books | Bertram's Blog

Purposely-Flawed Characters. Or Not.

April 1, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Interesting characters make interesting stories, not the other way around. An author develops interesting characters by putting them under pressure, giving them much to lose, and letting them change because of their experiences. And the author makes these characters at least a bit larger than life. Who wants to read about characters who sit around watching television all the time or who repeatedly have the same tiresome argument with their children or who can’t resolve their problems? We deal with that every day. We don’t need to read about it. On the other hand, if the traits are too idealized, characters come across as comic book silly.

Depth of character is revealed in the choices a character makes while at risk. Without the element of risk, there is no real story, only a string of episodes. Think what Superman would be like without Kryptonite — totally uninteresting and flawed in his perfection. But Kryptonite is a purposeful flaw, put there to make Superman more interesting, which makes him seem even more of a comic book character. Oh, wait. He’s supposed to be a comic book character!

To offset the problem of idealized characters, many writers try to create a purposely-flawed character, such as a boozing cop or a mother who can’t communicate with her teenager, but this seems an unnecessary distraction unless, of course, it is a vital part of the character’s motivation. So many flawed characters, particularly the hero with a drinking problem, have been done to death. I know there is a long tradition of hard-drinking detectives, but there has to be a more creative way of giving characters flaws. Or not. Writers are so enthralled with the idea of flawed heroes, that they are missing the point. They don’t have to give their heroes obvious flaws. Writers are flawed. By making their heroes realistic, the heroes are automatically flawed.

A character must lose occasionally or make mistakes. Where is the suspense if every time a character attempts to do something she succeeds? And in that loss is a shadow of the flaw, because the setback must be realistic. Did the character lose because of arrogance, assuming she knew what to do when she didn’t? Did the character lose because she wasn’t physically fit or knowledgeable enough? Did the character lose because she didn’t plan correctly, because she was unfocused, because of her inner conflicts? Such losses force a fully realized character to change so in the end she can succeed.

In the beginning of Daughter Am I, twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart has no real direction, no purpose, but when she learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents — grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born — she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead. She drives halfway across the country with a feisty crew of octogenarians, friends of her grandparents, and even though she discovers they all had ties to the mob, she doesn’t let her good sense override her obsession. This understandable obsession is her flaw (though I did not write her to be a flawed charater), and if she doesn’t grow during the course of the story, if she doesn’t learn from her setbacks, the obsession could become a fatal flaw. Fatal or not, flaw or not, Mary’s obsession makes her real, makes her a bit larger than life, and makes her interesting.

Posted in books, How to, writing. Tags: creating interesting characters, Daughter Am I, depth of character, flawed characters, Superman. Leave a Comment »

What is the easiest part of the writing process? What is the most difficult?

March 30, 2012 — Pat Bertram

The easiest aspect of writing for me is editing. The words are all there, it’s just a matter of making sure they are the right ones and that they say what I want them to say. The most rewarding is knowing I wrote a book worth reading. People tell me they really enjoy Daughter Am I, that they “hate saying goodbye to these wonderful characters.”

The most difficult part of writing for me right now is just sitting down and writing. I have no real inclination to write fiction, and I find it hard to focus on a long project. I’m sure the desire will come back, probably when I stop spending so much time on the Internet.

Here are some responses from other authors about the easiest and hardest parts of the writing process. The comments are taken from interviews posted at Pat Bertram Introduces . . .

From an interview with J J Dare, Author of False Positive and False World

The easiest part of the writing process is inspiration. When it’s there, the words flow like a raging river. If the story is in my head and I’ve been tapped by my muse (and she stays with me), I can write a novel in a week.

The hardest part of the writing process is inspiration. When it’s not there, it can’t be faked. Constipated writing can be unbearable.

From an interview with Dale Cozort, Author of “Exchange

For me, the easiest part is writing the rough draft. Once I have characters and a plot outline I can write the rough draft of a novel in four to six weeks and I enjoy doing it. What happens before and after writing the rough draft is far more difficult and time-consuming.

The most difficult part is the last five percent of the editing process, the part that gets you from almost the right words to exactly the right words. For me that takes more time than writing the rough draft.

