"Win a swanky prize? Why not?"

Just popping in to let you know A) that a new short-story will be coming to the blog soon, and that for now, my brand new lifestyle blog, Lipstick & Gelato, is live and receiving entries for the pretty swanky giveaway! Follow the link to hear more, and please feel free to spread the news. :)

"The Leopard Clause:" A Snap of Short-Story

I stand upon the brink of the eighth month of this year and think of how patient all of you are. I've not had a good schedule with my writing and I freely admit that. Work has gobbled me and since I can't write in the middle of life, the choice to write when I reach home of an evening means choosing to ignore my family, and I've just not been ready to make that choice. So my word-count has suffered miserably. It's not dead, however, and while I intend to start August with a month-long goal of 10,000 words added to Scotch'd the Snakes, I have scribbled in little things here and there in the interim. Below, I'm sharing the start of a short-story for my brother. Meet "The Leopard Clause."

“The Leopard Clause”

by Rachel Heffington

Lord of the Earth.

The category sat well with him, so Banistre Cleveland tried it aloud: “I am a Lord a’ the Earth.” Not too loudly of course, because it wasn’t quite the sort of thing a suitably grief-ravished nephew said upon coming into a sizable inheritance. But this was Middleburg. This was Eden-pure air and grass greener than envy. This was plump, pedigreed horseflesh going more per ounce than gold, and long, low stables rife with barn-swallows. No one would hear him, and if they did, no one would care.

“Lord a’ the Earth,” Banistre repeated. He spread his palms along the rail fence and collected several splinters.

“Enjoying the view?”

The intrusion of a fellow human jarred Banistre’s heady mood. He turned, nursing his injured hand to face the offender. Silhouetted like one of Satan’s finest, all angles and intelligent movement, stood the Hon. Phillip Dean Wicks, attorney at law. This Wicks, Banister’s late uncle’s solicitor, specialized in adding his presence unannounced. Banistre felt an immediate weakening of his lordliness. What was he after all but a half-baked law student with a palmful of splinters and a recently acquired estate? But there was an estate, and the positive implication of that word buoyed him. Mr. Wicks couldn’t frighten a Lord a’ the Earth. Banistre shifted to allow for Mr. Wicks’s joining him at the fence and nodded down-pasture to where a fat mare cropped turf.

“She’s ready to pop,” he offered.

Mr. Wicks squinted. “I believe ‘foaling’ is the official term.”

“Ah, yes. Foaling. It’s got to be hell, bringing one of those kick-boxers into the world.”

Mr. Wicks said nothing.

“I mean,” Banistre fumbled with a piece of fence-rail under his skin, “it’s purely marvelous, how all them arms and legs are all jumbled up so neat and quiet inside. Like a Jacob’s Ladder, I’d imagine. And then a bit of a struggle later and you’ve got a foal racing around like the Triple Crown was his natural right. Fascinating.”

Mr. Wicks turned a dark, intelligent eye to him with that smile that always made Banistre recall how bad his Latin was.

“Indeed,” the lawyer said, “Is animal husbandry an interest of yours?”

“Animal...husband...” Banistre fell into a cold sweat. “What...I mean, oh! Of course. Yes, well, I do go in for a bit of it. Just enough to feel my way around the paddock, so to speak.” When nervous, and he found Mr. Wicks particularly inspirational in this respect, Banistre got chatty. “I don’t want to be one of those heirs who can’t hold his liquor and flirts with ruin and plays the dames.”

If Mr. Wicks thought well of him for this rare bit of philosophy, he kept well away from outward applause.

Banistre pulled out the first splinter triumphantly. “I will be a wise land-owner and know what crop per acre my land is bringing, and who’s bred with whom and what a bad drought we’ve been having lately, don’t you know.”

“Just so.” Mr. Wicks put a hand into his breast pocket. If he had suddenly brought out a mother o’ pearl-handled revolver, it would have suited his elegant style of darkness, but he did not. A sheaf of papers appeared, which Mr. Wicks undid with a refined snap and put into Banistre’s hands.

