Monday, February 18, 2019

Finders Bucket List - Edinburgh Manor, Iowa

In my upcoming release, Finders, the Finders Ghost Hunting team have been all over the world investigating paranormal events. One of the places on their ghost bucket list is -- 

Edinburgh Manor, Iowa
The town of Edinburgh was originally the county seat of Jones County. In June

1840, the land located at section 36 in Wayne Township was originally deeded for courthouse purposes with the grant being signed by President Buchanan. Shortly after this grant the county seat was changed from Edinburgh and the commissioners kept the grant for the establishment of the County Poor Farm. Described as a "comfortable retreat for the lazy, able-bodied and willingly dependent applicants," the Poor Farm housed the poor, incurably insane and disabled. Tenants were given shelter and food for their labor. They would farm agriculture and livestock. The poor farm was in operation from 1850-1910 and in that time there were over 80+ documented deaths on the property.


In 1910, the poor farm closed down and was demolished. Edinburgh Manor was then constructed from 1910-1911 to house the incurably insane, the poor and the elderly. Edinburgh Manor, also referred to as The Manor, was in operation until November 2010.



It was opened up to paranormal investigations in the summer of 2012. Medical documents and personal belongings can still be found in The Manor. When the last patients and employees left the building in 2010, they never returned.



There is so much mystery to Edinburgh Manor and it is one of the most haunted locations in the state of Iowa.



 

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Saturday, February 16, 2019

Saturday Seven! (February 16th 2019)



  • What Quote am I pondering? ~ Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. — Confucius ~

  • What am I Researching? – Writing a book is full of research as you all know. I spent my time this week looking up bible quotes, writings on Demonology and Ancient symbols. Also spent some time researching CBD oil and its uses for Anxiety. My daughter suffers from severe anxiety and we have started her on a CBD regiment. I will let y’all know what happens!
  • Yummy Meal of the week Taco Bell usually is awesome going down, but I regret it a few hours later (don’t deny it we have all been there) my 14-year-old son craves it on a regular basis and I usually do not get anything but this week I tried a new menu item. It is called POWER MENU STEAK - you have the choice of a Burrito or a Bowl. I choose the Burrito this time, but I LOVE the bowl option to cut out the carbs of a flour tortilla.  Anyway, very tasty and I was not regretting it hours later!

  • What did I Learn this week? – Kinda funny and a reference to my day job, I learned how to us the IF function utilizing a date rage in a TRUE / FALSE scenario. So AWESOME! (Yes, I am a total excel nerd!). I also learned that I am not a fan of 3rd person writing as a reader. Not something I ever realized before, interesting, I think it is because I am a writer.

  • What am I Watching? – I am a TOTAL geek when it comes to good TV and Movies. This week I binge watched Haunted on Netflix – it was interesting--I wasn’t thrilled with the lack of resolution to the tales but as it is reality, I guess there usually are not happy endings. Then caught up on the current season of The Gifted.

Have any thoughts on my week’s activity or want to make a recommendation? Drop me a line, or a tweet. One lucky commenter will win a free Romine book of their choice! Never want to miss a blog post or a Saturday Seven? Join my mailing list and I will be happy to send it straight to your inbox!



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Friday, February 15, 2019

Friday Food Love - Honey-Garlic Slow Cooker Chicken Thighs



Ingredients
4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/3 cup honey
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried basil


Preparation

Lay chicken thighs into the bottom of a 4-quart slow cooker.
Whisk soy sauce, ketchup, honey, garlic, and basil together in a bowl; pour over the chicken.
Cook on Low for 6 hours.

 View on allrecipes.com

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Thursday, February 14, 2019

Awesome Excerpt - Sometimes Demons Whisper by Lynn Michaels


Release Date - February 22, 2019~

BLURB:
Kayden’s gift allowed him a place at Watercrest Cannon Paranormal Consultants, but it shattered his future. Could his best friend, Bryan, pick up his pieces?

Kayden and Bryan find a way to deal with the demons that the consultants at WCPC can’t handle.

WCPC handles all your paranormal needs. Poltergeists, ghosts, or mystical apparitions, we can help. We employ the most talented wranglers who can control even the toughest demons around. Call the consultants of Watercrest Cannon Paranormal Consultants to help.

Broody wrangler and tactile psychic take on the mystery at Brown-Blythe Manor - Sometimes Demons Whisper.

Excerpt:

Kayden reached out for the ladle. Immediately, the images washed over him. Many of them layered on top of each other. The utensil had been well used. Kayden took a deep breath and sorted through the images searching for the girl and the master. There were several flashes of the slave girl, but nothing helpful. Then, finally, he saw the master. It took a moment to narrow down to a single vision. An older woman held the object. The ladle stirring in a large pot. She thrummed with anger and frustration. She looked over at the master in his new suit looking like…

“The girl—”
“Shut your mouth about her. I’m master here, and I’m not going to go hiding it.”
“She’s a witch. I tell you.”
“She’s not. She’s just a slave. Like any other slave. I own her. And I’m not some kind of old flapdoodle.”
“No. You. I do not even want to get into this with you. I know you have the appetites of a man. I know you can do whatever you want with your slaves. I’m merely asking you to pick a different girl.”
The master huffed something else and turned away from the woman.