From an interview with A. F. Stewart, Author of Once Upon a Dark and Eerie

For me, the easiest element of writing is the dialogue. I rarely have a problem with the flow of dialogue. Possibly because I can hear all those character voices whispering in my head.

The most difficult part is writing the middle section of the plot. I’m great at churning out beginnings and endings, but I always have to work at writing the stuff in between.

So, for you, What is the easiest part of the writing process? What is the most difficult?

(If you’d like me to interview you, please check out my author questionnaire http://patbertram.wordpress.com/author-questionnaire/ and follow the instruction.)

Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: Daughter Am I, easiest part of writing, editing, hardest part of wriitng, Inspiration, rough draft. 1 Comment »

Choosing Book Titles

March 22, 2012 — Pat Bertram

The title of a book is important. It’s the first thing a prospective reader sees . . . or at least it used to be. Now the author’s name generally comes first and apparently is a much better selling tool than the title ever was. A title is still important, however. It often sets the mood for the book, it lays out the theme, and it tantalizes readers into opening the book. Think of Gone With the Wind. With such a title, you expect a wide sweep of a story. The title speaks of loss and perhaps survival in the face of broad changes. Even before you open the book, you are primed to find out what is lost and why it disappeared into the wind. Imagine then, how different your feeling would be if the book had been published under its working title. Pansy. Would the book, the movie, the character have ever had such an impact if that had been the name? Of course not.

Another major work with last minute name changes was Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. Originally Catch 18, it was changed because of another book that was coming out at the same time: Leon Uris’s Mila 18. And 1984 was originally 1948. So not the same feeling!

Choosing a title is not an easy task. My novels all had simple working titles: The Red Death, The Chameleon, The Gangster Book, The Alien Book, but except for The Red Death, none of those titles were ever possible for the real title.

For A Spark of Heavenly Fire, I considered using the title The Red Death since my quarantine mirrored the middle ages, though in a hi-tech way, but the name had already been used several times. And anyway, from the very first, I’d planned on using A Spark of Heavenly Fire. That was my inspiration for the book, the Washington Irving quote: “There is in every true woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.” I wanted to tell the story of ordinary women, women who seemed colorless in ordinary times, but who blazed brightly in dark times. When I found no takers for the book, I thought perhaps the title didn’t reflect the story, so I changed it to In the Dark Hour. And I got an agent. She couldn’t sell the book, so when my contract was up, I changed the title back to A Spark of Heavenly Fire. And that’s the title Second Wind Publishing released it under.

I had to try several times before I got the title of More Deaths Than One right. The working title was The Chameleon but that was never a real contender since I didn’t want to give the story away. So first I used the Law of the Jungle, which amused me since the jungle was so much a part of the story. Also, at one point I had my hero say that the villain might be above the law, but he wasn’t above the law of the jungle. Both the line in the book and the title ended up being deleted because they were too trite, so next I went with Nature of the Beast. It was adequate, and I would have stuck with it despite its triteness, but then I came across a couplet from Oscar Wilde’s “Ballad of Reading Gaol”: He who lives more lives than one/More deaths than one must die. Since my hero appeared to have more lives (and deaths) than one, More Deaths Than One struck me as the perfect title.

Daughter Am I, my gangster book, only had one previous title: Sins of the Fathers, though really it should have been Sins of the Grandfathers. Then I found the Rudyard Kipling quote: “Daughter am I in my mother’s house but mistress in my own.” The quote would have more accurately described the theme of the book if it were “daughter am I in my father’s house,” but I was taken with the title Daughter Am I and decided it was close enough.

Which brings me to my most recent novel, Light Bringer. Sad to say, I haven’t a single story to tell about the title. Even though the working title was The Alien Book, I always knew the title was Light Bringer. Light is the theme of the book, and the Light Bringer (planet X) was the reason for the story.

So, as a reader, what are your favorite titles? As an author, how did you come up with the names of your books?

Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: A Spark of Heavenly Fire, Book titles, Catch 22, choosing a title, Gone with the Wind, More Deaths Than One. 3 Comments »

What’s your writing schedule like? Do you strive for a certain amount of words each day?

