Hello lovelies! It gives me
great pleasure today to host Gary F. Jones and his new book, “Doc’s Codicil”! For other stops on his Goddess Fish
Promotions Book Tour, please click on the banner above or any of the images in this post.
Be sure to make it to the end of
this post to enter to win a $20 Amazon or Barnes & Noble Gift Card. Also, come back daily to interact with Gary
and to increase your chances of winning!
Thanks for stopping by! Wishing you lots of luck in this exciting
giveaway!
Doc's Codicil
by Gary F. Jones
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GENRE: Family Humor, Mystery
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BLURB:
When
Wisconsin veterinarian Doc dies, his family learns that to inherit his fortune,
they must decipher the cryptic codicil he added to his will—“Take Doofus squirrel-fishing”—and
they can only do that
by talking to Doc’s friends, reading the memoir Doc wrote of a Christmas season
decades earlier, searching through Doc’s correspondence, and discovering clues
around them. Humor abounds as this mismatched lot tries to find time in their
hectic lives to work together to solve the puzzle. In the end, will they
realize that fortune comes in many guises?
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EXCERPT THREE:
The
house was dark except for the pool of light thrown by a lamp behind my chair
and small multi-colored Christmas lights surrounding the window on my left. The
lights gave a dim but cheerful glow to the edge of the room. The crystal,
silver, and pastel globes on the Christmas tree standing against the opposite
wall reflected that light, and as the furnace kicked in, the reflections danced
across the wall, betraying currents of warm air moving gently about the room.
Heat,
wonderful heat. I gave my wine glass a twist to celebrate feeling my toes
again. The liquid ruby swirled round the glass, as I offered a silent toast to
Mary, may she sleep soundly tonight. On the second glass, I was startled by a
swoosh of air exhaled by the cushion of a wing-backed chair to my left. I
glanced at the chair, but couldn’t bring it into focus. Contacts must be dirty,
I thought and returned to my book.
I
. . . poured a third glass. This had to be the last. Tomorrow would be another
fourteen-hour workday. I took another bite of Stilton, crumbly yet creamy, a
pungent and savory blue with a background of cheddar, when I heard a throat
clear.
I
put my book down and looked around the room. Empty.
.
. . A shadow moved in the dining room .
. . “Who’s there? What the hell is going on?” I whispered.
A
man’s voice came from the kitchen. “Cripes, some host you are.”
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GUEST POST:
Five Tips on Writing Humor Which I Have No Right to Give
1. Never take advice from
people of dubious expertise and doubtful sobriety. I commend you for your
common sense if you’re already moving your cursor to leave the page.
And this brings us to self-deprecating humor. People like it.
Transferred to the page of a comic mystery or thriller, it makes your
protagonist appealing and more human. An extreme example was Peter Sellers in
the Pink Panther movies and in Being There.
2. Keep a diary or list of
the foolish things you’ve seen or been involved in. If you can’t think of
anything dumb that you’ve done, ask your spouse. She/He may have a long list
they’ve been waiting to discuss with you. If neither of you can think of
anything stupid in your life, call your brother or brother-in-law and ask him
how things are going.
The basis for many of the chapters of Doc’s Codicil was a collection of
30 years of Christmas letters in which I briefly sketched the stupid things my
family and I had done over the preceding year. That may not help someone from a
normal family, but my wife, our four children, and I have all been diagnosed as
having Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD). It was an active household.
Don’t forget about those things you thought about doing but wisely put
aside. My list of those isn’t long. I did too many of them, but I hope you’ve
been smarter. Either way, they may be the basis of a story someday.
3. Death and violence are
frequently fatal to humor. In a
light-hearted mystery, none of the characters important enough to have a name
should die because of foul play, violence, or epidemic. The mystery in Doc’s
Codicil is a riddle Doc adds to his will. There was no violence and Doc’s
purpose, to teach his children a lesson, is universal. Any parent can empathize
with it. The no corpses rule even works
in stories about epidemic diseases. In my latest novel, a satirical medical
thriller, A Jerk, A Jihad, and a Virus, violence and death remain unrealized
potentials. The humor worked, according to the reviewers.
