The second part gives me trouble

Quote:

"A story has a beginning, a muddle and an end."
- Phillip Larkin

http://temperancehill.blogspot.com/

A great dream, until . . .

I have vivid dreams.

Last night I dreamed I was teaching a 7th grade sex education class.

I thought I was doing great.

Then I heard a girl whisper "He doesn't know beans."

A death scene was the hardest

For months I had avoided writing a death scene. If I kept it in left field, perhaps I could finish my novel Temperance Hill without it.

Yesterday was decision day. Temperance Hill needed the death scene. Early in the book because it set up several plot twists that had developed toward the end. The death scene was needed or Temperance Hilll would be left with a hole in the plot fabric.

There was already a death scene near the end of the book. But it had been written some time ago. I wrote it to get over my fear of thunderstorms. For years I had lived with that fear after witnessing, as a young reporter, a state execution by electric chair.

That scene quickly went into the book.

So yesterday I reluctantly struggled with another death scene. This one was hard to pull out. It's based on the details of the death of my father. Details that been hidden for years until revealed by my mother as she neared the end of her life.

The disclaimer at the front of Temperance Hill will label the book as fiction. But the death scene I finally had to put into words, was hard as hell to write.

It's An Imperfect World

By Robert Berryhill
Copyright 2013

The cyber world is the modern version of pen pals. We can open our hearts to folks we haven't met in person, folks too far distant to ever meet.

One friend did get pumped up for a real meeting. She was looking for true love.

She came back disappointed. He wasn't interested in a relationship. Just sex, thank you very much.

Well, okay. We're here. Perhaps the bed could be the first step toward a relationship.

But she felt taken. The guy really wasn't interested in future, more meaningful things. Just sex, thank you very much.

The sex wasn't that great either.

The guy looked 20 years older than his cyber photo. He had a pot belly, which was bigger than his tiny equipment. And his tiny equipment popped too soon.

This is a very wonderful woman coming off a bad divorce. She's very eager to find true love, which means that she is very vulnerable. She quickly met up with a man who also had a bad divorce, but right now is looking for short term pleasures.

I'm sad over the episode. Sad for her. She deserved better. But also sad because it reminds me that the passage of time is relentless. We should have learned our lessons by now.

It's an imperfect world.

Women find themselves adrift after struggling with work and children from diaper days to makeout days, and husbands too absorbed in their careers to be worth a damn in the conversation or compassion departments.

Now women are coming off bad divorces with well deserved anger and confusion.

They have to play the dating game again at the age when they should be looking toward a long-awaited empty nest with comfortable snuggling in familiar surroundings.

We older men keep charging through life as if we still had our youthful bodies and sexual staying powers.

We find it harder to keep our ladies happy in bed even with longer seductions, more foreplay, more toys (batteries required).

As older men and women, we have dodged fatal diseases, midlife crisis, the bill collector, only to reach the age where we have to finally admit:

We don't have all the answers. Hell, we still don't even know all the questions.

So I'm very sad.

Sad for her.

Sad for him.

Sad for me.

We should have learned all the lessons by now.

How To Relate To Your Readers

Author Hugh Howey knows how to relate to his readers.
Watch how he surprises a fan.

A Great Author's Advice To An Aspiring Writer

"I do not see why anyone should expect to become a good writer without working very hard any more than he can become a good physician or a good architect."

          - W. Somerset Maugham

Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing

Elmore Leonard passed away today at the age of 87

Major Scrivener Update

If you have had trouble getting their epub outputs to validate using Scrivener for Windows, then a major update fixes the problem.

Scrivener has just released the update, which also fixes a huge list of other bugs.

Find the link here

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivWinChangeList.php

She Turns Down Amazon

Aubrey Rose, author of Me, Cinderella?, is getting a lot of support for turning down a publishing offer from Amazon.

The offer meant that her book would have to be exclusive to Amazon.

Aubrey explains what happened:

from Aubrey Rose, author of Me, Cinderella?

