A Regency Christmas Ball

I'm doing a new thing this Christmas season. Every day my latest main character, Charlotte Pennington will take a virtual sleigh ride to a virtual Regency ball. Each ball will be hosted by a different main character. 

This evening's ball will be hosted at Pennington Hall. Hit the button at the top of the page and you, too can join the merriment for a dance. 

I will add partners to your dance card as I add balls and dances, once per day. 

The snow crunches as your footman tucks you into the lap robes in your family sleigh. The air has a nip to it, and Betsy shakes her mane, jingling the bells adorning her harness. With a crack of the whip, you're off to Pennington Hall.

The expansive mansion is ablaze with light and the sounds of happy attendees wafts toward you.

The butler comes to take your wraps and you follow him through the massive doors. Tapestries of the War of the Flowers adorn the walls of the entryway.

As you enter the ballroom, you look up to behold the gorgeous vaulted ceilings painted a deep cerulean blue. Gold leaf adorns the graceful arches which embrace a quaint sort of walkway, so lush with flowers that it almost seems you are outside. Candles flicker in a host of sconces, reflected in the myriad gilt-edged mirrors. Tall windows look out on a breathtaking moonlit night.

An orchestra strikes up and Mr. Harris comes to you, offering his hand with a warm smile. You offer him yours and he kisses it, before tucking it into his.

And you are off in a blaze of black tuxedos, white silks and glittering jewels.

 After the set, Miss Charlotte Pennington comes to you and curtseys. "There is another ball tomorrow night at Wyckburg  Castle. Will you go?" She has eyes  mostly for Mr. Harris, who has gone to her side. There is something curious about him that you cannot quite put your finger on--something ethereal.

You smile and say, "Certainly!" 

Just then "He" comes to your side. He smiles at you and asks, "May I escort you to Countess Wyckburg's soiree?"
You feel a thrill race through you and nod, too happy to speak.
To attend the Ball at Wyckburg Castle, press here.  

To discover what has you so intrigued about Miss Pennington and her beau, Mr. Harris, read "Summerhouse" by H. Linn Murphy.

Tomorrow we'll be visiting the future with Onnie Nayir and his crew. 

Our Family Trek--Part eins

I'm taking you on our recent trip through 6 states--Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. You're welcome...rofl
June 15, 2016

It was kind of sad watching the dog watch us out of all the windows as the car turned. I wish we could have taken him with us. We left in the evening to go on our family reunion trip after working all day to get book stuff done and a bazillion packing things and last minute chores. I was exhausted and went straight to sleep, as much as I could. Poor Hubs had to drive all night. I'd feel really badly about that but he prefers to drive himself instead of sitting there worrying. There WERE plenty of loonies on the road. I think sleeping in the car means no deep sleep, just dozing. That means you kind of rob yourself and waste lots of time. Unfortunately, I was exhausted. I did offer to drive, but Lon never likes to sit in the passenger seat, especially on long trips.

June 16, 2016

I'm sitting up on the rocks above Navajo Bridge (dam), waiting for the fanfare of the rising sun to paint the cliffs vermilion with purple shadows. The quiet is a blanket, wrapping me round, filling my soul to overflowing with a pervasive peace. Then, up from the bridge on an errant dawn breeze wafts these words: “YOU'RE AN IDIOT!” (Jessa trying the echo thing from the dam bridge.)

The sun etches purple shadows into the ocher, filling the tablelands with an astonishing pallet of colors. My head is so full of the big silences—the soughing of the wind, the sun-drenched rocks, the rays lancing through the eggshell-edged mountains, delicate as robin's egg in the wash of dawn light. The sage-tufted hills dream like a chenille throw. The flat tablelands spread with a misty blue cloth in the distance, colors not yet harshened by their grueling taskmaster, the sun. It's a solitary homage, a worshiping of the wind-smoothed rock, an admission of God's hand in all things. But solitary.
We went up to Utah one way, but ended up driving clear through Dixie National Forest (a place I don't remember ever going before) to go up the other way so we could get to New Harmony, my editor's parents' place. I got to talk to her while Hubs napped and the kids got to ride in the dune buggy. Linda was so nice! We're totally kindred spirits. We hashed out a few more details and I was able to talk to her about details of our contract.
After that we went to Scipio to the mercantile. The little old man there told me he'd like more SUNRISE OVER SCIPIO books to sell (and his wife wants to read it since he sold the last copy out from under her.) I bought a red plate and lavender vase.

