Excerpt from Light Bringer by Pat Bertram

December 12, 2010 — Pat Bertram

Light Bringer is my latest novel, scheduled for release by Second Wind Publishing in March, 2011.

Description of Light Bringer:

Becka Johnson had been abandoned on the doorstep of a remote cabin in Chalcedony, Colorado when she was a baby. Now, thirty-seven years later, she has returned to Chalcedony to discover her identity, but she only finds more questions. Who has been looking for her all those years? Why are those same people interested in fellow newcomer Philip Hansen? Who is Philip, and why does her body sing in harmony with his? And what do either of them have to do with a shadow corporation that once operated a secret underground installation in the area?

Excerpt (Prologue):

Helen Jenks gripped the steering wheel and squinted into the darkness beyond the beam of the Volkswagen’s headlights. Nothing looked familiar. Was she almost home? The snow had stopped falling, but in these hills so far from town, the county didn’t bother to plow. She didn’t know if she drove on the right road, or any road at all. There were no other cars, no tire tracks.

Where was everyone?

She sighed. Home in bed, probably, where she would be if she hadn’t pulled a double shift at the hospital.

Hearing an odd drone, she cupped a hand behind an ear and tried to isolate the sound from the rumble of the Volkswagen engine. Was something wrong with the bug? Oh, please, no.

All at once the sky lit up. She leaned forward for a better view and caught sight of a brilliant star that seemed to throb in time with her heartbeat, growing brighter with each pulsation.

She sat back and rotated her head around her stiff neck. Maybe it was Venus. Hadn’t she read that at certain times of the year, under certain conditions, Venus could be as big and as bright as the moon?

Leaning forward again, she saw the star pulse one last time, then wink out. As she became used to the darkness it left behind, it reappeared, darted toward the horizon, and vanished. So, not Venus. Perhaps a meteor or two.

She listened for the drone, but no longer heard it. Good.

Ten minutes later, she noticed a pin prick of light in the distance: her porch light. Her car slid to the side, and she gripped the steering wheel harder. Be careful, she cautioned herself. You’re not safe at home yet.

When at last she parked in front of her old frame house, she pried her fingers off the steering wheel and stumbled out of the car. Except for the dings and pops of the cooling engine, the world was silent, appearing so new and un-touched, she hesitated to mar the opalescent expanse with her footprints. Then her eyebrows drew together. The snow wasn’t untrodden after all. Tracks led to the house where a small gray creature huddled against the door.

She clapped her hands. “Shoo. Shoo.”

The creature did not stir.

“Go on. Get,” she shouted.

The creature still didn’t move. Was it dead? This wouldn’t be the first time a dying animal had been attracted to the warmth seeping from beneath the front door.

She approached gingerly, relaxing when she saw what appeared to be an old gray blanket that had somehow ended up on the stoop. She bent over to collect the wad of fabric, then straightened. Bad idea. Who knew what vermin had taken refuge in the folds.

Before she could figure out what to do, the blanket moved. She jumped back and stared at it. The blanket moved again, giving her a glimpse of a coppery curl.

She lifted the bundle, cradled it in her arms, and drew back the blanket. Two dark eyes, shining with intelligence, gazed at her.

She sucked in a breath. An infant, no more than nine months old.

As the infant continued to gaze at her, its eyes brightened to gleaming amber. Then it beamed at her—a welcoming smile, both joyous and knowing, as if it had recognized a dear friend.

Helen’s face felt tight. “Who are you?”

The baby chortled in response.

“And who left you here?” She glanced at the tracks. They led in only one direction—toward the house.

Feeling dizzy, she crouched to examine the tracks more closely.

They were footprints. Tiny footprints in the snow.

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Finding Inspiration From Uninspiring Sources

November 29, 2010 — Pat Bertram

Deserts have traditionally been mystical places where one goes to find inspiration, themselves, the meaning of life, but nowadays people use the desert as a park, a place of recreation rather than re-creation. They whiz by on dirt bikes and all-terrain vehicles, they honk their dogs (let the dogs out of the vehicle and and follow along behind, honking whenever the creatures go to far astray), they have drunken parties, and they dump trash, including old furniture.