Holy butts, Batman! One of Montlake’s editors (the Amazon romance imprint) emailed me last week:

"I wanted to reach out to you because I read Me, Cinderella? and thought it was fantastic. Do you have a few minutes this week to chat on the phone? I’d love to know more about the rights to your wonderful novel and tell you about our imprint."

Naturally, I was thrilled. A real publisher wanted my work! I chatted with her briefly on the phone and asked her a ton of questions: What kind of cover would they create for me? What promotions would they do? What control would I have over everything? Although I was excited to work with Amazon, I wanted to know that they would treat my book right. She told me my novel was a great read and very clean writing, and that she would love to “partner” with me in re-launching my book through Amazon’s imprint.

However, she couldn’t guarantee anything – from cover image to pricing to marketing. The advance they offered was less than I had made in my first month of sales. As I looked through the Montlake catalogue, I saw a mix of breakout hits and complete flops, with some recent books that just had the worst covers imaginable for romance. And I would have to pull my book from every publisher except Amazon.

It was hard for me to say no. Ever since I was a little girl I’d dreamed about being a ‘published author‘.  However, I needed to make the best decision for my book and for my fans. I realized that although the praise from the editor boosted my ego, the praise that really matters comes from my readers. They are the ones who’ll make or break my books, and I want to make sure that I’m always doing the right thing by them.  If I mess up, I want it to be something I can fix. I’m a control freak like that.

So sorry, Amazon. It’s not you, it’s me.

Is Gothic Romance Dead?

Gothic Romance was popular for many years. Is it dead?

What are your thoughts.

Fill out my online form.

Chapter 1

TEMPERANCE HILL - JOURNAL OF DESIRE

Copyright 2013 Robert Berryhill

All rights reserved.

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Chapter 1

The white stretch limousine bearing the plates of a U.S. senator eased around the traffic circle at the center of Temperance Hill.

Sen. Helene Falkland picked up the limo’s intercom to buzz her chauffeur.

"Use the bank president’s parking space," Helene said. "He’s expecting me."

The chauffeur nodded, glancing in the rear view mirror. She was beautiful. The clean classic lines of a young Ingrid Bergman. The cool aloofness of a Greta Garbo. He turned off his thoughts. The parking space was just ahead on the right.

Senator Falkland handed the sheaf of papers to her aide.

"Stay by my side, Jeff. I don’t want to fumble around for figures when I need them"

Jeff patted his bulging briefcase. "We’re all set, senator. Every thing’s cross-indexed like you wanted,"

"The daughter is here, right?"

"Robyn Dunmore came for her father’s funeral," Jeff said. "She thinks this board meeting is just an official condolence from the newspaper corporation."

"The editor’s son hasn’t shown up?" Senator Falkland glanced at her notes. "He’s the one with experience."

Jeff wrinkled his nose. "He won’t come. I lost track of him after he was run out of town. Took to the bottle as he bounced from one paper to another."

"Then if the girl’s the key to it, I’m ready."

"You’re ready, senator," Jeff said with a wink. "After ten years, you’re ready to give the newspaper it’s comeuppance."

Helene Falkland touched Jeff’s hand. "Not just my ten years," she said. "This is the payoff for three generations of Falklands."

Jeff watched Helene’s firm buttocks twist smoothly in the black silk dress as she stepped out of the limo. He noted the way Helen’s shapely legs filled out the silk hose.

There was a standing joke among the other senators about the special initial license plate on Helene’s limo. "HF" didn’t stand for Helene Falkland, the joke said. It really meant Helene Fucks.

Jeff smiled. The joke wasn’t just a sexual innuendo. It was a warning. Mess with Senator Helene Falkland and you’ll get screwed.

He had followed that fabulous body around every day for twelve years. Yet he still fantasized about his boss. But he knew she would bust the balls of the man who dared to crack that frozen exterior.

Helene leaned back into the limo.

"Get your ass in gear," she barked at Jeff. "I’m finally gonna pluck the feathers off this barnyard newspaper."