We got to the Hub's parents' kind of late. We'd stopped for burgers already, so we talked for a while. Then I had to do more corrections for SUMMERHOUSE. Linda had such nice things to say about me and my writing. It totally made up for having to stay up late and be exhausted the next day...:o)

June 17, 2016  

We drove up to Rexburg to fetch H. It was so green and lush, crops spread across the rolling hills, the round circles of sprinklers blowing out a profusion of water. So much water! Rainbows of it. Creeks of it. Every corner taken up in green growing things.
When we got up to Rexburg, silly H had just left to go donate plasma. We had to wait for almost two hours for him to come home. In that time we had a chance to short sheet his bed, turn all his pictures upside down, and do a bunch of editing on SUMMERHOUSE. We also got to know H's last mission comp/roommate. He was quite nice and entertaining. He offered everyone a soda and tried to feed us, but we declined in the hopes that H would be back any time, and not wanting to devour all their food.

Finally H came home and we left. Oh how I have missed him. I couldn't hug him enough. He was so busy with homework, though. And everyone else was packed in like spoons in a silverware drawer around us, so I couldn't ask how he is really doing. 
We went down a different way, through Logan this time. In fact, we stopped at Logan temple and took pictures. What a gorgeous, peaceful place, even on the outside.

We got back to the Hubs' parents in Morgan UT kind of late after having a burger or chicken or something. I did more work on the book and then went to bed.

Next installment: tomorrow

SUMMERHOUSE for the Summer

In the Muckross summerhouse, Killarney, Ireland

Just putting the finishing touches on SUMMERHOUSE. I pulled an all-nighter getting the last corrections squeaked through and doing the last tweaks on the cover. Awaiting final approval. It's going to be luscious! I can't wait to meet my newest book baby. Linda Prince and I have worked like demons to get it finished on time to go into the Deseret Book catalog. Woo hoo!!!

Here's part of the back cover blurb:

A summerhouse isn't usually the place to pick up hot babes. Jack Harris, curator of the Pennington Estate for England's National Trust, not only meets a girl where he works, but she could be the famous Pennington heiress, missing for two hundred years. Somehow their lives collide in the gazebo. Jack soon finds he can't get Charlotte and the mystery surrounding her life out of his head and heart.

Charlotte knows she can't marry her parents' choice. The man is doltish. She must tell them she wishes instead to marry an incorporeal man with the words “Do not disturb: I'm disturbed enough already” written on his underclothing.

Jack, an outlandish-looking “ghost” from the future, can't impress her unbending parents without scaring them witless. Jack pursues Charlotte across Europe, learning the rules of the paradox that surrounds them as he goes, racing time itself, hoping to catch her when she falls.

But time can be tricky and often heartless.

More news when I get it. And now, back to work.
H. Linn Murphy, the Sleep-starved

SUMMER Magic

Summerhouse at Blarney Castle--like mine only sans sundial

So I'm deep into edits for SUMMERHOUSE. We have a marble deadline, which is good, because things happen to set deadlines back way too often. That said, my editor has said some wonderful things about me. And even though they might be geared towards making me feel better about deadline changes, they mean lots to me.

And since this is my blog and I'm the Queen of it, I'm putting those nice things on here. Okay I'm shamelessly boasting of my book baby, which is about to be born on or near the 16th of June, 2016.

To be honest, the book and your writing are so FABULOUS that I couldn’t stop reading and editing! And there wasn’t much editing that needed to be done.

Oh my goodness, I can’t say enough about the story you have created. I knew it was good, but either I didn’t read it all early on or I just forgot how romantic and stunning it is.

