October 9, 2012

I'll Tell You Mine if You Tell MeYours.

This is yet another busy week in my schedule. All this week I'm involved in Lucy Monroe's Online Readers Retreat. While visiting with a few new friends and readers yesterday, I realized that there are a lot of you that have a story about PTSD to share. I don't mean a novel or even a long visit with a therapist. But... I am gathering personal stories and invite you to share them here. WARNING! If you post here today (October 9, 2012) your comment/story goes live in the comments. If you prefer instead to share them only with me, wait a day or two. Your comment will then need to be monitored by me. If you tell me right up front of your comment, "Please keep private," or "Okay to use as Author Fodder," I will do just that. I will keep it private or come back and glean from these stories for some of my future novels.




Your story may be as seemingly benign as mine or as devastating as all get out! I would appreciate that any bloody or gruesome details be somewhat left in the dark so as to not "trigger" another's PTSD. Please feel free to respond to one another's comments, but only in a supporting manner. I want this to be a "safe" place for you to share.



My early serving of Trauma.

Seatbelts have not always been used in my family, but as I was young, only nine, Mother insisted I put mine on. I responded with, "Only if you do too." We buckled up and the two of us were off for our hour long trip over the snow and ice. Mother drove the Oldsmobile Dad had purchased just before his death and I guess she had to finish up some business that day in the city. Okay, the city was one of those along the I-15 corridor in Southeastern Idaho. The sun wasn't up yet but we could see evidence of its coming up in the distance. I don't think Mom was going too fast. She rarely sped but we came over a hill and hit black ice. The car went sailing. We must have flown 70-80 feet in the air before the crusted snow grabbed the tires. Tons of heavy automobile collided with first the pristine snow, then the sagebrush beneath. Whiplash snapped my neck then it was silent. Not even the engine made a sound.

I don't remember how long we sat there, stunned. I do remember Mother trying to crank the engine. Nothing.

Mother coaxed me to undo my seatbelt. It took her a minute or two to shove her door open against the cold. "We'll have to climb back to the road and hope someone comes by and gives us a ride." The crusted snow cut at my legs and I wished I would have worn my snow boots instead of my Keds. Soon it didn't hurt anymore, but I knew the snow was still sharp against my tender skin. We hiked to the road. Sometimes, when the winter conditions are just right with melting, freezing and wind the snow gets a crust that a dog and sometimes a child can walk on without sinking. That morning, every time I tried to walk on the snow, I broke through. I finally gave up and tried to follow in Mother's footsteps. I don't remember crying, I may have, but the damp on my cheeks only made them colder. At last we made it to the highway. I wanted to stop and wait, even sit down. Mother wouldn't let me.

I hated that walk. I don't know how far we got. I just remember how my feet hurt with every jarring step. Finally, someone came by and gave us a ride. They took us to the car dealership and Mother had to leave me with a mechanic to get warm while she went back with the tow truck driver to get the car. I don't know if she knew the men or not, but he didn't hurt me and I was reasonably thawed out when Mother, the tow truck driver and our car arrived.

To this day, the sound of snow, slush or ice hitting up under the wheel wells of a vehicle sends a shudder up my spine. There are other residual effects, compounded by more experiences that haunt me. I don't drive in the snow. When a snowplow comes up the street, my world stops...waiting for the crunch I know is coming. When it finally passes, I breathe again.

Minor, don't you think?



PTSD in Fiction

I've toyed with writing since a teenager but have only written in earnest since 2005. Like most authors, the first attempts were awful but this one was different. In an effort to give Dark Days of Promise an authentic feel I endeavored to include some experiences of veterans I know and could often be found discussing the realities of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) in their lives and how it could honestly be shared in this project. On the evening of this books first promotion, a woman approached me, excited to find someone who knew enough that she could have a listening ear. I realized that the scope of PTSD reaches deep into the core of our society and includes infants, children, housewives, the working and unemployed as well as veterans; in short, all of us. In an effort to treat this subject fairly, I altered my writing course from "romance with a twist" to helping our society, sufferers and innocents alike to becoming aware. It is more than those who experience the violence, more than the victims who experience this debilitating disease that are affected. It is their families, the bystander of violent crime and all of us who dare to care for and love them.

October 8, 2012

Chatting with Heidi Murphy

Francesca Kennington merely wants to be left to her studies, despite her mother's best efforts to saddle her with a rich husband. Then she meets a mysterious gentleman, who leads her on a romp through the ballrooms and countryside of Georgian England. Their romance blossoms but secrets cause Francesca's house of cards to tumble. She must find a way to put her life back together, while still following her heart.


We're talking about Small Deceptions today. This was my first published work. I have always been interested in Jane Austen and Georgian romances. I didn't necessarily want the bodice-ripper element that seems to be prevalent today, so I sat down to write my own.

I will say that this book was written before I knew anything about ANWA or critique groups. Compared to my more recent works it's a little full of exclamation points. Please keep that in mind when you are reading my fun story.

It took me about nine months including extensive research into all things Georgian. I read everything I could get my hands on about the life and times of the period, much about the politics and social history of the time. It surprised me to find out that cheese was a poor man's food, that a pelisse is a long coat, and that the title of Baron is not hereditary.

This is not just a romance between a man and a woman, but a story of redemption between a girl and her mother, set in the Regency period.

I'd like readers to have a delightful escape into Georgian England. Also, deception is rarely helpful. We think we can get away with all kinds of little fallacies, but they often catch up to us.

There are several ways in which Francesca and I are alike. We both love books and wear spectacles. And I have, at times, been guilty of deceiving my mother, with catastrophic results (Okay, a huge spanking is pretty catastrophic to a six-year-old.) Also, I love to dance all the old dances.

I did my own cover art in conjunction with my daughter, Natassia Scoresby, a gifted graphic designer. I wanted a letter written in script of the time. I have the actual letter somewhere.

I read like a maniac, enjoy swordplay (in armor), play the tinwhistle and Irish drum (bodhran), sing, am a freelance artist, and work for the Boy Scouts as a Unit Commissioner.

I consider myself an uninspired cook and indifferent housewife (What else are children for?) but it bothers me when my house is a mess. If only our cook and cleaning staff hadn't died in the war in Heaven!

I get inspiration from all kinds of places. I've written 14 books thus far and have another three in the outline stage, but have yet to have any of the others published, mainly because that part of the process gives me the hives--a problem I am slowly overcoming. I write both as H. Linn Murphy (LDS, Regency romances and paranormal romance) and as Indigo Chase for Sci Fi.

My next book on deck for publication is Pivot Point, an LDS novel about a rodeo queen who finds love and redemption in a tiny Utah town.

I love all my main characters. Francesca is fun, but I suppose Larkin is one of my most favorite because she has come so far with so little and accomplished so much for so many. She is featured in a five book Sci Fi series called Watchers. I plan to publish the first book of the series soon.

Right now I'm working on a Sci Fi book called A Terrible Majesty.

I work from a light outline, plugging scenes in as they come to me. At times my story jumps the track a bit and gets hijacked onto other paths, some of which have to get hacked away, but often the serendipity makes for a delicious story.

I have, in the past, based a character lightly on someone, but never so they'd recognize themselves. I find it luscious therapy to give a "villain" or two characteristics of my ex. And, no, I don't tell.

Please pick up my book, Small Deceptions. It's at Xlibris.com for the print book, and Amazon.com as an Ebook http://www.amazon.com/Small-Deceptions-ebook/dp/B0075FVYUS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1349067707&sr=8-2&keywords=Small+Deceptions


Oh My!

Oh my, it's been a long, long time since I posted anything here. Really, I do this now because I recently got a note, if you can call it...