Jeff was opening the door of Guaranty Bank when he glanced across the street to the cemetery on the hill. He nudged the senator. They watch Robyn Dunmore take off her dress shoes and walk barefoot to the grave of her father who was editor of the Temperance Hill Journal. Jeff glanced at Helene Falkland. For the first time in months, he saw the senator smile.

Helene turned on her heels, and with Jeff trailing behind her, stalked into the bank.

"That girl," Helene whispered, "doesn’t stand a fuckin’ chance."

At the cemetery, Robyn Dunmore paused at her father’s grave. Just two days ago, she had followed her father one last time to his favorite spot, this emerald green hill above the town.

It was a large funeral that surprised the townsfolk. Even the state governor came, bearing official condolences from the speaker of the State House, and even the President of the United States.

"The influence of this small town editor reached even to the White House," the governor had said.Golden dots of late autumn sunshine sparkled through the trees on the hill, healing the fresh brown wound in the earth. My father has been slipped into this tiny envelope of earth and sealed away forever, Robyn thought.

A warm breeze brought the soothing familiar fragrance of the harbor nestling at the foot of the hill. Now her father would forever keep watch over his beloved town below, just as his newspaper had kept vigil through the good and lean years.

As a barefoot child, her father had brought her up this hill, first on his strong shoulders, then hand-in-hand when her coltish legs grew stronger. He taught her to love this hill which blocked out the northern gales in winter, and replenished the town's wells during the spring runoff..

"This hill stands guard over the town," her father would say with a sweep of his massive ink-stained arms. "And The Journal must always stand guard over its people."

As Robyn's limbs lost their baby fat and curved into adolescence, he taught her to love The Journal. Grudgingly at first, Robyn spent her afternoons in the printing plant. She took delight in learning the mysteries of type fonts and standing spellbound before the clattering Linotype machine that cast the type into metal lines.

While her high school classmates gathered around the jukebox at Spivey's Soda Shop after school, Robyn explored the inky bowls of the Journal’s 16-page Goss press as seriously as a surgeon probed the heart.

At the end of a hard day, her father would push her towards the men's room – the only restroom for the all-male press staff – with orders to scrub the ink off her cheeks and comb the lint of newsprint from her golden curls. Then he would send her off to cover a town council meeting.

"A small town newspaper is the best classroom in the world," her father said. The best classroom in the world. Robyn hoped she would remember the lessons.

Now she was alone. As the sun rose higher in the blue sky, a breeze swirled through her ash blonde hair. She bent down to slip on her dress shoes, then started down the hill. The newspaper board was finally going to honor her father’s work. She didn’t want to miss it.

In the conference room, a knot well-dressed men opened a path as Senator Helene Falkland entered. They quickly swarmed around her. She turned to the county superintendent of education.

"Be a dear, Jay, and get me a chair."

She settled into the cushioned executive chair as the mayor pulled up his chair beside her. Helene opened a silver case and took out a cigarillo. Mayor Conners fumbled for his gold lighter and cleared his throat.

"How are things on the Hill, senator?" Mayor Conners pushed a massive crystal ashtray toward her.

Helene took a swift puff and put the cigarillo aside. "Not now, mayor. We’ll talk politics at lunch. Excuse me a moment, darling. I must get with Huey for a moment."

Helene greeted Huey Lewis, the town banker, with pecks on both cheeks. That always softened him up.

"Huey, dear, we must try to help that poor newspaper out now that the dear editor has passed away. Why, his little girl just won't be able to make a go of it. She's had her head in computer science and all."

The banker raised an eyebrow.

"Why, senator. That's the first kind thing I've ever heard a Falkland say about the Dunmore clan. Don't tell me that old feud is finally over."

"The is not the time for me to seem unkind," Helene said. "That little girl just needs a little help."

Huey narrowed his gaze. "What's on your mind, senator?"

Helene glanced off in the distance for a moment as if she was trying to think,

"Well, your bank," she said, "is holding a note her dad signed five years ago. Do tell me he paid it off."

"Now Helene, you know I can't discuss a customer's business. Privacy laws and all that."