“Before you begin your wise reign, O, Jehoshaphat, you might find these of interest.”

Being a law student, Banistre ought to have made sense of the legal jargon; being a simple man, he could not.

“I see,” he said, and handed the papers back with a tepid smile.

“Unusual clause, isn’t it?” Mr. Wicks had obnoxiously virtuous hair, as if it dared not defy the style in which he set it of a morning. “My client favored what I call ‘creativity’ in his dealings. Bad luck for you, though, my man.”

Under his shirt, Banistre felt his body go a startled shade of boiled crayfish. “Just to be really sure I’ve got it down, d’you mind explaining it in laymen’s terms? My people will want to know,” he hastily added.

A sharp-eyed grin from the solicitor. “In the simplest words: you’re out of an inheritance.”

Banistre choked, presumably on an inhaled may-fly. “Oh. Well....drat. Just like that, huh?” Something had gone wrong with his breathing. “And who’s the lucky fellow to take my place?”

“Uncle Sam. The Government. That is, unless you are able to defy death and answer the Leopard Clause.”

“The...?”

“Surely you noticed?” Mr. Wicks unsnapped the papers again and pointed to a section of print circled several times in red pencil. Anyone ought to have seen it. “In this clause, your romantic-minded uncle detailed the conditions of your inheritance.”

“That he die?”

“That you kill (and have attractively taxidermied) the Leopard of Harbaryaband.”

Banistred laughed a great, booming “HA!” which startled the brood mare and sent a barn-swallow kiting away.

“Are you a big-game hunter, Mr. Cleveland?”

“I’ve never shot anything larger than a woodchuck,” Banistre confessed.

The spirited eye of Philip Dean Wicks seemed to declare things about its owner: “Lions,” it cried. “Panthers.” And in the left-hand corner, if one could stand the exposure for so long, a sort of glint hinted at “Rhinoceros.”

“But I’m terrified of large animals," Banistre babbled. "And diseases like Malaria. I’m not rich and I’m not English and I’ve never been to Africa, let alone had any desire to go!”

Mr. Wicks refolded his papers. He clamped a resolute palm on Banistre’s shoulder before sauntering off. “It’s a good thing for you, then, this particular leopard hails from India.”

Banistre’s mind had gone spinny. “But...all those idols!”

“Staying?” Mr. Wicks called back, his nose, hair, chin, limbs all sharpened by the back-light. “I’d come along if I were you. You’d best get yourself outfitted.”

I Promise I HAVE Been Writing...

Dear Folksies:
     Contrary to popular belief, I've been doing a LOT of writing recently. Why the secrecy? Well, this is actually non-fiction writing. For the past three or four months, actually, I've been hard at work on developing a new bit of blogspace to further and officially explore my triplet of other passions:

Food, Fashion, Art.

Lipstick & Gelato will give me a happy, organized outlet for all three while I people can still keep tabs on my reading and writing here on The Inkpen Authoress! I love a fresh start, a new focus, and a place to show my pretty things. Lipstick & Gelato will take the place of A Butcher, A Baker, A Candlestick-Maker  as my "other blog," and will focus on these three main things:

Recipes: In the Kitchen, on the Gelato side of the house I share all things edible: recipes new and old, hole-in-the-wall spots for a fine meal, foodie friendships, cooking challenges and more.

Fashion: In the Closet (or Lipstick gallery) I talk about style, beauty, dressing my ‘curvy’ body gracefully, and all things related to looking your best. Some of my inspirations style-wise are Audrey Hepburn, Amy Adams, Tanesha Awasthi, Kate Spade, Zooey Deschanel, classic and vintage silhouettes, and rich colors.

Art: My art is...all around! From fashion-sketches to food illustration, to quick sketches done on the sly under the nose of a snobby Starbucks barista, I throw my art into this blog the way I fit it into daily life: here and there, in all the nooks and crannies.

Think you're interested? Bookmark the blog (www.lipstickandgelato.com) so that when it goes public on August 11th, you'll be prepared! Spread the word with the image below on all your preferred venues of social media, and until the day you can actually get into the blog (which is, again, August 11th), follow Lipstick & Gelato on Instagram! 

