CHARACTER NAMES FUNNIES

I’ve got to tell a couple of funnies on a friend. I don’t normally do this, but these are just too good and too related to the subject matter of my blog recently that I just have to share (and he didn’t tell me no when I said I should write a comment about it—I’m just writing a little more than a comment).

My friend is a pastor, not a writer, but he was very pleased to read my posts about how to name characters a week or so ago. He said he has a hard time coming up with names to use in sermon illustrations. You know--there's a member named Bill who sits in the front row, and a boy named Bobby in the preschool dept., etc. And he certainly doesn’t want to make anyone think he’s talking about them. So from now on, his congregation will be treated to a plethora of creative names in their pastor's sermon illustrations.

Then, the other night when we ran into him and his family at a college fair, he gave me his answer to the question I’d posted on Facebook to get ideas for my NaNo story: What kind of fun things would you like to do if you could become invisible? He said that following some of suggestions in the article, I should name my character Crystal because she's "see-through". He’s a fast learner!

QUERY LETTER ADVICE & SAMPLES

Below is a list of articles about writing query letters--many with samples. It is truly an art to write a winning query and everyone has his or her opinion on the write way to do it. Peruse the articles below and find a style that fits you and your book.

ADVICE
Guidelines for Querying Agents

How to Write a Query Letter

Query Letter Formatting

Query Letter FAQ’s

Submission Primer 101

Writing the Query Letter

SAMPLES
Anatomy of a Query Letter

Query Letter "Mad-Lib" (fill-in-the-blank form)

Samples of Good Queries

Some Winning Query Letters

Sample Novel Query Letter

Three Sample Letters

This list is just a sampling of the information available on-line about writing query letters. If you know of a good site I don't have listed, just let me know and I'll add it.
If you would like more information, go to your favorite search engine and type in "query letter" or "query letter samples," and read to your heart's content.

MY NANO STORY

What is Nano?
It’s an abbreviation for National Novel Writing Month. Every year thousands of people sign up at nanowrimo.org to "write a novel in the month of Nov. (50,000 words).

Originally, I intended to use Nano to finish my WIP, Marital Fiction. Once I found out that the official rules state that you must work on a new story—one you’ve not written anything (besides notes). I fought it, but eventually gave in to the spirit of the endeavor, and I am looking forward to working with a new story and just seeing where it takes me.

Disappearing Mom is about a typical mother whose children don't listen while she gives them instructions and her husband doesn't hear her while he's watching the game. But Janet discovers that when she embraces this non-entity state of being she truly can disappear. She learns to control it and has fun with it, unaware of how the disappearances are harming her...until it's almost too late.

GUEST POST - BEHOLD THE DAWN

Today I welcome to Write at Home not a person, but a book: Behold the Dawn. This new novel is written by K.M. Weiland, who writes historical and speculative fiction from her home in the sandhills of western Nebraska. She blogs at Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors and AuthorCulture. Her two novels, A Man Called Outlaw and recently released Behold the Dawn, are available at Amazon.com through the links above.

I hope you enjoy this excerpt as much as I did.

BEHOLD THE DAWN
Synopsis - Marcus Annan, a tourneyer famed for his prowess on the battlefield, thought he could keep the secrets of his past buried forever. But when a mysterious crippled monk demands Annan help him find justice for the transgressions of sixteen years ago, Annan is forced to leave the tourneys and join the Third Crusade. Wounded in battle and hunted by enemies on every side, he rescues an English noblewoman from an infidel prison camp and flees to Constantinople. But, try as he might, he cannot elude the past. Amidst the pain and grief of a war he doesn’t even believe in, he is forced at last to face long-hidden secrets and sins and to bare his soul to the mercy of a God he thought he had abandoned years ago.

EXCERPT
She stopped before him, and a smile touched her mouth. "Master Knight."
"Lady."
The smile deepened slightly, and she knelt beside him. Her free hand pressed against his uninjured shoulder. "Are you not aware that you are yet an invalid? Lie down, please."
He yielded, ignoring the grumbling pains in his chest.
She helped him straighten himself, then leaned over him to lift the dressing from his wound. Her hair fell past her shoulder and brushed against his bare arm. "I’m glad you’ve woken. The Hospitalers thought you might not." She glanced at him, then back to the dressing. "The wound is healing well. If you were wondering."
"Who are you?"
"My name is Mairead. I am the Countess of Keaton."
"Keaton?" He breathed deeply, fighting back an overwhelming weariness of brain and bone. His eyes drifted from her face and focused on the shadows in the canvas above his head. "You were the woman with the Earl of Keaton. His… wife?"
"Aye." Her voice snagged on the word, and he shifted his gaze back to meet hers.
"Where—" He could feel the catch in his own voice even before he heard it. "He is here?"
"Aye. He was wounded." She replaced the dressing and tugged the collar of his tunic to cover it. She didn’t look at him. "Do you know him?"
He lifted an unsteady right hand to rub his chin. "I did. A long time ago."
Her hands came to rest in her lap, clasping themselves with an utter calmness that bespoke inner pain all too well. "What is your name, Sir?"
"Marcus Annan." He exhaled, and an unrealized shudder filled the breath. Here, before him, was the woman Father Roderic had been willing to pay him to kidnap. They were all within his grasp—this woman, Lord William, even the Baptist. He had not accepted the commission, but did not the mere fact that his reputation had given men cause to think he would, make it fitting that he lay here now, in their presence, an arrow hole in his body?
Her face gave no sign that she recognized his name. "You fought in the siege of Acre?"
"Aye."
"I can tell from your voice that you are Scottish. But you wore no cross on your surcoat?"
"I’m not a Crusader."
"Then why come to the Holy Land?"
"A pilgrimage."
"To visit the shrines of the saints?"
"Nay."
The look in her eyes was one of further questions, but he gave no further explanation. She was young, perhaps a score and five years, and there was still much of the girl in her. The contours of her face were narrower than they would have been as a child, the lines harder. But he could still see the girl she must once have been—in the soft formation of her words, in the way she held her lower lip between her teeth, in the striking contrast between pale skin and dark unruly hair. "How did an English countess come to be in this sty?"
"I came with my lord." Her hair fell across her cheek, shielding her.
Annan stared at her. There was more than this to her story, including no doubt the bounty in Turkish gold placed upon her head by Father Roderic. The Baptist had been more right about Lord William’s danger than he knew.
She stirred and turned her head to find her bundle, still without lifting her eyes. "I should go. Lord William is waiting—"
"What’s the status of the prisoners?"
She hesitated. "There are rumors that we are to be released. The Christians have taken Acre. They took it the day you were brought here. King Richard’s terms call for 200,000 pieces of gold, the return of our True Cross, and an exchange of prisoners."
"When?"
"I know not. Soon though, I think."
She began to rise, and he reached out to grasp her wrist. She looked down at him, and her lips parted in surprise.
Lifting himself onto his good elbow, he looked her in the eye. "Lady, I wish to see the Earl of Keaton."
"That’s impossible. He is wounded, he is dying. He can see no one." She started to pull away, but he held fast, his eyes boring into hers.
"I must see him before he dies. Tell him—" He filled his lungs with the stench of sweat and filth and rotting flesh. "Tell him that someone who saw St. Dunstan’s fall wishes to see him."
She stared at him, and her dark eyes grew wider yet. It was clear she knew at least part of the story behind the name. Did she know it was knowledge of the Abbey that had driven the earl to this place?
"You know Matthias?" Trembling, she drew away, her eyes still on his face. "Aye. I will tell him."
And then she left.

To enjoy the rest of this book, you can order it through Amazon.com at Behold the Dawn.