The senator bit her lower lip.

"Mr. Lewis, you know there's some important banking legislation before my committee. Perhaps I should delay the hearings till I've read and studied, studied mind you, all two thousand and thirty seven pages. Yes, I need to study that bill line by line.’

A serious look crossed her face.

"Guess you'll have to tell your banking association that it might not get all those loopholes this year." Helene paused. "Yes, you just tell them your own hometown senator put on the brakes. It'll be a shame, with you running for association chairman and all."

Huey Lewis closed his eyes for a moment.

"Since you’re seeking sensitive information because you have the daughter’s interest at heart, I do recollect that editor’s loan. There are some things that are a little messy about it, though."

Helene smiled. "I believe we understand each other, Huey."

She looked across the table as Robyn Dunmore took a seat. This thorn in her side had been festering since childhood. Robyn Dunmore, descendant of the family that had ruined her great-grandfather over the state’s last duel.

"Sorry I’m a few minutes, late," Robyn said as she gasped for breath.

The chairman shuffled his papers. He looked at Senator Falkland, then at Robyn Dunmore.

"Can you run the newspaper, Miss Dunmore?'

The question startled Robyn. She saw the seven men around the massive oak conference table look at her expectantly. They were the town's leading businessmen. Bankers. Lawyers. Merchants. Accountants. And they were clearly looking to her for help.

Robyn brushed at the imagined lint on the skirt of her tailored black suit. She struggled to suppress the slight tremor in her throat.

"Of course I always helped Dad after school," Robyn admitted. "But that was years ago."

Through the tall windows of the bank's huge conference room, Robyn could see the newspaper office on the north corner of the town square. The familiar lettering on the sign was now faded. "The Journal," it said simply. It was a shock to return to the small town after ten years. The proud building sagged on its foundation, like an aging man long neglected.

The bank president coughed loudly.

"Unless you can run the newspaper," he said impatiently, "I must make a motion that we accept the offer to sell The Journal."

Robyn stiffened. A chill touched her spine.

"We've just buried my father," she said. "Now you're rushing to hold a wake for his newspaper, too."

The lawyer, Everett Berry, shifted uneasily in his cushioned executive chair.

"No need to be melodramatic,:" Everett Berry said. His face flushed with embarrassment. "We're not burying The Journal," he said a little too loudly. "Although that might be the kindest thing to do."

Berry picked up the the auditor's quarterly report. "As corporate directors of your father's paper, we must admit that there's not much meat on the newspaper's bones."

Robyn's brown eyes changed from the moist softness of grief to the coldness of sudden anger, stabbing at the men around the table.

Her eyes swept across their heavy jowls, their jeweled rings on well manicured fingers, their tailored silk suits that her father could never afford, not even in death. Looking at them, Robyn remembered her father's years of struggle with the small town paper.

Now the fate of The Journal rested with these men. These button-downed counters of profit and loss. Readers of balance sheets. Gossipers of net worth. Not one of them a journalist. Yet for three hours they had talked as if a newspaper was just another corner gas station.

"Miss Dunmore?"

This time the bank president took his silver ball point pen and made an irritable tap on the hard table. "You have to admit that we have a generous offer from Global News Media. We must do what's best."

"But why," Robyn said. She struggled to keep her voice from trembling with rage. "Why sell to that monster conglomerate?"

The legs of her chair protested against the marble floor as she suddenly stood to challenge these men who held power over her father's paper. She pointed to the framed front pages of The Journal dominating the dark paneled walls.

"The Journal has been the local paper for over a hundred years," Robyn said. She walked behind the bank president's seat and tapped the glass protecting the yellowed paper. "Here's the first edition. Look at the headline: 'Town Limits Established.' Have you forgotten that this town and the newspaper were born on the same day?"

Craning their necks, the men glanced from one framed copy of the paper to another. The Journal recorded the town's growth from a wilderness trading post to the state's agricultural center.

"Another thing," Robyn continued, "why hasn't Global Media presented its offer in person. Is it's far-flung operation so big that The Journal is just another small pebble that can be scavenged by long distance?"

