Friday, 26 June 2015

Elyse Douglas - The Summer Diary - Virtual Book Tour




Contemporary Romance
Date Published: May 7, 2015


After her best friend and her husband are killed in a private airplane crash, Keri finds some of her friend’s personal effects, one of which is a diary. When Keri reads it, she discovers her friend had been secretly in love with another man, a soldier. Keri knew nothing about the relationship, even though she and her friend were as close as sisters. 

Determined to find the secret lover, Keri sets off on a journey and discovers the key to her destiny.





Excerpt
Keri stopped, hovering on the edge of an absurd thought. Should she try to find Ryan? The thought gave her a sudden electric thrill. She stared down into the sand, seeing the eroded ruins of an old sandcastle that had been punished by the hostile tide.
“Ryan,” she said aloud, the sound instantly swallowed up by the beat of waves striking the beach.
Keri circled the space, gently kicking at the sand castle, mentally kicking at “what ifs.” What if he’d been killed? What if he’d moved away? What if he was married and didn’t want to remember Sophia? What if Sophia hadn’t revealed the whole truth about the relationship because there was some awful truth about him?
And how could she possibly ever locate Ryan without a last name? Sophia had never once mentioned it.
In an instant, Keri knew the decision had already been made: She had to find a way to track down and speak to this man. She whirled and marched back across the beach to where she’d left her chair and the diary. There had to be clues in the diary—had to be phrases that could help her find Ryan. At the very least, she could discover what had happened to him.







Elyse Douglas is the pen name for the married writing team Elyse Parmentier and Douglas Pennington. Elyse grew up near the sea, roaming the beaches, reading and writing stories and poetry, receiving a Degree in English Literature.  She has enjoyed careers as an English teacher, an actress and a  speech-language pathologist.  She and her husband, Douglas Pennington, have completed five novels: The Other Side of Summer, Christmas for Juliet, Wanting Rita, Christmas Ever After, The Christmas Town and The Christmas Diary.



Elyse Douglas
How to Avoid the Rejection Blues
Can you really sing avoid the rejection blues? Let’s face it: No. Who really likes rejection? If you’re a writer and you’ve spent months, or a year or two of your life on a book, you naturally want to sell it, or at least have someone look it over and perhaps even smile or nod approval. You’re excited and hopeful. You’re ready to be a recognized writer.
Then what happens? Nada. Nobody wants it. “Not for us,” the rejection letter says. “The author burned the house down. That didn’t ring true to me,” says an editor. “No room on our list for this worthy novel.” “I couldn’t relate to this. I didn’t like the dog.” “This novel crossed genres. Mustn’t do that.”
As a writer, I have had hundreds of rejections over the years. None have ever been pleasant. I’ve had agents send novels to many publishing houses. One book had two editors interested in it. Then the stock market collapsed and those editors lost their jobs. The next people in charge, who were not editors but accountants, shot the book down. “Don’t have the funds,” they said.
Could I ignore the rejection blues? No. At least not at first. Then I listened to other writers’ stories of rejection and struggle. They all, every one of them, had been rejected many times.
Nearly every writer knows about Stephen King’s many rejections for his first novel, Carrie; he kept them spiked under a timber in his bedroom. There were about 30 of them.
After John le Carré submitted his first novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, one publisher sent it to a colleague, and this was the message: You’re welcome to le Carré – he hasn’t got any future.
Tony Hillerman, now famous for his Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels, was initially told by publishers to Get rid of all that Indian stuff.
John Steinbeck said, I have written a great many stories and I still don’t know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances.
So I say it’s okay, in the privacy of your room, to get mad, swear and yell when you get a rejection. Then go out and have a beer or a cappuccino with a good friend. Don’t talk about writing.
Then go home, take two aspirin or whatever, and go to bed. The next morning, get up and go to your desk. Sit down and write. You’re a writer. So write and remember
what Somerset Maugham once said. There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are.
Finally, many writers do sell books. Some after months of rejection, some after years. So write, have fun and learn to harmonize with the rejection blues until that stupendous day comes and your book is sold or published. And then you can look forward to your first reviews! But that’s an article for another day.

Copyright © 2015 Elyse Douglas




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