Cheers to all of you! Thanks for being such ducks and putting up with my random silences!

C'est la LIFE

Writing-Wise

My MERCY, life flies by. It's July and I have the most baffing feeling that I've been some sort of hideous fake this whole spring, calling myself a writer. The truth is, what I've written this spring wouldn't fill a wide-ruled, spiral-bound notebook. I have not logged into my publishing account in four months. My Twitter is a ghost-house. I'm doing horribly with self-promotion. I'm not sure I should even be telling you this, but PR has never been my strong suit. Actually, scratch-that. Public Relations are where I am GOOD. Selling books is where I don't give a horse-fly, even when I ought, which is why I still work as a nanny rather than a full-time writer. Life has been giving me a workout and in a fist-fight between my family and my books, family wins out. That is not to say I haven't wished to write and even written a (very) little. I've started a secret thing that I can't whisper about yet because I don't want to announce my lipstick-taser before firing. I've worked a (very) little bit on Scotch'd the Snakes. I've worked on a few pieces of worthless flash fiction to keep my mind limber, and have plans to write a very quick piece of humorous fiction in honor of something I misheard a couple of weeks ago while in church. Cottleston Pie is marinating. I am not sure what to do with it yet, but murmurings of a rewrite are in the nearest corners of my mind when I stop to think about it. Historically, just about forty or fifty percent of the reading populace, after reading one of my novels, suggest I write a children's book. I have never quite decided how I feel about this reaction. Did they not enjoy my novel, but find my tone amusing and therefore feel I should tackle something of less import? Or did they like my story and/or tone so much they want it in short-order form? Or do they think I am entirely on the wrong tack and ought to pin my sails and try for something that will harm no one if it flops miserably? I cannot tell. But I love Cottleston Pie and I think I'm on the right track with it and when I take it out, it is always so much a better project that I remember it being. This is my update on personal writing. I was vicariously thrilled with my friends, like Mirriam Neal, who managed to do JuNoWriMo. Brava!

Reading-Wise

I've had a little more success. Suzannah Rowntree's Pendragon's Heir is marvelously well-written but a little too brocade for summer wear. I find it slow but pleasant going. I picked up Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally after going on a blitzkreig-speed tour through DC's Holocaust Museum. I want to go back and spend more than fifteen minutes on each floor, but what I saw was enough to convict, impress, and sober me. So far, Keneally's book is thoughtfully researched and reads much more like an interesting history than a novel, which is rather the point. Lurking behind-hand in the book-wings are a book about the children of the Holocaust (also a Museum purchase), The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers, two cookbooks, and a book about the history of maps. No, it's not The Island of Lost Maps which I read earlier this year...I just have a strange fascination with cartography since the day I first watched National Treasure. The influx of reading material happened when I made the trip to our dinky library which is hardly ever open to renew my card which had expired at least a year ago. What do you know? They have books at libraries. And I'm terrible at resisting a book.

Listening-Wise

I don't listen to music while writing, generally, but I do have a list of songs that have been in my heart and head recently and here is as good a place as any to share them! :)

1. "Geronimo" - The Sheppherds
2. "Bright" - Echosmith
3. "You Belong With Me" - Taylor Swift (Come on, it isn't summer till you've had some T-Swizzle)
4. "Almost Like Being In Love" - Nat King Cole
5. "Out of an Orange-Colored Sky" - Nat King Cole
6. "Shut Up And Dance With Me" - Walk The Moon (unashamed)
7. "Budapest" - George Ezra (heard the most beautiful female-vocals version of this done by two sisters I know.)
8. "Take Your Time" - Sam Hunt
9. "Lay Me Down" - Chris Tomlin
10. "I'm a Believer" - The Monkees
11. "Christ Be All Around Me" - Leeland (my prayer, always)

My taste is eclectic, as you can see and ranges up and down the scale from standard pop to country, to big-band, to Christian contemporary. I love having varied tastes. Keeps things interesting.