"Jonathan Corsair, the publishing magnate," said the bank president in a tone that implied it was one of the 10 Commandments, "rarely appears in public." He seemed astonished that Robyn wasn't aware of that. "Mr. Corsair seldom ventures outside his compound in Key West."

The men fidgeted uneasily as Robyn stood her ground.

"That proves my point," Robyn said. "A newspaper, a small town newspaper, can't be managed by long distance."

Her voice was firm. Gone were the tears of mourning.

"If Jonathan Corsair is too busy to buy this paper in person, where will he be when we really need him?"

Senator Falkland cut in.

"Mr. Corsair is an outstanding businessman who will head up the paper. I picked him myself."

Robyn Dunmore noticed Helene Falkland for the first time.

"What is the senator doing here," Robyn demanded. "This is a board meeting for the Journal stockholders. My dad didn’t sell any stock to the Falklands."

Helene Falkland turned to Dr. Hawthorne. He nodded and stood up.

"I’m sorry I forgot to tell you, Miss Dunmore," Dr. Hawthorne said. He smiled. "When your dad took ill a month ago, I sold some of my stock to the senator. She has some ideas about the Journal being more involved in community work. Voter registration and more involvement with our elected representatives."

Robyn grimaced. "Political meddling in the newspaper, you mean."

The lawyer Everett Berry suddenly rattled the auditor's report. "I'm afraid I must agree with Miss Dunmore," he said. "I think we should see who we're dealing with."

Robyn checked her wrist watch.

"Since there's no one here to present the Global Media offer in person, we're wasting our time," she said.

Only two days since her father's funeral and already her world was threatening to turn upside down.

"You gentlemen did ask if I could run the paper," Robyn said. "Well, I can. And I will!"

"One moment, Miss Dunmore." The bank president smiled for the first time. "I thought you might insist on personal negotiations." He pressed a button on the table intercom. "Jonathan Corsair arrived in his personal jet this morning."

The door swung open. It seemed almost too small for the muscular frame of Jonathan Corsair. His hard body, vibrating with energy, towered over everyone as they stood to greet him. Robyn had to arch her neck to see the steady gaze of his cobalt blue eyes.. He must be six feet tall, Robyn thought. His sunburst hair was cropped close with a few wild strands defiant against sun-bronzed skin.

Suddenly Robyn's legs were as sturdy as pudding. He was ruggedly handsome. And infuriatingly arrogant.

Robyn shook her head and realized that the bank president was speaking again. He droned on, talking piously about community welfare and public trust.

This banker, Robyn remembered sourly, had refused her dad a bank loan to modernize the newspaper plant.

The other community leaders fidgeted in their seats. But Robyn noticed that Jonathan Corsair was busy establishing his power.

When the man across from him leaned forward, Jonathan would slide a briefcase toward the other man. The other man leaned back in his chair because now there was less table space in front of him.

Robyn realized with a shock that Jonathan Corsair had quietly staked out a larger table domain for himself. This was a board room shark used to getting his own way.

Jonathan Corsair was well groomed. But it's not the expensive cut of his clothes that made him stand out, Robyn decided. It was his self assurance that made the small town businessmen seem pretentious.

Robyn could spot the local trend setters around the table. They flaunted their designer shirts and ties, their trendy trousers and Italian shoes. They were trying too hard to appear the big frogs in a small pond. They wore their clothes like peacocks.

But it was the force of Jonathan's personality that almost took Robyn's breath away. Robyn had to force herself to look away from this unsettling man. This man had an inner fire that blazed too bright. Here was a man who was dangerous.

Robyn tensed when Jonathan rose to speak. She couldn't believe the gall of his first words.

"Running a newspaper is not a job for an amateur," Jonathan Corsair said. "It'll be best to fly in one of my reporters a couple days a week."

"Two days a week!" Robyn's cheeks flushed with indignation. Strength returned to her legs. Her shoe tapped angrily on the marble floor.

