When is a Snowflake the Happiest?

It's that time of year when any day, we could wake up to a blanket of white. Snow is probably the most fun when you're a child, or when you can sit inside a cozy cabin with a steaming cup of coffee as you watch the flakes tumble and swirl to the ground. For many of us, snow is a fact of life as winter and the Christmas holidays sneak up on us. It is also the theme for many a story.

Years ago, I began writing Christmas stories for my family and friends. There were stories about Christmases in the past, Christmas ghosts, holiday memories and even lumberjacks who helped Santa. They were later published as "Christmas Quilt Anthology".One of these stories, "Once Upon A Christmas Wish" was about a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania called Snow. Even in the midst of the coal mine shutting down, the children of the town decided to celebrate the holiday with a snow sculpture festival.

This story so captured me that a few years ago, I decided to write a mainstream novel based in Snow. Again, the snow festival was such a huge part of the story that I even invented a fictitious website all about the town and it's many businesses. 

"Always Believe" happened in Snow. It is a story about family and friendships and maybe even a miracle or two. In this story, Emma doesn't believe in the enchantment of Christmas, but then she and her dad move to the town of Snow, where even the stores have holiday names. What is she supposed to think when her new friend pulls her into the magic of the holiday by insisting he knows the location of Santa's workshop?

These books, and all my novels, are available at Amazon. Check out my author page.

Letters to Santa are another facet of the holiday, right along with snow. But what happens when a typographical error causes hundreds of letters to Santa to end up at a Chicago Cosmetic Company? Chantilly Morrison is set to launch Chantilly Frost, a new cosmetics line, but because of an error in the ad copy, she's inundated with letters from children, whose scribbled wishes tug at her heart. She hires an investigator to find the letter writers so she can throw a huge Christmas party and make the children's fantasies come true. AJ Anderson can find the unfindable, whether it's lost artifacts or people and he's very good at his job. But when Chanti dumps hundreds of letters in his lap with the directive to find the children -- before Christmas Eve -- he knows the request is impossible, but the woman is irresistible. Should he use his skills to make her Christmas wish come true, or can he use the count down to Christmas to find the key that unlocks the lady's heart?

I love this time of year, and hope you will enjoy it with me by reading "IF Wishes Were Magic", "Always Believe", or the sweet stories in "Christmas Quilt Anthology."
Q--When is a snowflake the happiest?
A--When it kisses the upturned face of a child.
May your holidays be kissed with happiness.
Barb

Revisiting Time Travel

         

You're standing in front of a time travel machine that will take you into the past. Your heart is pounding; your hand shaking as you reach forward. All you have to do is push the button for why you want to go.
      * a sense of adventure
      * a love of history
      * to find romance
Would you do it??

If you ever find that time machine, let me know. I would love to go back in time for all the reasons above. But since I haven't come across such a wonderful device, I content myself with writing just such stories.

Writing time travel combines the best of both worlds. I can have a modern, independent, free loving heroine and still have an alpha type hero who’s possessive, self-made, and believes women should be protected and revered. Being thrown back in time will take you out of your comfort zone. There are no modern conveniences such as microwaves, cell phones, cars and expressways. None of your job skills, nor your MA in computer technology or Political Science will help you as you try to find your place in a world long forgotten.

            In the time travels I’ve written, the heroine travels back in time, taking with her the knowledge of the future, but the inability to change history. Even so, the fact that she knows things the hero doesn’t can lead to some interesting conversations. For example, in SPINNING THROUGH TIME (Books We Love), Jaci makes Nicholas and his niece a pizza, which they eat with their hands. Nicholas comments that it’s not bad tasting, but it will never catch on as a dinner dish.

            Things that haven’t been invented yet, or have particular significance in one century or the other, are always fun to incorporate into a story. Ellie, in PROSPECTING FOR LOVE (Books We Love) is discovered with nail polish on her toes, which only the “working girls” at the salon would do. She finds “real junk food” in the form of potato chips and Van Camp’s Pork and Beans in the general store in 1850, believing things like that had only been invented in her lifetime. The opposite side of the coin is that she doesn’t know how to cook without a microwave or start a fire in the stove.