Eating-Wise

Lavender Soda. It's a beautiful thing. Like drinking a vase of flowers steeped in Sprite...only less perfume-y. Also, anything boysenberry. After three years, our patch is doing prolifically well and my hands and lips are stained with the sun-soaked gems. York Peppermint Patties. I bought a bag to share around my wing at a camp...and ended up taking the whole thing home. Now I really, really want to try making s'mores with York instead of normal chocolate. Parmesan from the block. MmmHMMMM. You heard that right. Cheese is bae. If I talked that way. And I don't. Moving onnnnnn. Cherries. Dark, sweet cherries. Divinity right there. And whenever I eat cherries I am reminded of an anecdote about Oswald Chambers which you probably don't have time to hear, so I will refrain from sharing it.

I'm off to bury my nose in one of my neglected writing projects. Ciao, darlings!

When Your Editor Turns Author

It isn't every single day you get the opportunity to return favors for people. It isn't every day your favorite editor's debut novel is released by Whitefire Publishing. And it is for this happy reason that I gather all of you together to throw a little birthday-party interview for my friend and editor, Rachelle Rea. 

ABOUT The Sound of Diamonds

Her only chance of getting home is trusting the man she hates.With the protestant Elizabeth on the throne of England and her family in shambles, Catholic maiden Gwyneth seeks refuge in the Low Countries of Holland, hoping to soothe her aching soul. But when the Iconoclastic Fury descends and bloodshed overtakes her haven, she has no choice but to trust the rogue who arrives, promising to see her safely home to her uncle's castle. She doesn't dare to trust him...and yet doesn't dare to refuse her one chance to preserve her own life and those of the nuns she rescues from the burning convent.Dirk Godfrey is determined to restore his honor at whatever cost. Running from a tortured past, Dirk knows he has only one chance at redemption, and it lies with the lovely Gwyneth, who hates him for the crimes she thinks he committed. He must see her to safety, prove to the world that he is innocent, prove that her poor eyesight is not the only thing that has blinded her but what is he to do when those goals clash?The home Gwyneth knew is not what she once thought. When a dark secret and a twisted plot for power collide in a castle masquerading as a haven, the saint and the sinner must either dare to hold to hope...or be overcome.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rachelle Rea plots her novels while driving around the little town she's lived in all her life in her dream car, a pick-up truck. An Oreo addict, she is also a homeschool graduate and retired gymnast. She wrote the Sound of Diamonds the summer after her sophomore year of college.

LINKS

Website: http://RachelleRea.com
Facebook: http://facebook.com/inspiringdaring

Twitter: http://twitter.com/rachellerea
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/rachellerea

Instagram: @RachelleDianeRea

So, loves. Though I missed the official Release Week due to my laptop unexpectedly coming to a heated death (truly, it burned), I have the privilege of interviewing this Southern Dynamo here on The Inkpen Authoress and questioning her all about the first book in her Steadfast Love series, published by Whitefire Publishing. Welcome, Rachelle! Readers: if you want to know how her boyfriend views her career as a romance novelist, what she thought when her dream publisher said yes, and which book Rachelle cannot live without, read on! 

RH: I had the privilege of beta-reading The Sound of Diamonds years ago. How much would you say the story has changed in the interim?

RR: A little. A lot. LOL. Much of the plot has stayed the same; much growth has gone into the details and characters. For example, Gwyneth wears glasses. At one point in the story (no spoilers here!), she loses her glasses. In an early draft (maybe the one you read, Rachel), she conveniently has another pair--so not plausible. Needless to say, she goes without her glasses for a bit in the now-finished novel. ;)

RH: You say this contract was dropped in your lap; how did it feel to know that your dream publisher had said YES?

RR: It felt like sitting at my desk at 10pm and wondering why I had watched that second episode of Arrow that had prevented me from checking my email and discovering the news earlier. A few hours had passed between that lovely bit of news arriving in my inbox and my actually discovering it! It felt like nearly crying, nearly screaming, waking up my parents to tell them, calling my best friends, and sleeping with a smile on my face. :)

RH: What makes the Steadfast Love Series (of which TSD is Book 1) different from other historical romance series?