Tomorrow I might break the Sabbath and work a bit because this book is so darned good. Simply put, you have made my entire summer with Summerhouse!

Summerhouse at Finnstown 'castle' in Lucan

I'm going to look at this post whenever I'm depressed and thinking I'm rubbish at what I do. I'm also going to stop waffling about writing the next query (since it's already been queried and wanted) and send in THE DAY IT RAINED GLASS. That should be a decent chunk of good work for the day.

A summerhouse in Spokane, WA

ANWACON15

                           Veni Vidi Vici.

Sorry, it had to be done. Christina Hibbert, 
me, Brandon Mull, and Dave Eaton.

Lisa Mangum of Shadow Mountain, 
Jenevieve, Donna Gonzalez (my roomie)

ANWA Con15 was wonderful! I had a blast being plowed under by the avalanche of information. Perhaps after I run through several other items on my Cinderella list, I'll be able to dig out a little and ingest a little information snow.


I got helpful information on my pitch for LETTERS FOR STEPS from Lisa Mangum of Shadow Mountain.

Makenna as Captain Hooker(?) 
Always a buccaneer.

I ran up a pitch for THE DAY IT RAINED GLASS and used some of it to pitch it to Makenna Gardner of Netherfield Publishing. She wants a full manuscript! I'm so electrified! I hope it's an in for my Sci Fi books.

I also gleaned all kinds of info about marketing and improving my craft. These people are so talented and wacky and brilliant. I came home and immediately upon waking up, thought of two more books. One of them is a sequel to GLASS. Before I couldn't really see a sequel. This one looks promising.

Steph Abney, Joyce DiPastena, (?), Lisa Mangum, 
Regina Sirois with Janette Rallison in the background.

The other one is a suspense one. Unfortunately the phone rang and I woke up before I could find out who the nasty little chubby boy was and why he was trying to kill me. That'll have to spring from somewhere inside. Maybe another dream?

What if...?

Mrs. Elton, Captain Hooker, me, the Indian 
in the Cupboard, and (?)

Me and Peggy Forman of Xchyler Publishing

The Con was about taking my garden plot. People of all sorts planted amazing seeds and now I must water and nurture them and hope something fabulous will grow (not like my less-than-stellar abilities with houseplants). I'm hoping I'll need to re-pot them shortly.

I love Regina's ON LITTLE WINGS.

I got to meet up with friends, make new ones, and forge new relationships with some authors I'd idolized before. Regina Sirois gave a keynote speech that had us all quiet enough to hear the snow melting. "Climb your own mountain," she said. "Revel in the feeling, and then climb back down, because you can't live up there in that rarefied air."

Brandon and his newest fan

Brandon Mull gave us the heart to go for it. He talked about writing for years and not getting anywhere with it. I'm so glad he "made it" and that people supported him even though he was a 40-year-old guy writing about fairies. He told us loads about making his Fablehaven, Beyonders, and other series'.

Donna as the White Witch, Me as Regan, and 
Deb Eaton as (I'm sorry I forget).

The food was fab, the chocolate chip cookies rocked, and the Antagonist party was a blast. I went as Regan from Shakespeare's tragedy, King Lear. Nobody guessed it. In fact, most people had never read or heard of that play! I was floored. It's one of The Bard's most famous tragedies, after all.

Raejean's a bud I always look for there.

What if...?

I always come home bursting with possibilities. For that, I'm grateful. Can't wait for next year. And next year, maybe I'll sell more than 3 books...;o) It's my goal. That and winning the Beginning Of Book contest. I also hope to be selling THE DAY IT RAINED GLASS, SUMMERHOUSE, and SUNRISE OVER SCIPIO books and having a hard time keeping them stocked.

The Red Queen and Cindi Williams, one of 
the scariest clowns ever!

Idea Generators

Someone recently asked me how I center myself for writing. It's a good question. Actually I spend way too much time dinking around with Facebook and emails. So by the time I get around to working, I simply kick myself in the bum and tell myself to quit wasting time and get to work. Myself sounds a whole lot like my dad...;o) 
Seriously, I generally play a game or two of Beleaguered Castles or Solitaire to loosen up my brain and then I'm good to go. Actually sitting down and opening the program works wonders.