4. Advice to authors
writing mysteries or thrillers has long been, “When in doubt or suffering
writer’s block, throw a new problem at your protagonist.” It works. In Doc’s
Codicil, I simply had to dip into my memory to think of things that created
trouble for Doc, my alter ego. But why limit that advice to your protagonist,
especially if writing a thriller? In A Jerk, A Jihad, and a Virus, making my
villain’s life sheer hell was more fun than anything I could think of that
wasn’t illegal, and it got me past a bad case of writer’s block.
5. Give your readers
credit. Don’t explain everything. They can make accurate assumptions, and it
makes them use their imaginations. Try substituting a look, a pause, or an
expression instead of stating the obvious. Be forewarned, there is a fine line
between leaving them laughing and leaving them confused. You’re writing group
or writing partner will tell you when you’ve gone too far.
6. (Think of this as 5b)
Day dream. Doc’s Codicil was the result of a writing assignment, old Christmas
letters, and a day dream. I think the best of humor reveals things too delicate
to approach in any other way. You’re on the right track if you’ve hit on
something with a basis so serious or personal that you find it painful to write
about. For the topic of a writing assignment, I had used an envelope in my desk
that belonged to my older brother. He was eight years old when he drowned. The
day dream was set off by a news report of American dead and wounded during the
Iraqui war. How could I explain something as costly and counterproductive as
that war to a child? A supremely confident patron fairy of stupidity? Enter
Doofus, the cow-flop fairy, patron fairy of wishful thinking and bad judgement,
councilor to presidents and advisor to kings. He made human history
understandable.
7. (Otherwise known as 5c)
Remember the old saw, “Brevity is the soul of wit?” It’s true. It’s true in
your humor, your sentences, and your stories. If you’re not satisfied with your
book, try cutting a third of it.
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AUTHOR BIO:
According to
Gary Jones, his life has been a testament to questionable decisions and wishful
thinking. His wife of forty years, however, says she knows of nothing in the
record to justify such unfettered optimism. Jones says the book is a work of
fiction; that's his story, and he’s sticking to it.
He’s part of
the last generation of rural veterinarians who worked with cows that had names
and personalities, and with dairymen who worked in the barn with their
families. He’s also one of those baby boomers, crusty codgers who are writing
their wills and grousing about kids who can be damned condescending at times.
Gary
practiced bovine medicine in rural Wisconsin for nineteen years. He then
returned to graduate school at the University of Minnesota, earned a PhD in
microbiology, and spent the next nineteen years working on the development of
bovine and swine vaccines.
Doc's
Codicil is the bronze medal winner of Foreward's INDIEFAB Book of The Year
awards, humor category.
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CONNECT WITH GARY:
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Book Page:
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BOOK BUY LINKS:
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GIVEAWAY INFO:
Gary F. Jones will be awarding a $20 Amazon or
Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the
tour.
**This post contains affiliate links and if clicked and a
purchase made I may receive a small commission to help support this blog. This does not cost you anything, it just
helps pay for all those awesome giveaways on here.**
This contest is sponsored by a third party. Fabulous and
Brunette is a registered host of Goddess Fish Promotions. Prizes are given away by the sponsors and not
Fabulous and Brunette. The featured author and Goddess Fish Promotions are
solely responsible for the giveaway prize.
What was the hardest part of writing your first story?
ReplyDeleteMy first published story was a short story entitled "The Attempted Armed Deposit." The toughest part of that was holding my temper when the editor said that nobody would believe some of the scenes. They did happen. The whole story was pretty much a transcription of a telephone conversation I had with my brother. I'd called him to find out about a news article that cited an attempted robbery in my home town bank. The town population was only 926, and had been for 30 years. Writing what went on in my home town often qualified as humor for people raised in larger cities.
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting the book tour. It is much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteGary
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeletecongrats on the tour, enjoyed the excerpt, and thanks for the chance to win :)
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the excerpt. Best of luck on the raffle.
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed the excerpt and guest post, Sounds like a great read, Happy Thanksgiving!
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the excerpt. Some have told me they laughed so hard through the nativity chapter that tears were running down their faces. And a happy Thanksgiving to you.
DeleteGlad you liked it. Have a great turkey day.
ReplyDelete