March 21, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I have no routine. When I do write, it’s usually late at night because all is quiet. I don’t set a daily goal — the words come hard for me, so I’m grateful for whatever words I manage to get on paper. It’s amazing to me that with as sporadically and as slowly as I write, I’ve still managed to complete four and a non-fiction book. I guess it just goes to show what one can do by plugging away. Oddly, considering this is the electronic age, I still prefer to write longhand, though I am gradually doing more writing on the computer

Here are some examples of other author’s writing schedules. The comments are taken from interviews posted at Pat Bertram Introduces . . .

From an interview with Dale Cozort, Author of “Exchange

I usually concentrate on one aspect of writing at a time. If I’m writing I schedule myself to write a thousand to three thousand words per day, depending on what other obligations I have. If I’m editing or marketing that’s usually all I do that day.

A group of people from a workshop I went to last July pledged to write at least two hundred and fifty words per day every day for thirty days. We kept renewing that through the end of December and most of us ended up averaging five hundred to a thousand words per day. The two-hundred and fifty words is a small enough amount that you can do it in twenty minutes to a half hour, so pledging to do that is a good way to avoid procrastination. At the same time, the mindset for editing and marketing are enough different from writing mode that I found myself having to work at making the transition.

From an interview with Polly Iyer, Author of “Hooked”

I write all the time. I try for a certain amount of words when I’m writing a new story, but much of writing is rewriting. That’s when I go hoarse reading aloud to see if the dialogue works or if sentences sound strained.

From an interview with T. C. Isbell, Author of “Southern Cross”

Even though I’m retired, I approach writing like a job. I believe that following an established schedule is the key to finishing a project. I start writing at seven in the morning, right after my wife leaves for work, and work pretty much through the day. I take short breaks, but other than that I’m either researching or writing. I try to add at least one thousand words a day to my manuscript. Some days the juices flow and I put down two thousand words. There are days where I write the same sentence over and over. I stop writing before my wife comes home from work.

From an interview with Malcolm R. Campbell, Author of “Sarabande”

I do everything possible to avoid having a writing schedule, much less a daily word-count goal. The story unfolds as it unfolds. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, much less when my characters or my muse or the universe are going to fill me in on the next scene or chapter. Sitting down to write at a specific time or forcing out a set number or words each day would ruin the flow. This sounds like a lazier approach than it is. Whenever I have a novel in progress, I am rather obsessed with it. It is always on my mind. Basically, I’m much better off when I’m actually writing it than when I’m not writing it.

So, what’s your writing schedule like? Do you strive for a certain amount of words each day?

(If you’d like me to interview you, please check out my author questionnaire http://patbertram.wordpress.com/author-questionnaire/ and follow the instruction.)

Posted in books, writing. Tags: approaching writing like a job, daily word goal, establishing a routine, how many words do you write each day, writing schedule. 5 Comments »

All Books Are Not Created Equal

March 20, 2012 — Pat Bertram

This anything-goes publishing world has been perplexing me for quite some time now, both as an author who is trying to find a place in the wild book frontier of throw-everything-out-there-and-see-what-sticks and as a reader who is trying to find sanity and good-editing and great story-telling among the millions of books being offered for sale.

People think that good books will rise to the top, that such books will automatically find a readership, but that is not always the case. Wonderful books are being overlooked, and dreadful books with no redeeming value are filling millions of Kindles. Shrugging off the conundrum as “survival of the fittest” doesn’t help matters, because in this case, it seems to be matter of devolution, of having to accept typos, poor grammar, ridiculous errors of fact, and an appallingly low standard of literacy. Compounding the problem is that many good writers, who have to watch their books stagnate, no longer see the point in writing, which lowers standards even more.

I used to think this was a matter of a breakdown in the filtering process. If authors have to submit their books to publishers, if they have to go through an editing and copyediting process, then books have a minimum of errors and at least a modicum of good storytelling. Or at least they used to. Even the major publishers are lowering their quality control. If their aim has always been to sell the lowest common denominator, and if those people don’t care about quality, then there is no point in adding to the expense by doing the work. Nowadays, when the fastest selling self-published authors are those with an ever growing stream of books, quantity and not quality are the key.