I get most of my ideas and inspiration when I'm lying in bed in the morning. I rarely get to do that, however, because I'm incredibly busy. So the stories have to unfold while I'm doing other mindless things. I also rumble through scenarios while hanging clothes, especially at night. (I have six kids and several volunteer jobs. Lots of mindless jobs in there.)
I read like a freak--almost anything I can get my hands on. I take a book or my Kindle everywhere. I even read while I walk. Mostly I don't bump into things unless it's dark and I'm reading with a flashlight while walking. If you're looking to generate ideas, you've got to read a great deal. Stuff the time you don't spend writing, with reading.
I try to keep current on information as much as I can. All kinds of scientific breakthroughs catch my fancy (Bucky balls, Aerogel, polymers, etc). The list is endless.

At any given time there's usually a traffic jam of ideas in my head. Scenes and ideas for new novels are all backed up at a light and waiting for me to bring them to the public. It's the editing that takes me the longest.

I come up with ideas several different ways:
*Sometimes I come up with a kickin' character first. People like Vari Faro or Larkin will bang at the inside of my head and beg me to let them out. Then I plunge that character into as much trouble as they can stand. Sometimes it's more than they can stand. At times they've revolted and made me change the story. 
I recently tried to kill off one of my characters at the end of the book and she came and kicked me and told me she wasn't dying. So I let her live.
*Sometimes it's a story that unfolds. I have one I haven't written yet about a brother and sister who live under London Bridge and pick through the mud for abandoned or lost goodies. That story nearly sprang full-fledged from my head. I'm pretty much waiting until I make enough so I can actually go to London to do research for this book. Sigh.....
*At times it's just an idea that begins like a little seed and takes over. My WATCHERS series grew from my latent rebel tendencies. It ended up being a five-book series, which I'm still polishing between writing three other books.
*I like to take two disparate ideas and crash them together and see what emerges alive. FIRETHORN was like that. I wanted a character that was wildly out-of-the-ordinary without being the same old vampire or werewolf. Kerry was born in all her woodiness. Then I stuck her in high school with all the regular witchy cheerleaders and geeks. I'm hoping it'll appeal to teens and tweens by the bus-load.
*I've gotten ideas from dreams. I have a picture book I haven't written yet, that was such a vivid and color-splashed dream, that it's indelibly ingrained in my mind. I will write that book when I can scrape up time to paint the pictures. It's going to be breath-taking. Someday.
*My first published book SMALL DECEPTIONS grew out of a wish for more books like Jane Austen's. I'd run out of hers and most of the good spin-offs and wanted something more. I'm always looking for a well-researched historical romance with some meat to it. SUMMERHOUSE was another book like that. It's a paranormal Regency romance.
*It also helps to do a loose outline. I plug things into that outline and keep fleshing it out. That helps me keep the book on track so it doesn't stray off into murky byways.
*Write something every day, whether it's on your W.I.P. or a limerick about lawn gnomes. Keep the generator primed and oiled.

My main goal is not to swipe from anybody. Ever. If it's already been done, why write it? Same with movies. Why all the re-dos when there are perfectly good brand new stories out there screaming to hit the big screen? It annoys me that publishers look for books that are current but they also want fresh. That's a knife-edged line. I write what I want to and hope.

My main trouble is in getting books sent to publishers. I never feel they're polished enough. I do have one in submission (PIVOT POINT is the title so far) and A TERRIBLE MAJESTY is nearly out of the polishing stage. FIRETHORN is going to Beta today (thank you Courtney).

That said, it's time to get back to editing. Cheers!

Chirping and Clucking

So I did something intrepid (one of my favorite words, by the way) today as a mark of how I wish to proceed with the gift of a new year. I joined Twitter. 

"Why?" you might ask.

Welp...I'll tell you. I'm a writer. I want my books to fly off the shelves and into your arms. I want to tell my stories to people who will love them. So if writing little blurbs every now and then alerts people to the fact that I'm around, GREAT! 