"Two days a week," Robyn fairly stammered. "Well, this isn't Miami or New York, Mister Big Time Publisher! We don't have Associated Press wire machines pouring out tons of copy from Outer Nowhere to fill our newspaper."

Is this guy for real, Robyn wondered?

"Didn't your henchmen tell you this is a small town? Folks around here read this paper. Cover to cover. This small town paper is their backyard fence for the latest local news.

"They check to see if we know something they don't know, and if we've got the guts to print it."

Robyn took a deep breath to calm down.

"Nothing is closer to people in a small town than its newspaper," she said. "Maybe in some place like New York they'll call the paper THE Times, but here in Hometown, U.S.A., folks say OUR Journal."

Jonathan Corsair tightened his jaw. He slammed his fist on the table.

"You call that rag a newspaper?" Waving the latest edition in Robyn's face, Jonathan's voice stabbed at her. "The Journal hasn't been a real paper for over a decade, Miss Dunmore."

Ruthlessly, Jonathan began slapping at each page.

"There's nothing on the front page but trivia," he said. "And in the top right corner, the most prominent spot, there's an overblown three-column photo of some dirt farmer who brought in a large pumpkin."

He dropped the offending paper onto the table. "Is that really the biggest news in this town?"

"Don't your dare . . ." Robyn fought to control her emotions. "Don't you dare come in here and scorn my father's newspaper," Robyn said. "My father was a real journalist, not some corporate man in a Madison Avenue business suit."

The hard line of Jonathan's jaw softened.

Your father was a great journalist," Jonathan said. "But his last editions show that at the end he was living ten years in the past."

He looked at Robyn's downcast head, her shoulders now slumped in despair.

"I don't want to fight you, Miss Dunmore. But I will own this newspaper. And I will hammer it into the newspaper it should be. With or without your help."

Robyn felt the heat of her face turn crimson as Jonathan's eyes drilled into her. Jonathan stalked out of the conference room. He was so damn sure of himself.

The bank president rapped the table.

"If you can run the Journal for ninety days, Miss Dunmore, we'll delay our decision. But you must turn the newspaper around."

He reached for the auditor's report. "Otherwise, we'll have to sell to Mr. Corsair."

Robyn fled the conference room, sweeping through the outer office without speaking to the receptionist. Her ears stung from Jonathan Corsair's humiliating rebuke: "The Journal hasn't been a real newspaper for over a decade."

Bitter words. More bitter, she had to admit, because they were true. Looking across the town square, her heart sank at the tattered appearance of The Journal building with it's sign weeping with faded lettering.

Even the local businessmen showed open contempt for the once-proud newspaper. Acting like they were doing a charitable act in trying to sell The Journal.

Robyn started toward the newspaper office, her high heels clicking angrily against the cobblestone street. Through years of neglect, the once proud building had turned from white to dirty gray. Robyn paused. Could she turn the newspaper around in just three months?

A car horn honked for her to hurry across the street.

She thought of her adversary. Jonathan Corsair standing like some mythical god, his strong hands jammed against athletic hips. Arrogantly vowing to own The Journal.

Other thoughts, disturbing thoughts, rushed through her mind.

Why had she blushed when she first gazed into his cobalt blue eyes set deep into the rough hewn face? He was ramrod straight before the town's leaders, refusing to be cowed by their power. He dared them to challenge his right to take what he wanted.

Robyn felt the warm blood rush to her cheeks again. I wonder, she thought idly, what would he would feel like beneath that saffron-yellow shirt? What would it feel like to stroke that muscular chest that would have to be as sun-bronzed as his rugged face? Would my fingers tingle at the touch of his boyish tumble of sunburst hair?

The sudden cool shadow cast by The Journal building broke Robyn's thought. She sighed. It's changed. Everything changed with her father's funeral. His last words kept running through her heart.

"The Journal is in your hands now, Robyn," her father said. "I could not be at peace until you came back to watch over it."

Now she had ninety days to turn the newspaper around. Could she keep the Journal out of the grasping hands of Jonathan Corsair and Senator Helene Falkland?