The real problem as I have come to see is not one of filtering, but of strata. There used to be definite strata when it came to readers. People stuck to their own genres, though even within a genre there were definite layers of quality. Some romance writers, such as Colleen McCullough, rose to iconic status. Others, such as Danielle Steele, were firmly entrenched in the lower middle. And still others churned out myriad books for lowest of the low, Harlequin and Silhouette and the other subscription publishers.

And never, except for perhaps the iconic writers, did anyone consider these books to be great writing. (Most could not even fall under the heading of good writing.) And never did the best writers have to compete or be compared to these writers. Yet that is what is happening today. With Amazon taking hold of the book business and running away with it, demarcations between utter trash and high quality books have completely disappeared. All books are thrown into the slush pile, all are ranked by the same classification system, all are treated equally.

But the truth is, all books are not created equal. Just because a book is uploaded to Amazon, just because it sells, it does not mean the book is worthwhile. A badly written book with no redeeming value is still trash, but few people seem to notice, and fewer seem to care.

***

How has your background influenced your writing?

March 19, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I always thought I’d be a writer, so when I was twenty-five, I quit a job to write a book about a love that transcended time and physical bonds, told with sensitivity and great wisdom. Unfortunately, I discovered I had no talent for writing and no wisdom, so I gave up writing.

After I discovered I didn’t know how to write, I did temporary work for several years to gain experience of life. Or at least life as it pertains to work. I worked at hundreds of different companies doing everything from filing to billing to bookkeeping to operating a switchboard to selling cars to being a legal secretary. When I wasn’t working, which was frequently, I read. All those thousands of books seeped into my subconscious, and gave me a feel for storytelling, and so when I took up writing again, I had more of an idea of how to tell a story. I just had to learn the specifics, such as show don’t tell, which I did.

Two years ago, my life mate/soul mate died, and the only way I could handle my overwhelming grief was to pour it out onto pages of a journal, letters to him, and blog posts. When I discovered how much those blog posts meant to people who had also suffered grievous losses, I compiled my writings into a book about my first year of grief called Grief: The Great Yearning, which has recently been published by Second Wind Publishing. And so, quite by accident, I ended up writing the story of a love that transcended time and physical bonds, told with sensitivity and great wisdom. I just never knew that the story I’d always wanted to write would be mine.

Here are some ways their backgrounds influence other authors. The comments are taken from interviews posted at Pat Bertram Introduces . . .

From an interview with Sandra Shwayder Sanchez, Author of “The Nun”

I was a child people called “an old soul” . . . an aunt said I seemed to look right through people and I do remember having insights about what was going on inside the heads of adults and often felt very sorry for them. My mother used to discuss Freudian dream interpretation with me and that fascinated me as well as the mythologies and fairy tales I enjoyed reading. So it was I think inevitable that I would write books in which the world of our dreams and the world of consensual reality interface and merge with almost imperceptible boundaries.

From an interview with Dale Cozort, Author of “Exchange

I grew up in a fair-sized city, but I spent a lot of time with relatives in the country, so I probably write rural life a little more authentically than someone without that experience. I also have a computer background, so there is always a little bit of the techie in my stories. I have to dial that back so it doesn’t get in the way of the story.

From an interview with Sheila Deeth, Author of “Flower Child”

I call myself a mongrel Christian mathematician. I think my mixed-up background helps me (or forces me to) see things from a slightly different perspective. Being an English American does the same thing — it makes me more aware of how many of my assumptions are cultural, so it lets me explore characters who might make different assumptions.

So, how has your background infuenced your writing?

(If you’d like me to interview you, please check out my author questionnaire http://patbertram.wordpress.com/author-questionnaire/ and follow the instruction.)

Posted in books, life, writing. Tags: Christian mathematician, Dale Cozort, Grief: The Great Yearning, old soul, Sandra Shwayder Sanchez, Second Wind Publishing, Sheila Deeth, what influenced your writing. 2 Comments »

Do you think writing this book changed your life?

March 17, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Speaking of Daughter Am I, I wish I could say writing this book changed my life since would make a good story, but the fact is, it made little difference. It was the third novel I wrote. I’d already experienced the joy and sense of accomplishment completing a novel gives one, and I’d already experienced the disappointment that comes from having a novel rejected. I’d already experience the joys of being published and the disappointment that comes from not having the book take off immediately. Now, if Daughter Am I would go viral, that would change my life!

