#WEP/IWSG February challenge - Cafe Terrace - my tribute to the painter, Vincent van Gogh

Hello friends!

For the inaugural WEP 2020 February challenge, I'm taking  a break from #flashfiction and going with a tribute to one of my favorite artists, Vincent van Gogh, that mystic and idealist, who just happens to be the inspiration for this challenge.

Painted in August-September 1888, this painting has had many names - The Night Cafe, Cafe at Night, Place du Forum, Arles, Cafe Terrace. At its first public exhibit in 1891, the work bore the title Café, le soir, or Coffeehouse at Evening. Another name it goes by is Café Terrace on the Place du Forum. To have so many names signifies its importance on so many levels!!

Van Gogh painted this cafe which was open all night in his day. Here vagabonds and drunks would come to find shelter, not knowing where else to go to sleep off their drink and drown their solitude. This cafe was home to them.

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch post-impressionist painter

 who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art.

Even in van Gogh's time, this cafe was central to French culture. A place for a meeting of minds of like-minded souls. This painting was the fruit of a meeting between Guy de Maupassanat and van Gogh and featured at the beginning of de Maupassant's risque novel, Bel Ami. Even though set in Paris, it's Arles he's describing...

It was one of those sultry, Parisian evenings when not a breath of air is stirring; the sewers exhaled poisonous gases and the restaurants the disagreeable odors of cooking and of kindred smells. Porters in their shirt-sleeves, astride their chairs, smoked their pipes at the carriage gates, and pedestrians strolled leisurely along, hats in hand.

Van Gogh loved to paint the night. He loved the colors, the mellow blues, violets and greens.  He wrote 'the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.' Astronomers have studied the placement of the stars in the painting and have lauded van Gogh for getting them exactly right for August/September in his part of the world.

I visited this cafe in Arles two years ago. I was thrilled it was still there as if waiting for the triumphal return of the unfortunate van Gogh who immortalised the cafe. It's been renamed Cafe van Gogh which I think is adorable. This is what it looks like today. Not a lot different from van Gogh's day.

It was still a feast of colour on a bleak winter's night. I stood shivering in the forum, but it was not going to open for me, more's the pity. Had to grab a bite at some ordinary eatery across the way and gaze at it throughout the meal, imagining the roisterous time being had by all in Cafe Terrace 100 or so years back.

I'm not one to sit inside cafes, but here is part of the inside taken from one of my books:

Café Terrace at Night ranks second in a list of the top ten most reproduced artworks of all time. Van Gogh's Starry Night holds first place. I was thrilled to find an airbnb on the Rhone River in Arles when I visited. It reflected this view.  The owner was a van Gogh fanatic who sat me down with a map and highlighter and documented the 'van Gogh trail' for me to follow. I was just as happy sitting at the window of my 'room with a view.'

When I was in Paris at the end of 2019, it seems they've suddenly discovered how fantastic van Gogh's artwork reproduces. I saw Starry Night suitcases and van Gogh reproductions on scarves, especially Cafe Terrace. I couldn't resist buying one and Sunflowers as a gift for someone. Can't wait for the end of the Australian heatwave to wear mine!

Go Vincent van Gogh!

Please click on my sidebar to read more WEP entries. If in the future you'd like to write for us, check out our website! Our next prompt is in April. Yolanda Renee has returned as a WEP host. Yay! She will be hosting:

Isn't that intriguing? Why don't you join us?

And hello! WEP is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2020! I  hope you'll join the fun writing competition at least once this year!

#February #IWSG - Damyanti Biswas gets beneath my skin!

Hi all!

This IWSG I have a treat for you. True to my intent to read more bloggers' books and to review same, I've invited the wonderful Damyanti Biswas to hang out on my blog today.

Damyanti and I have a long history as bloggers. She actually sent me the beginning of her book some years ago when we thought we'd become critique partners. Because of our different genres and writing styles, it didn't work out, but I certainly still recognize the beginning.

Many of you have seen Damyanti's book shoot up the Amazon best-seller charts and have cheered her on. But in this post, Damyanti shares the flip side of her book's success.

As a writer it is hard for me to admit I'm insecure, and yet, that's precisely what the Insecure Writers Support Group, and this post, is about. My insecurities vary from day to day, but in the last year, most of them have centred around my debut crime novel, You Beneath Your Skin.