So now I'm going to find other ways to be intrepid...like getting my books polished and put out there in the query hailstorm; putting Small Deceptions and then Summerhouse on ebook; running daily; finding a person a day to help; finding new ways to be an imaginative cook. And I WILL conquer the dust bunny civilizations which are infesting my house! 
But first, the writing. Dark Moon Rising is calling insistently! Larkin pleads for help as she descends down through the levels beneath the dome. Her life has never been so forfeit as it is now, and I have let her hang much too long during the Christmas holidays!

Bedtime for Books

The final push for Summerhouse has ended, at least for the time being. Now it's in the hands of the Beta readers. I'm hoping they'll love it.


I haven't written much on here because I've been doing research on a number of things such as hospitals in the 19th century, tuberculosis and its treatments, especially in the 19th century, 19th century Britain, 19th century Switzerland, and my favorite translation site for Latin and double-checking my German.

It's been an educational journey. For instance, I had no idea that hospitals were that bad back then. One actually had to pay them up front for one's own burial when they went in there, because it was a fairly good bet that they'd die once passing the hospital doors. Often their families had to do their laundry and bring them extra food (especially sugar, tea, and butter). The conditions were absolutely appallingly filthy.

If a person caught tuberculosis, they wrote them off as a goner, since for a long time they didn't know anything about how a person caught the disease. They didn't have the long list of medications we do today either. Apparently it was endemic in Europe at the time.

I spent lots of time hunting through houses in Luzern. It took me back for some truly happy hours. I miss climbing around there and walking through the shops and by-ways.

I wandered around Britain as well. Someday (maybe when Summerhouse gets made into a movie) I hope to go there and haunt the places I love to read about and see.


So now it's time to buckle back down and do re-writes and polishing so I can actually send these babies out into the wide, wide world.

First Post! Exciting!

So this is the maiden voyage of my new blog. I'm hoping this will be a terrific learning experience and a fun trip. Setting sail for the unknown on an uncertain sea. I imagine there will be plenty of sail-trimming until I figure out exactly how this works, since I'm teaching myself. Hopefully there won't be too many times when I scuttle the boat on a sandbar.

I went to school for art and have been a freelance artist for a decade, now. I don't know why I suddenly jumped ship and climbed aboard the writing ketch. Maybe it's that I wasn't getting my art out there in the mainstream enough. I had something to say and so many books bubbling up.

I read like a maniac. Right now I'm reading the Book of Mormon for the twentyleventh time, a fascinating book about brain diseases and malfunctions, a medieval romance manuscript by a fellow writer, and a lovely book called Chocolate Roses written by my cousin, Joan Sowards. Tomorrow it could be a science fiction one.

Right now I am about 4/5ths of the way through writing my sixth book. I have two other books I'm working on at the same time, and another two in the editing stages.

*Small Deceptions (under the name H. Linn Murphy) is a historical novel published and available from Xlibris.com (or from Amazon, but I don't get as much in royalties if you buy it with them).
*Enduring Kirsten (now Kirsten Confused) is a finished LDS romance in the editing stage.
*Watcher at the Gates of Day is a finished science fiction novel also in the editing stage.
*Echo in the Night is the sequel to Watcher and is unfinished yet. I add to it regularly.
*Rodeo Queen and the Scipio Doc (now Pivot Point) is the current LDS romance I'm working on most right now.
*When You Leave Me (or A Light in the Summerhouse) (now Summerhouse) is a psychic link romance in the thought/outline stages and currently setting my head on fire.
*Mudlarks is a Dickensian offering also in the thought/outline stage.
*Prima Nochta is an early Celt story in the thought/outline stage.
*Forlorn Hope is a historical novel in the thought stage.
(Many of these titles have been changed as of March, 2012. Also there are several new books as of the same date)

It's all a matter of trimming the sails and keeping the sheets to the wind. Avast ye landlubbers! Take ship for realms unexplored! I'll be your captain!
Heidi L. Murphy