RR: My series follows the same two main characters throughout all three books--in other series, the trend seems to be to follow a family or set of friend-ish characters.

RH: What would say is your trademark as an author?

RR: My favorite word. Daring. I want to write stories of people who have the choice to be brave--and choose rightly, if not for the first time, then just in time. :)

RH: How do your personal acquaintances view your authorship?

RR: What a fun question! I'll never forget the face a friend made in the kitchen when I told her I had signed a contract. And my boyfriend has mentioned he found it slightly intimidating at first that I'm a romance novelist. :) All in all, though, I'm thrilled and blessed by the support of all those around me--in real life and online. :)

RH: What is the biggest thing you have learned between drafts #1 and the final version of your trilogy?

RR: I'll never think it's finished. I've heard authors mention that before but never had it seemed truer than when I was rereading the final galleys and wanting to make tweaks and changes that were trivial to say the least. But the truth is, this novel is the best book I've ever written. And the next book will be even better. ;)

RH: Mind sharing a favorite quote from The Sound of Diamonds?

What did it matter if I perished here in the convent at the hands of my enraged countrymen? Better that than breathing my last at his hands.

– Gwyn, The Sound of Diamonds

RR: This captures her attitude so well. She would rather die than let Dirk save her in this first chapter--but that soon changes... ;)

RH: One book you cannot live without?

RR: One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. I love that book. I lend that book out regularly, so I guess I do live without it somewhat, but still. It speaks to my soul. ;)

We at The Inkpen Authoress wish you all the best of luck and happiness with The Sound of Diamonds. Thanks for dropping by for the afternoon and sharing the scoop! :) 

Confession Time: I'm Mad

(PSA: mini York peppermint patties are like little tablets of ambrosia set with the flavor imparted from being served in the Holy Grail.) 

"The British have always been madly overambitious, and from one angle it can seem like bravery, but from another it looks suspiciously like a lack of foresight." -Ben Aaronovitch Whispers Under Ground 

I know nothing about the book from which Goodreads helpfully pulled the quote which towers above your page, but I do know that according to it, I must be British. See, I suffer from a distinct madness called Leaping Before I Look. It's part of my ENFP personality type, I know. The Inspirer: we see potential everywhere, in everything and everyone. We're probably most susceptible to plot bunnies, starting stories we don't finish, and generally sitting, like Daisy March, wearing a benevolent smile and announcing,

"Me wuvs evvybody!"

Thankfully, I've managed to more or less curb that impulse to "abandon stories in favor of a fresher idea". I hope to be a good mother someday. I've got to learn to see things through, right? Just so. But the bug called Inspiration bites me frequently and sometimes I careen past Caution, Sense, Logic, and the street-corner called Informed Consumer and thoroughly embrace an opportunity. It's a loveable failing, but a definite failing.

Last November I felt in a mood to write a short story and, because I don't like to write things that won't see the light of day, I did a quick Google-search on story-writing contests. In my delvings, I found an "essay contest" for an inspirational magazine. The essays requested were something along the lines of a letter from your one-hundred year-old self to yourself now. The idea was odd, struck my fancy, and produced something written in a fit of the writing-wiggles called "The Secret To Red Lipstick". Happily, there was no entry fee for this particular contest and the only thing I had to risk was rejection. If I was accepted, there was a $2,500 prize in view. I sent the thing in and literally forgot it. In January I happened to sort through my Google Drive files and see the essay. I read it over, recalled vaguely that I had entered some contest with it and never heard back, and closed the file and the memory. A few weeks later, I received an email in my inbox from a man of whom I'd never heard. When I read the thing, I was made to understand that the man in question was the editor-in-chief from Fountain Magazine (the contest-host). He wrote to inform me that he had discussed matters with his colleagues and, though my essay had not placed in the contest, they intended to publish "The Secret To Red Lipstick" in the next issue of Fountain. Thinking this was rather an unexpected and curious turn of events (and furthermore, having been reminded of the name of the publication to which I had submitted my piece), I decided to Google the magazine and see what sort of banner my words would fly under.