It is doing well in its home country, and has had excellent reviews outside India as well. You might think I'd have very little to be insecure about, but you'd be wrong. I've pledged all my proceeds from You Beneath Your Skin to two non-profits, Stop Acid Attacks and Project WHY. Both are excellent organisations, and deserve all our support.

Books don't pay a lot, as anyone in the publishing world will tell you. I knew this going in, so I'm not sure why I made it public knowledge that I intended to donate all my proceeds. No matter how many copies sell, unless they sell in the millions, it would hardly make a tangible financial difference to these non-profits. We're hoping to sell other rights, but that's a long shot So, long story short, I'm terrified I won't be able to help the two causes as much as I'd like to.

Damyanti wth acid-attack survivors.

So far, I've had a few instances of readers donating to the causes. In one instance, it was as much as nearly 2000 USD, in several others about 100 USD each. That's was heartening, because clearly, these are readers who were moved by Anjali and Sujni and Sakhi's story in You Beneath Your Skin. Even if I've been able to reach one reader, surely that's worth it?

My silly ego says no. It is still ashamed of not being able to make a huge difference. So, over the months, this is what I've been telling myself about my publishing journey, and I'm hoping that some of what I've learned will resonate with you on yours:

1. Do not compare--your writing journey is your own. Everyone has theirs. In the way of comparison lies misery.

2. Every publisher has more than one book on their plate. Your book's best advocate is you.

3. If you're self-publishing, learn the ropes before you hope for a bestseller.

4. In fact, a bestseller is an amalgamation of a lot of factors--and not all are always within your control.

5. Decide early why you are in this writing business. All goals are valid, but your approach will vary based on your goal.

6. Be nice to people. Do not expect all relationships to be transactional. Focus on giving, and let others decide whether they want to reciprocate.

7. Ask for reviews, but be courteous and professional about it.

8. Do not whine or rant, unless it is a super-exceptional occasion. The writing and publishing journey is not for sissies.

9. Write the best book you can. There's no replacement for that.

10. Love yourself. Your writing success should not come at the cost of your health.

At various times, one or the other of these has helped me stay calm amid the storm that threatened to take over in the past few months. Let us hope that You beneath Your Skin will help Stop Acid Attacks and Project WHY in some substantial way.

I have made peace with the fact that the book may or may not succeed in helping the non-profits, but I have to go on regardless. Writing, and trying to make a tiny bit of difference is what my journey is about.

What about you? Does the publishing journey make you insecure? What are the lessons you would like to share from your journey?

Damyanti Biswas lives in Singapore, and supports Delhi's underprivileged women and children, volunteering with organisations who work for this cause. Her short stories have been published in magazines in the US, UK, and Asia, and she helps edit the Forge Literary Magazine. She was recently awarded The Fay Khoo Award in Penang, Malaysia. You can find her on her blog and twitter. 

Her debut crime novel You Beneath Your Skin is an Amazon bestseller, all author proceeds of which will support the education and empowerment of women at Project WHY and Stop Acid Attacks.

PLEASE HELP BY TWEETING!

Help #StopAcidAttacks now! Read Damyanti Biswas’ guest post for the #IWSG https://dencovey.blogspot.com/2020/01/february-iwsg-damyanti-biswas-gets.html @damyantig

#IWSG guest post Damyanti Biswas #ProjectWHY https://dencovey.blogspot.com/2020/01/february-iwsg-damyanti-biswas-gets.html @damyantig

Alex's awesome co-hosts for the February 5 posting of the IWSG are Lee Lowery, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Jennifer Hawes, Cathrina Constantine, and Tyrean Martinson!

  Be sure to visit them if you can and don't forget to visit the
Insecure Writer’s Support Group Website!!!

Thanks for visiting my blog today.

If you haven't already bought Damyanti's book and/or left a review, let's do it now!

#IWSG post - Who's guilty? Not C Lee McKenzie!

Happy New Year all!

It's easy to feel insecure when fire threatens your village (as the image below shows), which it has done 4 times since September. Thanks to all of you who've shared Australia is Burning stories on FB and other social media. Appreciate that you care.

But it's insecurity re our writing that's the topic here!

There's so many ways we're insecure about our writing, isn't there? One is choosing the best point of view to tell your story.

After re-reading your draft, do you wonder if you've written in the best point of view? I've read authors who said after slaving away for months on their story, they realized they couldn't do it justice in the POV they chose. So they rewrite...and rewrite...

