Tag: fiction

How would you define this audience?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

These days, writers are advised to know their audience.

Not what they feel they need to express, mind you, but who they might connect with to sell the story.

It’s always bothered me. Sounds too much like pandering.

Still, with news stories back when I was a newspaper editor, we could begin by the places where they lived. Where they worked or sent their kids to school, too. Voted. Paid their taxes. And then work out from there. You could never go wrong with pictures of dogs or children.

Advertisers think in terms of demographics. They might want something like unmarried females age 22½ and then look for a radio station whose programming hits that market.

But books? It gets trickier.

When it comes to my novels, maybe I can define it this way:

  1. New adults trying to get their act together and want inspiration.
  2. People curious about the hippie era and want to be amused by it.
  3. People who were part of a counterculture and want perspective.

This still isn’t quite not where I’d like to be but maybe coming closer.

In fact, Cassia in my novel What’s Left seems to speak for those I hope she can reach out to.

What advice would you have?

The clock’s running down – Don’t miss this deadline

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Time’s running out. The one-month-only sale where three of my novels are available for free is coming to a close. Remember, that’s FREE. And two more titles are half-price.

They’re designed for Kindle, Nook, laptop, tablet, or smartphone – any digital device where you’re reading.

All you need to do is hop on down to Jnana Hodson at Smashwords.com.

I think you’ll be happy you did.

 

 

Filling shelves with cookbooks and food perspectives

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the expansion of the family restaurant in my novel, What’s Left, her father proposes an office for her uncle Barney that includes a wall-length bookshelf for his cookbooks.

At this point, of course, I could have been led to page after page of a bibliography! My wife would have Anthony Pellegrini’s pioneering volumes right up there. And I’d go for Julia Child, not that I’ve ever followed one of her recipes to a T. I just love her descriptions.

Now let me ask, what food books would you put on Barney’s shelves? And why?

~*~

Waitress in unidentified diner, Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington, 1981. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

In my novel, the family restaurant could have been like this.

Time to think of a Japanese touch

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the (highly unlikely) movie version of my novel, What’s Left, who would you like to see as her best friend, cousin Sandra?

Of course, that also means thinking of her blended genetic heritage and who could embody it.

~*~

A large Queen Anne-style house with a distinctive witch’s hat tower something like this is the headquarters for Cassia’s extended family in my new novel, What’s Left. If only this one were pink, like hers. (Claremont, New Hampshire.)

Can you really pass up this deal?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

If you haven’t already picked up my novels at this online one-month-only sale, don’t delay. You can’t beat the price – mine are free or else half-price.

They should fit your Kindle, Nook, laptop, tablet, or smartphone – any digital device where you’re reading.

All you need to do is hop on down to my booth at Jnana Hodson at Smashwords.com and download them. Take just one or all five novels plus the Blue Rock poems.

I think you’ll be happy you did.

Bells of freedom ringing

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Thinking of freedom, we can see it as personal expression as well as political opportunity. For some of us, that was a big dimension of the hippie movement.

The 50th anniversary of Woodstock is coming up next month. Normally, that would mark a jubilee, some even acclaiming it as a celebration of the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Alas, the dark ages we thought had passed have returned from the dead, in intensified deadliness at that.

Jubilee, by the way, is drawn from the Biblical book of Leviticus, and it’s a most radical idea. Every 50 years, all the wealth in the land is to be redistributed. The scriptural passage is inscribed on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, so don’t tell me it’s not American.

~*~

One of the passages I cut before the final version of my novel What’s Left is one where she’s asking her aunt about the hippie experience:

I’ve never asked you about your own drug use.

OK? Can I say it was just enough to convince others I wasn’t a narc?

So were you really a hippie? I mean, you had such short hair!

You trying to say a hippie couldn’t have short hair? Don’t you know how radical my style was? You ever think I could conform to anything?

Well, you’ve indicated you weren’t stoned. I’m going down the list.

Have you considered the impact of the Pill? Or free love?

Oh, I’m so glad Cassia stopped talking like this! In the final version, she’s pretty snippy.

~*~

For the record, some of the truest hippies I’ve known weren’t promiscuous or do drugs. And some others never marched in a protest.

Still, as an image of the era, let me ask: What’s your impression of Woodstock? Have you ever been to a big, multiday festival? What’s your favorite music? How do you best express your free spirit?

 

This month only, they’re free

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Every July, Smashwords has a huge online sale of thousands of books, and many of its authors join in by discounting their prices.

Better yet, this year I’ve decided to go one better and make all but two of mine available for free. Yes, free. Three novels as well as my Blue Rock collected poems. And the other two novels are going for 50 percent off.

Quite simply, I want to encourage more readers to take a chance on a largely unknown author by downloading these books to their Kindle, Nook, laptop, tablet, or smartphone – any digital device where they’re reading. Nothing beats word of mouth or an online review by a real reader who likes it.

As I’ve been finding in my own perusal of books lately, it’s hard to pass up a promising ebook when it’s free – and there’s some fantastic reading available that way.

So hop on down to my booth at Jnana Hodson at Smashwords.com, will you. Please?

I think you’ll be happy you did.

Requiem for hippie

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In revising the novel that has been recast as Daffodil Uprising, I began grieving. It wasn’t the feeling I had expected. This was supposed to be a celebration of a remarkable time in world history. Some things really did change as a result.

Not all of them for the better, alas. And many of the lessons arising from Vietnam, especially, still haven’t been learned in realms of political power. And while much of the environment has been cleaned up, the global climate is still headed for disaster.

Repeatedly, I felt this was a requiem.

Part of that must have been a consequence of my long effort of drafting and revising What’s Left, which picks up on the central character a generation later. Or, more accurately, his daughter, Cassia.

But moving on with his story, in what’s now released as Pit-a-Pat High Jinks, I’m feeling wounded. Not by the novels, mind you – I think you’ll find them entertaining, enlightening, and delightful. No, the wounds are from, well, all kinds of losses, many of them my own fault.

I have heard that in the retreat from the outburst of the Quaker movement in the radical uprisings of mid-1600s Britain, many of them had a something of a shellshock look for years after. They had come so close to truly revolutionary societal change and lost that to the Restoration. Well, some of those ideals did come to flower in the American Revolution – the Bill of Rights, especially – but even there, we’ll still falling short.

As the liturgical chanters sing out in accompaniment to prayers in Christian Orthodox worship, Kyrie eleison – Lord have mercy.

Yes, mercy. And hope. And grant us peace.

Also on our big plate

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my novel, What’s Left, having her family own a restaurant opens another dimension to the story – the changing food tastes of the American public.

If Carmichael’s continued solely as a burger-and-fries joint, we’d have a much different type of story, one based on the day-to-day interactions of line cooks, dishwashers, wait staff, and a slew of customers. One of my daughters has already drafted an exciting and entertaining story based on her own experiences in the trade – now, if she’ll only get it published! Realistically, a restaurant like that would likely wind up in bankruptcy halfway through the novel – or maybe even the victim of arson, if not accidental fire.

So having Carmichael’s expand, as I do, shifts the focus to a revolution in the awareness of food itself. We have plenty to play with that way.

Continue reading “Also on our big plate” →