In a moment I was a puddle of laughter, dismay, tears, and hilarity on my bed while my sister looked on in some small concern. Dear reader, Fountain Magazine is a primarily Islamic publication focusing on science, literature, art, and inspirational fiction. I believe I am probably the only outspokenly-Christian writer who could accidentally land herself a gig in a Muslim magazine. After my initial shock and awe, I sent a few emails back and forth with the editor, discussing whether I was the best match for the magazine's goals, the fact that when I entered, I had accepted the small-print detail (who reads those?) that I had given the magazine permission to publish my story. We also discussed the fact that since my faith was so important to me, I would be given special permission to mention my religious affiliation in my bio-blurb. The editor was fantastically courteous, understanding, easy-going, and respectful and what had initially been a "what the heck?!" moment for me became a lesson learned. I had not researched the publication to which I was submitting my work. I did not read the Terms & Conditions. I had done absolutely nothing in the way of approaching the thing as a mature adult, and yet it ended up being a good experience. Why? Because of another person who did act like a mature person.

I learned that one must always take time to research, to learn the audience, and to be certain that one's work would be a good fit. But more importantly, I learned that there are ways to solve differences without compromising ground. The day I received the package with my copies of the issue of Fountain in which my article appeared (and my check), was a proud day for me. The layout was beautiful. My words were my own. And they had appeared, professionally laid-out and paid-for in an international magazine despite my lack of foresight. Hearken to this advice, chillens: do your research. But keep in mind that sometimes the mad-man wins in spite of his own idiocy.

BOO.

Hello, poor lost readers of mine! Well, I suppose you aren't the ones lost now, are you? I certainly did not mean to leave the country for two weeks without warning you, but The Fox Went Out was keeping you so happy, I felt I left you in good hands.

A hundred thanks to each of you who read this unusual story and liked it and furthermore left me a comment to tell me so. You make a writer's world go round. Especially when said writer has been in a bit of a bog writing-wise out of which the only thing to come so far has been a whack-a-do story such as The Fox Went Out. We hope that upon our return to America and the banishment of jetlag, we shall soon be up to our elbows in Scotch'd the Snakes and making real progress forward.

If I haven't worked on any of my novels, I have been writing. I believe I made it through ninety-seven pages in my travel journal in two weeks. I haven't the foggiest how many words that represents, but it felt good to write something definite every single day. During our ten-hour layover in Moscow I sat near a young man with red hair and freckles who was reading Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken. This immediately made me feel friendly toward him, even though he looked like the red-haired boy from Pleasure Island in Pinocchio who turns into a donkey. If I was not quite so "ick" from having been traveling for so long already with a ten-hour flight ahead of me, I would have tried to strike up conversation. As it was, we discussed the flavor of purple Skittles in Romania and that was that. Not exactly kindred spirits despite the book. His friend leaned over to him:
"You're a fast reader."
Redhead looks up. "Huh?"
"You read fast."
"Oh, yeah." He stirs as if he was personally jolted out of a Japanese prison camp and air-dropped in Hawaii. "Yeah, I started this book on the train from Prague."
"Mmm," the friend says.
I sit back and smirk. Well 'scuse me, Mr. Hoighty-Toighty. We've resorted to nation name-dropping, have we?

Anyway, I have so much to tell you. I have a lecture prepared on Doing Research Before Entering Things, I could share excerpts from my travel journal, we could discuss your reaction to The Fox Went Out and why it worked (or didn't) according to your current feeling. We could discuss the new Rooglewood Press contest with its GORGEOUS cover (Five Magic Spindles, anyone?), the fact that it is author Clara Diane Thompson's birthday ("Give her a drink! I...I mean a hand!"), or that I was entranced by a piece of flash fiction I read on the side of my Chipolte's cup which could have been jetlag or really good writing.

There are many things. I have missed you, dear creatures. So glad to be back, so glad to catch up. May the wordcount ever be in your favor and may I soon forge a way through the slough that is my current WIP.