When I sat down to read C Lee McKenzie's Not Guilty, I wondered about the POV. I often read of males struggling to write the female's POV and vice versa. I think it's particularly gutsy to write from a seventeen-year-old male's POV as Lee has done. I wondered if she'd pull it off!

C Lee McKenzie, well known to most of us, chose the voice of teenager, Devon Carlyle, to tell her story. Devon comes through loud and clear and with great authenticity as he deals with the injustice dealt him by the law and his erstwhile friends and current enemies, at times with grace.

I like to learn something new when I read a novel, and I was fascinated with the peek inside a juvenile detention centre from an inmate's first hand POV. As much as I suffered along with Devon, I loved seeing the way it worked.

Lee's novel was a triumph of POV. But I was moved by the mother's character, too. There was a deep underlying emotion that couldn't be tackled in Devon's POV and there's a whole other book there...Lee? ... Lee?  No matter what POV we choose, it's limiting, isn't it?

I asked Lee about this. She graciously replied with the story of how she came up with the POV for Not Guilty...

"My answer is that all of my stories start from the character(s). In other words, I don’t sit down and think about whose POV it will be in. I know that’s what I’m supposed to do. Books on writing say, "Really consider whether you want an intimate first person POV or a close or distant third person before you write the book.”" 

But here’s my so-called system:  When I want to tell a story I start with the theme or main thread, then I wait for the character(s) to show up, and they pretty much determine which POV I’ll tell it in. If I remember correctly, I’ve only used first person POV in one of my books, but I’m open to doing it again if the character is. 

For Not Guilty, I wanted to tell a story about injustice, and the character that appeared was Devon Carlyle (the name was important, and if you read the story you’ll understand).  Since this book is supposed to be marketed for readers 14+, one of the criterion is that the protagonist be a teenager. I had Devon in my head; all I had to do was make him the right age. 

Now what if Margaret Carlyle had shown up instead? Would she have demanded to have center stage, be up-close and intimate with the reader? I’ll never know."

If you haven't had the pleasure of reading Lee's Not Guilty, think about doing yourself and Lee a favor. I know we all have Kindle's bursting with TBR titles, but how about we make 2020 our year of supporting fellow bloggers? Let's buy, read and review more of each other's books. I'm sorry that I've been more of a reader than reviewer in the past and will try to rectify that in 2020. How about you?

A blood-smeared knife. One young man’s word against another. A lifetime dream crushed. 

The evidence points to Devon Carlyle. He was there when it happened. Everyone knows he had it in for Renzo Costa. And Costa says Devon was the one. In the judge’s rap of a gavel Devon’s found guilty of assault. The star of the Oceanside High’s basketball team loses his shot at the one thing he’s worked so hard for—the championship game where college scouts could see how good he is.

Now he makes his great shots in Juvenile Hall with kids far different from those that have always been in his life. 

Angry? Hell, yes. 

He’s bent on finding who did the crime. He’s bent on making them pay because he’s Not Guilty.

But can he prove it?

Buy Links: 

AMAZON:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZJNNDRD/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1, 

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/not-guilty-c-lee-mckenzie/1133757423 

KOBO: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/not-guilty-19

SMASHWORDS: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/959648

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48566130-not-guilty

Thanks for coming by today. I hope your 2020 is going to be awesome! I know mine is!

Lee planning her next book..

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS POST, PLEASE TWEET! - THANK YOU!

Check out @cleemckenziea here: https://dencovey.blogspot.com/2020/01/iwsg-post-whos-guilty-not-c-lee-mckenzie.html

POV in storytelling. Check out @cleemckenzie here: https://dencovey.blogspot.com/2020/01/iwsg-post-whos-guilty-not-c-lee-mckenzie.html

And if you have time in your busy writing schedule, please consider joining the WEP/IWSG for the February 2020 challenge:

And we congratulate our winner for the December Footprints challenge, newbie Sonia!

#WEPff December challenge - FOOTPRINTS - my #ff, On Top of the Mountain

It's the final WEP for 2019. It's been a great year and we've seen some great writing. Hoping there's some time in your hectic holiday or work schedule to do the rounds and read some pleasurable writing. Thanks to the team - Nilanjana Bose, Olga Godim and L.G. Keltner who've helped provide strength and purpose.

Here's my fun contribution to the December challenge.

