A Writer’s Blues
That Old Malady: Writer’s Block
By J. Arlene Culiner
Symptoms:
Okay, here I am. This is my sacred writing time. I’ve made sure I won’t hear the telephone if it rings. I have peace and quiet, and no one will distract me. I go to my favorite writing spot, sit down, start my computer, open the file of my new manuscript, look at the last sentence I wrote, get ready to work when…
1) I have a sudden urge to brush the dog.
2) A flash of hunger has me heading for the refrigerator.
3) I decide this is the perfect time to look for that lost sock.
4) I have to check incoming emails (maybe an important publisher is trying to contact me.)
5) I have to get rid of all that dog hair on the rug.
6) The cats need feeding.
7) I discover an old manuscript that looks far more interesting at the moment.
8) I have to fill the dog’s water bowl.
9) I decide to check something in a reference book that’s around here somewhere…
10) I notice the plants need watering.
11) I start looking up agents and publishers who just might be interested in the manuscript I’ll start working on in just another minute or two…
12) I think the dog is telling me he has to go out for a walk. Not only that, the sun is shining, and it’s a lovely world out there. Why am I sitting here in the house? I must be crazy. I’ll get to work on the manuscript in an hour or two. For sure…
A Room in Blake’s Folly
Want to peek into the real Wild West? In A Room in Blake’s Folly, six linking stories take you to a silver mining town, introduce you to the people who lived there—not always, by choice: a mail order bride who discovered her husband was a primitive brute, a former prostitute who fell in love with a silver baron, a desperate war refugee who dreamed of stardom. And here, too, deep secrets are waiting to be revealed.
Blurb
If only the walls could speak…
In one hundred and fifty years, Blake’s Folly, a silver boomtown notorious for its brothels, scarlet ladies, silver barons, speakeasies, and divorce ranches, has become a semi-ghost town. Although the old Mizpah Saloon is still in business, its upper floor is sheathed in dust. But in a room at a long corridor’s end, an adventurer, a beautiful dance girl, and a rejected wife were once caught in a love triangle, and their secret has touched three generations.
https://books2read.com/BlakesFollyRomance
https://linktr.ee/j.arleneculiner
But that’s not all…
Two new books also set in Blake’s Folly will be coming out in April and May: All About Charming Alice and Desert Rose.
All About Charming Alice
Alice Treemont has no intention of falling in love. Living in Blake’s Folly, a semi-ghost town, she cooks vegetarian meals, rescues unwanted dogs, and protects the most unloved creatures on earth: snakes. What man would share those interests?
Jace Constant is in Nevada, doing research for his new book, but he won’t be staying. He’s disgusted by desert dust on his fine Italian shoes and dog hair on his cashmere sweaters. As for snakes, he doesn’t just despise them: they terrify him.
So why does the air sizzle each time Alice and Jace meet? A romance would entail far too many compromises.
Desert Rose
Rose Badger is the local flirt, and if the other inhabitants of backwoods Blake’s Folly, Nevada, don’t approve, she couldn’t care less. With a disastrous marriage and a dead-end career far behind her, settling down is the last thing she intends to do. Newcomer Jonah Livingstone is intriguing, but with his complicated life, he’s off limits for anything other than friendship. Besides, Rose has a secret world of her own—one she won’t give up for any man.
The last person geologist Jonah Livingstone expected to meet in a semi-ghost town is the sparkling and lovely Rose Badger. But Rose, always surrounded by many admirers, doesn’t seem inclined to choose a favorite. So why fret? Jonah keeps his personal life well hidden…and that’s the best way to avoid disappointment.
Author Bio
Writer, photographer, social critical artist, and musician J Arlene Culiner, was born in New York and raised in Toronto. She has crossed much of Europe on foot, has lived in a Hungarian mud house, a Bavarian castle, a Turkish cave-dwelling, on a Dutch canal, and in a haunted house on the English moors. She now resides in a 400-year-old former inn in a French village of no interest and, much to local dismay, protects all creatures, especially spiders and snakes. She particularly enjoys incorporating into short stories, mysteries, narrative non-fiction, and romances, her experiences in out-of-the-way communities, and her conversations with strange characters.