I used all of these bits to set the scene for the first chapter of Rubicon Ranch: A Collaborative Novel, a novel being written online by me and eight other Second Wind authors, especially the discarded furniture. I do believe I have seen enough old furniture in my walks to furnish a living room, but the piece that most captured my imagination was the television sitting out in the middle of nowhere. No road led to the television, just a footpath. Yet there it was. And so it appears in my chapter:

She turned around to get shots of the trail she’d just climbed and saw a glint of metal reflecting the sun. She squinted. What was that? A television? She found herself smiling—her first smile since Alexander died. She scrambled back down the trail. The television had been dumped a long time ago judging by the creosote bushes that had grown up around it, but footprints leading to the box suggested it had been visited recently. She took several shots from the trail, about fifteen yards from the television, then moved closer. The television had no screen, and she could see that something had been stuffed inside. A doll? She crept closer. Ten feet away, she stopped to take another photo, and the truth washed over her. Not a doll. Crammed inside the console was a child, a girl, her eyes half-eaten by some desert predator.

We’ve now posted the first six chapters of Rubicon Ranch, the latest one by Christine Husom, author of the Winnebago Mystery Series.  The most fun of a project such as this is that we do not yet know who killed the little girl (if in fact, she was killed) and we won’t know until all but the final chapter has been written. I hope you will enjoy following our story as we write it.

  • Chapter 1: Melanie Gray — by Pat Bertram
  • Chapter 2: Seth Bryan — by Lazarus Barnhill
  • Chapter 3: Jeff and Kourtney Peterson — by J B Kohl and Eric Beetner
  • Chapter 4: Dylan McKenzie — by Nancy A. Niles
  • Chapter 5: Mary “Moody” Sinclair — by JJ Dare
  • Chapter 6: Cooper Dahling — by Christine Husom
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    Rubicon Ranch Preview

    November 23, 2010 — Pat Bertram

    I am working on my next chapter for Rubicon Ranch, the collaborative novel I am writing online with eight other Second Wind authors. If you haven’t yet checked the story out, you can find what we’ve written so far at: Rubicon Ranch.  JJ Dare’s chapter is especially chilling. My chapter isn’t due for a while, but I need to get a head start, since who knows what writing projects I will be involved with when my turn rolls around again. Here’s a bit of what I wrote today:

    The sheriff poured two cups of coffee from an urn on a rosewood sideboard, set them on the table, and slid into a chair opposite Melanie.

    “What do you want with me?” she asked.

    He gave her an innocent look as if he didn’t know what she meant. “I just want to feed you.”

    “Yeah, feed me to the sharks,” she muttered.

    “You’re very clever, aren’t you?”

    She sat up straight. “What?” The word came out almost as a shriek. She modified her tone, but did not try to conceal her anger. “Are you suggesting that I had something to do with that little girl’s murder?”

    “Why do you assume she was murdered?”

    “You’re saying she wasn’t murdered?”

    “Did you know the girl?”

    “No. I might have seen her, but I didn’t pay much attention to what went on in the neighborhood. Wait! I bet she’s the one Alexander told me about. Right before his accident, he caught a little girl snooping around in our backyard.”

    “I never saw the report.”

    “Report? Oh, police report. He didn’t turn her in. Professional courtesy, he said. He was a bit of a snoop himself. Supplemented our income with photos of celebrities.”

    “Did he ever take photos of your neighbors?”

    Something in his expression—an added alertness—alarmed her. “Are you thinking Alexander might have been killed?”

    “Why do you ask that?”

    She shot him an exasperated look. “Having a conversation with you is like trying to talk to a four-year-old who has an attention disorder.”

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    Introducing Rubicon Ranch: A Collaborative Novel

    November 15, 2010 — Pat Bertram

    I am involved in a wonderful project with eight other Second Wind authors. Rubicon Ranch is an ongoing collaborative novel that we are writing online. It is the story of people whose lives have been changed when a little girl’s body was found in the wilderness near the desert community of Rubicon Ranch. Was it an accident? Or . . . murder! But who would want to kill a child? Everyone in this upscale housing development is hiding something. Everyone has an agenda. Everyone’s life will be different after they have encountered the Rubicon. Rubicon Ranch, that is.