On Top of the Mountain

On top of the mountain was where Ciara longed to be—leaving behind all her insecurities, her unhappiness, her confusion over the breakup with Tod. That was why in her backpack she’d tucked her special passport to tackle the road from France to Spain. The Camino de Santiago. She was following in the footprints of 2.5 million pilgrims who every year attempted to walk the 800 kilometre (497 miles). Each morning, she flew out of bed like a bird. Then for hours on end - trudge, trudge, trudge.

Whoever thought there’d be so many mountains, hills and valleys, especially at the beginning of the walk when most people were flabbily unfit? Her group all prodded their walking poles into the muddy ground, following the footprints of those in the lead. They took every opportunity to leave a token on every statue and shrine they passed, carefully placed rocks they’d brought from home and dropped them at the feet of saints like they were dropping their burdens. Of course they had to snap photograph after photograph on their smart phones, before whining and flopping beside the road, fanning themselves, pouring bottled water over their faces, until the guide finally called them out.

‘If you keep lagging, we’ll be camping beside the road in the rain instead of enjoying a drink, a nice hot bath and a comfy bed at the inn.’

That did the trick. Even Ciara smartened up her act.

The climb up this latest mountain had been hard in the drizzle, but Ciara had to admit, the view, or what she could see of it between the clouds, was Paradise.

She twirled round and round like the ballerina she was, fantasizing she was lead ballerina in Swan Lake, which she wasn't, then fell into a dizzy heap, like she was the frumpy ugly duckling everyone shunned.

‘Woops!’ She giggled, brushing off twigs and leaves, lying on her back, bathed in grey-blue sky. ‘Look on the bright side, girl!’

She was first.

She never got to be first.

She wasn’t even first with Tod. He’d chosen her because she looked like his first girlfriend. Ugh. That sure made her feel like the ugly duckling.

But today, despite Tod, was an important milestone in her life.

Her confusion was lifting like clouds on the mountain. Yes! She thumped the ground with her two fists. She came on this journey of self-discovery and she was self-discovering. Awesome. At thirty-four that wasn’t bad. Feeling smug, she sat up and leaned against the one and only scrappy tree and guzzled from her water bottle.

Now that her fitness had improved, she’d hurried ahead even though it was not the done thing. Truthfully, she was sick of the groups’ collective whining. Sure, the climb today had tested their fitness, but what did they expect? They were crossing the Pyrenees. All the way from St Jean Pied de Port in France to this splendid mountain range in Spain and then some. What a pilgrimage. What a way to start over. And it’d all be over in a month.

It was Roderick who riled her. There was always one. A pain from the beginning, whining about everything—the food, the weather, the lack of bottled water. He even complained when at one of the villages a kindly wine merchant provided red wine through one of the water taps, his contribution to the pilgrim walk. It’d helped them feel no pain through the rest of the day.

Still umpteen kilometres to go til they reached Santiago de Compostela. Could she put up with him that long? 

She was surprised their guide, Rafe, hadn’t sent him packing. Ah Rafe. She pictured his built body, muscled by years of climbing, and his piercing blue eyes, always focused on the beautiful landscape, never on her even though she did her best to attract him with her tight tops and lycra pants. She and Andrea, the other Brit, tried to outdo each other, rising earlier than everyone to hog the bathroom to apply their makeup. But Rafe was immune. She felt like stabbing him with her eyeliner when she caught him looking lovesick every time he glanced at Matthew, the royal marine from the U.S. Hot damn.

She dropped her water bottle beside the dozens of others abandoned by naughty walkers who’d never heard of climate change or that bottling water released 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually and took 17 million barrels of oil to produce a year’s supply. She sighed and looked into the haloes of whispy clouds and thought about how she was saving the planet by walking 800 kilometres instead of driving a car. 

She breathed in slowly, savouring the moment. Ah, first at last! Would Rafe be impressed? Even though she wasn’t a whiner, she was a lagger, and he was forever turning back to make sure she was still trudging onward. The look in his eyes accused her of lagging on purpose. She wouldn’t do that, would she?

Sniggering, she lost herself in murderous thoughts of Tod, but she wasn’t so lost she missed the grunting behind the scraggly bush where she’d propped herself.  

She carefully moved leaves aside and peered closer, afraid it was some weird Spanish animal of the four-footed species. Why think the worst? She was drawn to valleys made dark by black shadows. Why did she always see the dark side? ‘What the—?’ She suspended her deep psychological musings. Lying spreadeagled, a head wound gushing blood, was that whiner, Roderick.