            Some of the challenges inherent to writing time travel are: (1) the methods I use to get the heroine back in time, (2) what can or can’t be transported with her when she goes, and (3) how and when she has an opportunity to return to her own time. The “rules” have to be established before I start writing and then they cannot be broken. I can’t decide half way through the book that Brianna needs her cell phone to convince Jake she’s from the future, so she miraculously finds it under a rock somewhere. (LOST KNIGHT OF ARABIA from Books We Love).

Now that being said, I can have different rules for different books. For example, the methods of taking the heroine back in time are very different in each of my books. I can't just have them fall and bump their heads. That is far too easy. 

            The real climax for a time travel isn’t finding the treasure or solving the mystery. It’s whether the heroine and hero can stay together. Since my heroine didn’t have a choice when she accidentally went through time, I do give her a choice as to whether she stays. There has to be a point when either the opportunity or the threat of “transportation” exists, so my heroine has a free choice in her future. Whether she takes it, and whether the hero can stay with her, either in his time or hers, would be giving away the endings! I hope, instead, that you grab a time travel and stay up late finding out.

You can find my novel, SPINNING THROUGH TIME, as well as my other time travel romances at  https://books2read.com/u/4DoZ1D.

            

Why I Write What I Write

Before I started writing full length fiction, I loved to read historical, especially those set in the privateer days of the colonies, and yet my first completed novel, which was historical, was set in Montana on a cattle ranch. From that moment, I learned to listen to my muse and do as she advised.

Since then, I have written several historical and time travel romances. I suppose the time travel romances could also be considered historical because I love combining a thoroughly modern heroine with a definitely alpha male from the 1800s. The differences in attitudes and behaviors spark quite the dialogue. My first time travel was called “Indigo Bay” and is still available in print and eBook through Amazon.  If you like historical, but with a twist, you might try “Spinning through Time”, “Lost Knight of Arabia” or “Prospecting for Love”. Just in case you’re not sure, did I mention that “Prospecting for Love” is FREE on kindle until April 16?

I never thought I would write contemporary because I liked the slower pace of the past, where the hero couldn’t dial 911 and speed him and the heroine away from danger in his truck. But again, I found myself writing several contemporaries, because the story idea, and the characters who asserted themselves into my subconscious, definitely belonged in the present. What started out as a trilogy “Anywhere, Anytime, Anyway” ended up being a four book series because… Well, the brothers in the stories had a sibling who was not yet happily married, and all the sisters-in-law just couldn’t stand it. 

Now, my latest contemporary “A Game of Love”, is out from Books We Love, and on Amazon countdown from April 18 through 25. (This means a great low price!) It's also available in print.

 Many authors write in one genre and it definitely works for them. It’s just not for me. When an idea for a story comes to me, it nicely tells me into what genre it would like to be placed. For example, when I visited the Steamboat Arabia museum, I immediately knew there was a story to be written. Since it paddled along the Missouri River in the 1800’s, it was a perfect setting for an historical and yet, as I wandered through the museum that was created from the excavated artifacts, I realized it was meant to be a time travel, combining both the present and the past. Thus, “Lost Knight of Arabia” was born.

                

So I guess it’s really not what and why “I” write. There are stories to be told and my characters seem to know better than I to what century they belong. All I can do is relay their wishes, and their search for romance, to you in the best way I am able.

                

To help you enjoy my books, many of them will be on Amazon Countdown during April and May. That means even more savings to those of you who read on Kindle.  (Did you know you can download the kindle ap to your computer or phone and use that for kindle books?) And, for those who still like the feel of print in their hands, many are also available in print. Visit my website at http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin  or my Amazon author site at https://www.amazon.com/author/barbarabaldwin  for all my listings.

If you enjoy my stories as much as I enjoy writing them for you, I would love for you to leave a review on Amazon. It might entice someone else to take a peek.

Amazon Countdown deals from Books We Love:

Prospecting for Love -- April 12-16 – FREE

Always Believe – April 16-23 (Seasonal)

The Game of Love – April 18-25

If Wishes Were Magic – May 10-17 (Seasonal)

Spinning Through Time – May 10-17

Lost Knight of Arabia – May 25 – June 1