    Each of us writers is responsible for the development of our own characters. My character is Melanie Gray. She has traveled the world with her husband, a world-renowned photographer. Together they authored many coffee-table books (she did the writing, he the photographs). One of the books told about mountains of the world, one about rivers, one about oceans, one about forests, and now they have a contract to do deserts. After they rented a house in Rubicon Ranch to begin their in-depth study of the southwestern deserts, he died in a car accident.

    Now, not only does she have to deal with the pain of losing her husband and figuring out what she’s going to do for the rest of her life, she needs to fulfill the publishing contract or she’ll have to reimburse the publishers, which she cannot do because the advance is all but spent. Since she is not a photographer, she roams the desert bordering on Rubicon Ranch, taking hundreds of photos, hoping that a few of them will accidentally end up being as brilliant as her husband’s photos always were. She finds the child’s body and takes photos of the scene after calling 911. At first she is a suspect but once the Sheriff has ruled her out, he requests her help in reading the desert and desert-related clues. Still, the sheriff does not trust her completely, thinking she is hiding something.

    These chapters have already been posted:

    An additional chapter will be posted every Monday. Please join in the adventure — it should be fun! We don’t even know whodunit and won’t know until the end.

    Posted in blogging, fiction, internet, writing. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

    Don’t Mess With a Grieving Woman

    November 11, 2010 — Pat Bertram

    This is an excerpt from my NaNoWriMo novel:

    Amanda was fumbling in her purse for her keys when a voice said, with low-toned menace, “Give me your purse or I will kill you.”

    She jerked her head up. Standing between her and her Corolla were two men who looked barely old enough to shave. One jiggled from foot to foot like a child who needed to go to the bathroom, but the other stood firm, his hands steady on a gun.

    The scene didn’t seem quite real. Perhaps she’d wandered onto a movie set? She looked around. No cameras. Just the two men standing before her in broad daylight.

    Was there such a thing as narrow daylight? She giggled at the thought. Then stopped abruptly. I really am going crazy.

    “What’s with you, bitch?” screamed the man with the gun. “Gimme your purse or I’ll kill you.”

    “Promise?” Amanda said, clasping her purse to her chest.

    The jiggling man lifted his hands and pointed a finger at her like a gun. “Yeah, we’ll kill you, bitch.”

    “Okay.” Amanda stared at them, hope blossoming in her chest. God provides, David had been fond of saying. Maybe God was providing a way out of her grief.

    The hand with the gun began to waver.

    “Do it, man,” yelled the jiggler.

    “Yes, do it,” Amanda said softly.

    “I’m out of here.” The gunman took off running.

    The jiggler danced in place. “Where are you going?”

    “She’s crazy. Or a cop.” The words floated back to them from between a pick-up and a mini-van.

    The jiggler looked longingly at Amanda’s purse, hesitated, then trotted after his companion.

    Posted in fiction, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , , . 5 Comments »

    My Topsy-Turvy Writing Life

    November 8, 2010 — Pat Bertram

    NaNoWriMo is good practice for me, this writing without stopping to think.

    I’ve always been a slow writer, but I can also see that the way I wrote and the reason I wrote created the slowness. I used to write at night when all was quiet, then the next morning I would read the work to my mate. The piece had to be cohesive, well written, and most of all entertaining because that is why I wrote — to entertain us. That way of writing taught me to pull someone immediately into a scene, to make characters come alive in a few words, to add a hook or reward on almost every page.

    I had my reward in his smile. Whenever I saw his lips curve in a secret little smile, I knew I’d hit the scene perfectly.

    He and his smile are gone from my life. I’ve had to find a different way of writing and a different reason. For now, meeting the challenge of NaNoWriMo is reason enough. The very nature of the challenge is helping me find a new way to write. Instead of searching for the perfect word, I write any word that comes to mind, trusting that during the rewrites I will find the right one. If no word comes to mind, I leave a blank space and continue with my train of thought.

    I also have no need to write a coherent story from beginning to end for there is no one to follow along as I write. I jot down whatever scene is foremost in my mind. I also write in the morning since it’s quietest here then. Also, by writing in the morning, I can come at the task in an oblique way before excuses begin to get in the way.