‘Hey, Ciara what have you found?’ Rafe had arrived, the group behind him, a motley crew gasping, whining, mopping foreheads with kerchiefs.

She shook her head.

Life was a sick joke.

She never got to be first.

But look on the bright side, she thought. Roderick could have been some dangerous animal.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

WORD COUNT: 974

NCCO - Comments only. This was written specifically for WEP just for fun. Enjoy!

Please click on names at the end of my post and read more stories and encourage our faithful writers who turned up for the Christmas challenge!

Look what we have in store for 2020. Those of you who are lurking behind the scenes I hope you can find a challenge that floats your boat!

The next WEP challenge will be in February. I hope you'll join us for:

Looks delicious!

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

#IWSG post for December 2019 - Goals, sort of...for 2020.

Hi all! Welcome to the final IWSG post for 2019. I'm sure we're all shaking our heads, wondering where the year went.

Alex's awesome co-hosts for the December 4 posting of the IWSG are Tonja Drecker, Beverly Stowe McClure, Nicki Elson, Fundy Blue, and Tyrean Martinson!

Visit if you can!

  And be sure to visit the
Insecure Writer’s Support Group Website!!!

ALEX HAS NOTIFIED US THAT DUE TO NEW YEAR'S DAY FALLING ON A WEDNESDAY, WE WILL BE POSTING JANUARY 8 RATHER THAN JANUARY 1!

My topic for this month -

Did you reach your goals for 2019? 

I don't make New Year's resolutions, but nevertheless I would have liked to have begun publishing in 2019 but life got in the way. You know. The traveling life. But I wasn't turning down trips to Italy and France where I got to walk in the footsteps of some of my characters. Wow. Early 2020 works fine for me. 

When I was a rookie blogger, I hosted what I called a Publication Party. Can you believe I hosted Alex when Cassa Star was just getting off the ground? If you'd like to travel back in time, here is the link.

What's all that about? 

When I hosted new authors, all blogger friends at the time, (a pity I've lost contact with most), I think every one was published by a small press. If history repeated itself and I hosted about-to-become-authors today, even though small presses are still popular, many would be planning to self-publish.

Okay, I know some of you just stopped reading because you have a thing against self-publishing, but if you're still here ... 

I'm addicted to reading comparisons between traditional and self-publishing. There are pros and cons for both sides, but most of us accept that traditional publishers take on very few new authors and even if you're one of the chosen, it can take years to actually see your book on the shelves. 

Which is a good reason to embrace the do-it-yourself publishing route or just write for fun with no expectations of being published. 

Even though I do have a novel languishing with a traditional publisher, I'm planning the self-pub route for everything else -- rapid releasing my short novel Renaissance vampire series, my collections of short stories and flash fiction etc. 

Which is why I'm behind all those authors I hosted way back when.

Another reason publishing has taken me so long is that I totally suck at plotting. I'm at heart a pantser, which has left me smashing into metaphorical brick walls in about 5 NaNo novels. It wasn't until I gained two face-to-face critique partners who've nailed plotting, that my stories have been shaken into some semblance of order.

Have you, oh clever much-published authors, mastered plotting? 

This is your opportunity to name drop. Which plotting master/mistress is your go-to for narrative arcs? I admit I read too many and get confused and my brain fuses into a big blob of outline rejection and I need my critters to drag me out of the mire.

Then I had to go and read a post on Writer Unboxed -- the post title -- The Fun of Pantsing. But pantsing which includes a lot of outlining...

Anyway, here's to a successful finish to 2019 and an awesomely successful 2020.

Happy writing!

SOME HOLIDAY SNAPS - FLORENCE - NOVEL LOCATIONS

The breathtaking Medici chapel which I think challenges the Sistine Chapel in Rome

Part of the courtyard entrance that features in Book One of my vampire series - you can imagine my excitement walking in the footsteps of my Renaissance man

The private Medici chapel of the Magi - they say it's much the same as in the time of the Medici - nicely golden with original artwork

And if you'd like to join us, WEP is about to run our final challenge for the year. The prompt is from Tyrean Martinsen from the IWSG. If you haven't closed down your blog for the year, please come by and read some great entries. The prize this month is a 3-chapter critique from author/editor J.L. Campbell. Hmm. Pity I'm not in the running...