Here are some challenges other authors faced as they wrote their books. The comments are taken from interviews posted at Pat Bertram Introduces . . .

From an Interview with Harold Michael Harvey, Author of “Paper Puzzle”

Yes I do think writing this book has changed my life. After leaving the practice of law I had to redefine myself, reinvent me if you will. And writing has gotten me back to the original childhood dream of what I wanted to do in life. The joy of writing legal thrillers is a lot less stressful than fighting to keep the State of Georgia from killing my client with a lethal injection as deadly as those given to Michael Jackson by Dr. Conrad Murray.

From an Interview with J J Dare, Author of False Positive and False World

Writing my first book a few years ago gave me confidence. I believe it was an exercise to prepare me for the challenges I would shortly face in my personal life.

From an Interview with Noah Baird, Author of Donations to Clarity

I think people thought I was pretty weird before the book. They still think I’m weird, but I think I get a pass now because I’m a writer.

From an Interview with Calvin Davis, Author of The Phantom Lady of Paris

After penning the Phantom Lady, I was not the same person. The actual writing of the novel took about five and a half years. During that period, I wrote and rewrote again and again, etc. That said, the truth is, it took me all my life to write the Phantom Lady. The penning of my two other novels was preparing me to write TPLOP. The production of my countless short stories was also tutoring me on how to create the Phantom Lady. And during all this time of schooling, “the lady” was inside me clamoring to be liberated, as I was clamoring to liberate her. “Free me…free me,” she screamed. When I completed the last sentence of the novel, the lady was finally liberated. “Thank you, Calvin,” she said. “Thank you.” Finally, she was free…and so was I.

From an Interview with Sherrie Hansen, Author of Merry Go Round

I think each book that I’ve written has changed my life. I remember an episode of Star Trek, Next Generation, when Jean Luc Picard was swept away to live out his life on another planet. He eventually fell in love, married, had children, and learned to play a musical instrument. When his new world came to an end, he learned that he had never left the Enterprise, and that the whole alternate life experience had occurred only in his mind, in a few days time. I feel like that every time I finish a book. It’s like I’ve visited some alternate reality and lived the life of my character from start to finish, feeling what they feel and experiencing what they experience, when in reality, I’ve just been sitting at my desk, typing away. In a very real way, I think each book makes me a richer, more multi-faceted, more understanding person because when I’ve walked a mile (or a hundred) in my character’s shoes.

Posted in books, life, writing. Tags: Daughter Am I, does writing change your life, how does writing change your life, why write. Leave a Comment »

Excerpt From “Daughter Am I” by Pat Bertram

March 16, 2012 — Pat Bertram

Daughter Am I: When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents — grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born — she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead. Along the way she accumulates a crew of feisty octogenarians — former gangsters and friends of her grandfather. She meets and falls in love Tim Olson, whose grandfather shared a deadly secret with her great-grandfather. Now Mary and Tim need to stay one step ahead of the killer who is desperate to dig up that secret.

Excerpt:

Mary blinked in the sudden brightness, then blinked again when she saw Iron Sam. He seemed to be the personification of the inorganic being, as Happy called it. His skin looked ashen. Charcoal bags hung below slate eyes. His hair, still thick, still with the deep widow’s peak, had faded to pewter. The only hint of color in his face was the gold tooth visible between slightly parted gunmetal-gray lips.

He glanced up as they entered, but no other part of his body moved. Nor did he speak.

“Hi, Sam,” Lila Lorraine said.

The slate eyes shifted toward her.

“It’s me. Lila Lorraine.”

Iron Sam nodded, the merest inclination of his head.

Happy stepped forward. “Remember me? Happy?”

Again the tiny nod.

Mary wondered if he were paralyzed, but if so, wouldn’t he be in a wheelchair instead of an ordinary wooden chair?

Any compassion she might have felt withered when his eyes met hers. Feeling like a bug impaled on a pin, she gazed at him, unable to look away, unable to move a single muscle. After what seemed like a long time, but must have been only seconds, he turned his attention to Kid Rags, leaving her feeling limp and very thirsty, as if her vital fluids had been sucked right out of her.