    Some of what I’ve written will need little revision. Other bits read more like notes for a novel than a fleshed out scene and will need to be completely revised. Other parts are redundant and will need to be junked. But I am keeping up with my word count (probably because I am leaving out the hard bits, like descriptions and sensory details), and that is an important achievement.

    I’m getting into the rhythm of this topsy-turvy life. From being one of a couple to being alone. From living near the mountains to living near the desert. From writing at night to writing in the morning. From writing beginning to end to writing whatever scene catches my attention.

    I’m still writing the same type of book, though — a non-literary literary novel. The way I understand it, a literary novel is a story that addresses the major themes of life, and the way it is written — the choice of words, the sentence structure, the imagery — is more important than what is written. I fail in the second part — I strive for a simple, easy to read style that doesn’t detract from the story — but I do address major themes, especially in this work. Life. Death. Love. Grief. Relationships. The meaning of life. All while telling a good story. At least, that’s the plan.

    I’m hoping someday you’ll be able to tell me if I succeeded.

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    Excerpt From My NaNo Novel

    November 6, 2010 — Pat Bertram

    My grieving woman novel is taking shape. Amanda and her twenty-nine-year-old daughter Thalia are having problems that seem to antedate her husband’s death. I’m not sure why the daughter has such a problem with her mother, but perhaps we don’t need to know. It could just be more of the unfinished business the woman has to deal with.

    In the scene I wrote today (keeping to my writing schedule, yay!), the daughter accuses her mother of hastily redoing her old bedroom:

    “This doesn’t look at all like my room any more,” Thalia said. “There’s not a trace of me here. You could hardly wait to get rid of me.”

    Amanda opened her mouth to reply, but for a few seconds, no words came out. She’d completely forgotten that when they first came to this parsonage, Thalia had been a sulky thirteen-year-old. Trying to put a smile on her daughter’s face, she’d promised Thalia she could decorate the room any way she wished. Amanda hadn’t expected pink paint and eyelet ruffles, but she’d been appalled by the black walls and red curtains that gave the impression of dripping blood. The posters of movie vampires and band members who looked as if they’d crawled out of a crypt seemed almost cheerful by comparison.

    When Thalia went to college, David claimed the room for a den, but it had been Amanda who been cajoled into doing the work. “Shouldn’t we at least wait until Thalia’s out of college?” Amanda pleaded. For once, David had not been thinking of their daughter. “I need a place to work here in the house. We can put in a sofa bed. Thalia can use it during the summer.” But Thalia had never come back, and secretly Amanda had not blamed her.

    “I wish this house were bigger,” Amanda said. “Then we could have kept your room for you.”

    “Yeah, right.” Then, sounding like the little girl she had once been, she added, “couldn’t you have turned the parlor into Dad’s den? Nobody has a parlor and a living room anymore.”

    “I wanted to, but Dad said he needed a place for receiving visitors. He always thought it was important to keep the living room for us, so we could have some privacy as a family.

    “I’m glad he had a place to get away from you.”

    Amanda flinched at her daughter’s words, but didn’t bother to correct them. When David had moved out of their shared bedroom into this room after his diagnosis, it had been to spare her his relentless pacing and allow her to sleep undisturbed, not to get away from her. Or so he said.

    Could Thalia be right? Maybe he’d mentioned something to her that he wouldn’t say to Amanda. The two often excluded her from their conversations. She used to worry about feeling jealous of her daughter, but she hadn’t been jealous, not really. She’d liked that David and Thalia got along so well. She and her father had been virtual strangers.

    Posted in fiction, life, writing. Tags: , , , , . 4 Comments »

    Making Sure Our Novels Are Worth Reading

    June 18, 2010 — Pat Bertram

    I’ve been reading a lot lately. It’s what I do when I am convalescing or when I feel like pampering myself, and right now I feel like I’m doing both. I haven’t read anything particularly good or particularly bad, but reading is like breathing to me, so it doesn’t really matter.

