so correct me, Bill, if I’m a rogue and got it wrong.)

            Here be a few of titles of his “rules,” copyrighted, and small wonder:

• Misery begets plot
• Weakness is Your Plaything
• Loss is Character-Building

            If ye be a writer and interested in his two page pdf with all the “rules” and a few good writer’s tips, go to his website, contact him and ask for Whydunit_2p.

            Next, I sail the internet where I hear the latest on a few of me favorites.

            Chris Bohjalian as posted on Facebook August 18^th:

Today Lifetime is filming the "Secrets of Eden" Stephen Drew/Alice Hayward love scene.

             His latest novel The Night Strangers is a creepy ghost story.

            Alice Hoffman according to her page:

All the cover photographs on my new Kindle releases on Pisces Press are taken by me. I love making bookcovers!

Here be a few—

            Maties, what do you think of the covers?

            As a Francophile, I share Cara Black’s love of Paris. I gobble up her mysteries which are set there and have had the greatest fortune of spending time with her one afternoon and sharing our giddiness over the City of Light. The other day she posted this link on FB:

200-year-old Paris trouser ban for women may finally be repealed

Here at home …

… with me very own critique group. Huzza!

            One of our crew has boarded the agent ship of Donadio and Olson, a NY topnotch literary agency. They say her voice is one of the most original they’ve read. Our-member-who-remains-anonymous is waiting to hear about her first novel that’s out with editors as I write. Her agent is not only taken on her novel, but she’s looking at her short fiction and has offered to help her with social media. Here’s a treasure chest if I ever!! I can’t tell you her name—YET—as we writers tend to be superstitious about announcing anything until the check is in hand (and even then, we still are wary). So cross fingers and spit.

… with me best pal

            Jan Eliot, creator of the syndicated cartoon “Stone Soup,” will be traveling in November to Haiti with Jimmy and Roslyn Carter for Habitat’s Women Build. She’s been on a Women Build project in Thailand. Habitat uses her cartoon characters in their promotion. What a buccaneer! The question: does that mean Grandma in her strip with be travelin' to Haiti? Ah, me thinks she might.

… Your Captain’s News

            This week I be off to the fine port of Waldport, Oregon to seek privacy for four days with a writer pal. I be headin’ into the final chapters of me novel and will immerse in all things non pirate to bring to life my last climactic scenes.

For now, I tip me hat to ye all. Thanks for bein’ on board and sailin’ w’ me. You’re a mighty fine crew!

Yours through storm and smooth sailin’,

Captain Val

COMING UP!

Fashionable Writer-Pirates: What They're Wearing This Season

Readers Beware! What you need to know about reviews and recommendations

What it Takes to be a Writer

And … an unusual interview with cartoonist Jan Eliot of “Stone Soup”