Kayden wanted to know who she was. His wife? Sister? It was too hard to tell, and the image faded as she turned away.
Enough of the picture of what had happened was clear. There was a possibility that the girl had some ability. The accusation of witchcraft alone wasn’t enough. Salem had proven that. Yet, there was something there—something in the strength of the slave. It might add up, but he didn’t have enough information. He knew that there was possibly some sort of voodoo rituals involved with the girl, but that didn’t mean she was the witch. If the voodoo priest was related? If they had combined their powers for something?

Kayden shook his head to clear it. His report would say there was a possibility of a haunting by the slave girl. Eventually, she had been killed there on the property. That much they knew from the history the family supplied. There were no signs of any imbued objects. Nothing like what the family was most interested in. Yet, he couldn’t rule it out, either. If the girl had been a witch, or if she had some other psychic ability, she might have done such a thing. Might have her reasons. The motive was there and easy enough to define.
Kayden sighed heavily. He needed lunch, and then he could finish his report.


AUTHOR BIO:
Lynn Michaels lives and writes in Tampa, Florida where the sun is hot and the Sangria is cold. When she’s not writing she’s kayaking, hanging with her husband, or reading by the pool. Lynn writes Male/Male romance because she believes everyone deserves a happy ending and the dynamics of male characters can be intriguing, vulnerable, and exciting. She has both contemporary and paranormal titles and has been writing since 2014. Her stories don’t follow any set guidelines or ideas, but come from her heart and contain love in many forms.



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Wednesday, February 13, 2019

OMG Plot Hoarder Revealed!


One of my favorite ways to fight the nagging of procrastination and get my blood flowing is to go back and read over past manuscripts. Although I am not sure you could really call them that-- more like attempts at manuscripts. 

In reading them it is easy to see at times how far I have come, it is also easy to see how far I have yet to journey. One of the funniest things I've found in past tales is my inability to not put something into the folds of the tale. I had to have everything and the kitchen sink in there. Every piece, scrap and tiny bit of any tale I had ever found in the past was wrapped into this monster of a project.

Then it hits me, like two-ton A&E commercial, I am a hoarder! I am a plot hoarder. Yes me, I have a writing disease that causes me to writing without focus! I take everything I have piled up, the millions of ideas, I gathered as a yearling artist, and crammed them all into one little slip of a story. 

There are several reasons for this as I now realize, one being the lack of an overall theme. Theme was always the word that makes me wince, it is the one aspect within the confines of writing dogma that I had more or less rejected. It wasn’t until recently, via a Kristen Lamb blog, specifically about ‘getting primal with your plot’, that I smoothed my ruffled feathers about what it means to have a theme. Kristen made me realize, that I was making it more complex than it actually was. I was simply getting in my own way because I didn’t get it and my writing showed it. 

When people would ask me what my book was about I would in effect get tongue tied and not be able to say anything in response. I was of the thinking that I was too close to the plot, the characters, the way they all co-existed in my little brain there was no way for me to sum up the theme of the book in just a few words. BUZZ!  Wrong Answer!

The truth is that I couldn’t sum it up because it was a jumbled fracking mess, with no structure. I, in my infinite ignorance, was making it too difficult trying to throw every plot twist, and ah moment into a story that in fact closely resembled the blob. Why was I making it so difficult? Why couldn’t I just see that I needed a theme, cut everything else away and be done with it?

First off, I was a know it all, young, writer, who thought there was nothing anyone could teach her that she didn’t already know. I am a natural after all. NOT!  

Solution? Boil it down. Go primal, rip away all of the extra crap and what is left? Usually a single word or two. To illustrate my point, I will use my own books as the examples.

Trust Me – Serenity Lost                      Family Loyalty/Love / Don’t get killed
Trust Me – Veiled Deception                 Don’t Die / Love / Protect loved ones
Trust Me – Jaded Promises                   Revenge / Love /Protect Loved Ones
Tarot Series – Shockwave                    Love / Vengeance      
Tarot Series – Backlash                        Love / Protect Loved Ones/ Survive
Tarot Series – Fallout                           Love / Survive
You Never Could Be                             Love / Sex / Trust
Little Angels                                        Love/ Trust / Don’t Die


That’s it, too easy right? Well no it really isn’t.  If you take these words and use them as your compass you will be able to in turn focus your manuscript and rip away all of the useless crap. Now, don’t so nutz and start deleting everything! Please don’t! Yes this is an aspect of my hoarding I will not release. If it made it to the page it is worth the ink. Maybe not now, but it will fit in somewhere, someday. Alright back to our little experiment. The ultimate self test is to translate the categories to the story plot, right? Okay we will try one. Little Angels – FBI Agent falls in love with her partner / FBI Agent cannot trust anyone while undercover / FBI Agent has to bring down the bad guys and not die. Hot Damn it worked!

See, it works! I dare you to prove me wrong! And or to test your own manuscripts, how focused are your plots? Can you complete the challenge?



 
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