With nonchalance Mary could only marvel at, Kid Rags pulled out his flask and offered it to Iron Sam. When Iron Sam nodded toward the plastic cup sitting on the bedside table, Kid Rags poured two fingers of bourbon and handed the cup to him. He sniffed it, inhaling deeply with closed eyes, then took a mouthful and held it a moment before swallowing it. His lips twitched — a smile perhaps? — then he took another sip.

The alcohol fumes mingling with the hospital odors and the stench of decay emanating from Iron Sam’s pores turned Mary’s stomach. She swallowed hard, then swallowed again, knowing she shouldn’t show weakness in front of Iron Sam, and somehow she managed to get her queasiness under control.

He flicked a look in her direction, as if sensing her struggle, then concentrated on his drink once more.

“My name is Mary Stuart,” she said when she could no longer stand the heavy silence. She introduced Kid Rags, Crunchy, and Teach, then explained about her grandparents’ deaths.

“What can you tell me about my grandparents? You might have known them as Jimmy Boots and Gina Dale.”

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Follow Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: Daughter Am I, excerpt, feisty octogenarians, gangsters, Iron Sam, mystery. 3 Comments »

“Reading Pat Bertram Gets Better and Better”

March 12, 2012 — Pat Bertram

I got a wonderful review from Glenda Bixler today. She’s a retired professional book reviewer who now writes about books for fun, and she loves my novels!!

Glenda wrote: “I laughed with Pat while reading Daughter Am I, was scared by what happened in A Spark of Heavenly Fire, sighed with Pat’s Light Bringer (Click to read my reviews of the other books!)

“But, Wow! I sat in amazed suspense as I read More Deaths Than One . . .

“The first reason I was amazed was that each of Pat’s books are so uniquely different, The second was that, for me, this, last book was a mystery/suspense — my preferred reading — and therefore the most enjoyable . . . so far! I do hope she continues writing! Her imagination and creativity is exciting and diverse — readers may not be able to rely on what each book will cover, but we can be sure that it will be top rate!” (Click here to read the rest of the review: “Reading Pat Bertram Gets Better and Better”)

Ahhh . . . balm to a writer’s soul.

Some people hated the way I ended the book, thinking I should have shown Bob discovering all that had been done to him, but to me, the story has always been about Bob and Kerry and how they dealt with each other during the terrible revelations. If they had interviewed the perpetrator themselves, the relationship would have been between them and the interviewee. Any interaction between the two of them would have been delayed, and hence would not have had the same impact. By using an admittedly passive third party device, I could concentrate on Bob and Kerry and how the truth affected their relationship in the moment.

And Glenda got it. She wrote:

“One decision by the author proved to end this story in a unique way, one that responded to the need to provide a satisfying conclusion without going into the gory details that took place. The surprise ending was not totally unexpected, since the writer had shown us over and over that there was something strange going on . . . But I had no clue what it was until the last major revelation was made . . . Leaving out the action of those final days or weeks, leaves the reader with the romantic suspense as the primary plot line One that is memorable and, at the same time, allows us to get past what actually happened . . . which was too horrendous to dwell on. Kudos to Pat Bertram for effectively presenting this strange but plausible tale! If you’ve already read Bertram, you should consider this a must-read! Highly recommended!”

Click here to read the first chapter of: More Deaths Than One

Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: Glenda Bixler, More Deaths Than One, mystery/suspense, Pat Bertram, review of More Deaths Than One. Leave a Comment »

Shamrock-N-Sirens Readers’ Event Introduces . . . Me!

March 7, 2012 — Pat Bertram

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12 Day Reader’s Event SHAMROCKS-N-SIRENS
Click here for all the contests and a chance to win a set of special mugs:
SHAMROCKS-N-SIRENS … AN IRISH EVENT!!!

I am participating in a twelve-day readers’ event in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day. My day to be interviewed is today, so please stop by 12 Day Reader’s Event SHAMROCKS-N-SIRENS Welcomes Featured Author Pat Bertram (or if you’re leary about entering a non-G rated site, you can see the interview at Pat Bertram, Author of “Daughter Am I”.

I answer questions with world-shaking impact, such as where and when I do my writing, how I write, my favorite quote, and what thing I would never leave behind were I to attend a St. Patrick’s Day party.

And best of all,