    One of the books captured my interest, though, mostly because it reminded me of my novel, More Deaths Than One. It had many of the same elements as my story: both books dealt with people who’d been given false memories, both had a theme of human experimentation (in fact, this other book used some of the very same examples of past experimentation that I did), and both were, at least obliquely, about assassins. The set-up in this other book was even more elaborate than mine, and much more gruesome. I don’t understand why the experimenters had to “deglove” the victim/hero’s face to get to his brain and implant the controlling device (in other words, they pulled off his face — yuck.)

    Like many such elaboriate thrillers, the end did not justify the long and convoluted way of getting there. For example, people with machinery lived in the next apartment, controlling him, which is what the implant should have done.

    It turns out that the whole reason for the mind control was so that the victim/hero could — all unkowingly — turn another character into an assassin. The experimenters were killing off all the world leaders they didn’t like. Ho-hum. As I said, the end did not justify the set-up. If they wanted to kill those leaders, all they had to do was hire an assassin and then kill the assassin afterward, which is the way it’s been done for thousands of years. It’s simple, cheap, effective. (We’re not talking morality here, just story.)

    I try to make sure the endings of my novels are satisfying — even if readers guess the story, there is still a pay-off that comes as a surprise. In More Deaths Than One, his reaction to what happened to him is vastly more important than the deed itself.

    Oddly enough, the book I read right before this assassin one also had a similar plot to another of my novels — A Spark of Heavenly Fire. Both of these books were (loosely) about women finding happiness during an epidemic. Her disease was called the Phoenix Flu, mine was the Colorado Flu. Or at least that’s what people outside of Colorado called it. Those in Colorado called it the Red Death.

    So what’s the point of this bloggery? Perhaps that we need to make sure we tell our stories with our own particular slant so that if by chance others have a similar idea, our novels are still worth reading. Perhaps that we need to make sure our endings fit the set-up. An elaborate set-up with a cliched ending could be just as ridiculous as a cliched story with an elaborate ending. (I’ve read a couple of books lately where the ending came out of nowhere without even a hint of foreshadowing.) Or perhaps the point of this bloggery is that I need to read less and write more.

    Posted in books, fiction, life, writing. Tags: , , , . 11 Comments »

    Review of More Deaths Than One

    April 15, 2010 — Pat Bertram

    I received the most wonderful review of More Deaths Than One from John Beck, who entitled it “Cover to Cover Intrigue.” Beck said:

    Pat Bertram grabbed my attention at the outset and didn’t let go. The complex and intriguing plot is not difficult to follow, just impossible to predict. Characters are enigmatic but believable. Settings are appropriately described but not overly so. Each chapter begs for the next to be read without ending each chapter with a “teaser”. Romance is steamy but tastefully done. There’s science fiction involved which is not so far out that some readers have even questioned how much could be true.

    Like the last book of Job, the epilogue brings some poetic justice and adds a bit of meaning to the plot, but the real story stands even without the epilogue. There is not a paragraph which is not well written. Highly recommended.

    Click here to buy More Deaths Than One from Second Wind Publishing LLC.

    Click here to download 30% of More Deaths Than One free at Smashwords or to buy any ebook format, including Kindle.

    Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: , . 6 Comments »

    Brag Time!

    January 5, 2010 — Pat Bertram

    I know I said my time for self-promotion is past, but I didn’t say I wouldn’t brag, and wow, is this something to brag about! I just saw a review on Goodreads.com for More Deaths Than One, and either Mickey Hoffman’s resolution for the New Year is to be kind to other authors, or she really liked the book. I’m going with the second option. Thank you, Mickey! I hope everyone reads the review. It’s the sort of review we all dream about and seldom see.

    “What are you waiting for? Read this book. Now. “More Deaths” is much better than any “bestseller” out there. The plot is constantly surprising and intricate, the characters draw you into the tale and the overall writing is top notch.” –Mickey Hoffman, author of School of Lies.

    You can read the first chapter of More Deaths Than One by clicking on the More Deaths Than One tab at the top of this blog. You can also download the first thirty percent of More Deaths Than One free from Smashwords. Hmmm. Do you think I mentioned the title enough?

    Posted in books, fiction, writing. Tags: , , , . 2 Comments »
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