Lisa's Weekly Blog


It's my goal to post entries about my approach to writing, a few tips aspiring authors may find useful, as well as some candid entries about what’s happening in my life.
(I predict that in the latter unedited category, you'll find unintentional disclosures as well as frequent typos, also unintentional.)

Do contact me with your comments, observations and questions at WriteLisa@LisaAprilSmith.com.
Please include the tag-name you wish to be known by. (i.e. Allison from Little Rock)
I'll include excerpts from emails in this blog with tag-names, minus the senders' email address and any personal information.

The media is welcome to use excerpts from this page. We only ask that you cite my website as your source, and correctly indicate direct quotes.

Wednesday, October 29, 2013
Last night I received an email from a source whose name I don't wish to disclose yet. What I can reveal is that our discussion pertained to my next book and that the sender is internationally renowned. Thrilled beyond words, I've decided today's blog will contain an overview of "Forgotten Tales of China."

"Forgotten Tales of China" is an epic story of survival, danger, invention, indomitable perseverance, warfare, bravery and betrayal. Set in ancient China, each of six tales has its own characters, conflicts and story. The location is the fertile Yellow River basin, a unique area of the globe that generously rewards its inhabitants’ hard work, and then repeatedly overflows its banks destroying everything in its path.

If you’re fascinated with China, or if good historic fiction is among the genres you enjoy, this one is for you. If you’re a fan of Clan of the Cave Bear, the first two tales of Forgotten Tales are sure to please. And if you appreciate attention to details and insist on accuracy in your fiction, you’re my kind of reader. I spent a full year on research before writing a single line.

The first tale takes place 40,000 years ago, shortly after Wise Old Mother fell into a coma and permitted the fire to die. Lacking the knowledge to start fire has caused a crisis for “The People of the Cave.” Storm, a young untested leader, has taken four men on a dangerous mission to steal fire from Strangers, leaving behind a hungry desperate troupe and Berry, a nine year old girl, the last to eat and first to be beaten. But resourceful Berry is determined to rise in rank and serve the People.

The second tale, “Giants,” is set 20,000 years ago during the last ice age – a time when daily survival was a test of our ancestors’ endurance, ingenuity, courage and the willingness to sacrifice for the common good. It’s a story of Watchful Eye, a devoted tribe leader, who believes that the fate of his beleaguered people is linked to his adopted twin sons, born the day their mother died and a trapped mammoth provided meat needed to sustain the tribe throughout the approaching long winter. Over time, one brother would be a fine respected hunter and the other, dutifully obeying his father’s orders, a fisherman.

Tall, near-sighted “Squint,” is restricted to work performed by women and children of his nomadic hunting/gathering clan, and is the star of the light-hearted third tale. Squint sets out on peaceful mission to gain respect and the girl he longs to marry, by trading the clan’s trinkets and pelts for unknown treasures. It isn’t until Squint’s adroit nose leads him to a smelly, but unbelievably wealthy community, where residents keep seemingly perpetually pregnant pigs and seeds of grain magically turn into fields of millet, that he finds items worthy of his journey. Will good-natured Squint stay in the wondrous town where he is valued for his size and strength, or return to his dismissive family and clansmen with his hard-won tools and knowledge of agriculture? And will the father of a painfully shy maiden with a cleft lip influence his decision?

“Shing’s Daughters” is set 7,500 years ago. Scattered tiny villages have grown into commercial centers, where some residents support themselves by making pottery, rope, textiles, leather, tools, or by raising a variety of crops and animals. When the only wife his poor peasant father can provide is a crazed woman who hears voices, Shing concentrates on her virtues. Let his neighbors laugh at him. She is diligent, thrifty, hardworking and pleasing to look at. Even after she is unable to give him a son to say prayers for him after his death, he chooses not to lament his fate. Instead, he finds comfort in his five lovely, dutiful daughters, who learn to weave, embroider and design exquisite textiles as his tormented wife demands of them. I promise, the ending of this tale is sure to surprise.

Archaeologists tell us that the structure of “The Temple of the Goddess,” the tale’s title, is 5,000 year old. It was the centerpiece of an elaborate burial ground and major religious site which served a widespread network of Hongshan villages and cities. For a time, people journeyed to worship a female deity – the first female deity found in China. Wall paintings and pottery figures of parts of the human anatomy, found inside the ruins, indicate supplicants prayed for fertility and restoration to health. Also found were paintings of birds, whose migration was believed to be sent by gods to signal the arrival of rain and the planting season. Lacking irrigation, rain was incredibly important for Hongshan survival. The significant site, coupled with a goddess responsible for health suggested to me Lian, a pious young priestess/healer. Throughout time, when women attain power there are always envious/resentful men plotting to take it away. And that led to Jiang, a politically ambitious nobleman. The itinerant, sadistic, serial killer appeared to me as the story of thwarted desire in a drought plagued land emerged. (If you’re thinking that China has been relentlessly besieged with deadly droughts, floods and earthquakes of monumental proportions, you would be right.)

By 3,600 years ago, 1,100 years prior to Greece’s Golden Age, people in China had invented ink, performed craniotomies, constructed massive palaces, charted constellations, created a reliable calendar, and cast bronze tools, containers, musical instruments and weapons. I don’t wish to give away too much of the story of “The Bronze Worker and the King’s Concubine,” but the time frame coincides with the advent of China’s Bronze Age, the reign of a despotic king and one of many unhappy discarded concubines.

Wednesday, Oct 23, 2013
Heartfelt thanks to all who responded. Received about fifty wonderful emails this week wishing me "good luck" and promising to follow weekly. Below are excerpts from the two that commented on either my books or posting. (I took the liberty of correcting spelling errors.)

Still Gorgeous at 59, "wants to know where Jack currently lives?" and "What name is he using?"

Exhausted Mom of Four commented "Thank God for books, especially yours. I look forward to every minute I (can) escape into someone else's life."

And now my latest musing:


The Perfect Crime for Clever Criminals

I’m often asked why I chose art fraud for the crime in Exceeding Expectations and Paradise Misplaced. I can name several excellent reasons.

Art moves and intrigues me. Since childhood, I am awed and envious of what gifted human beings can create. I’m no expert, but like Charlotte (Charlie) I’ve toured museums in virtually every city I’ve ever visited. When I find a work that interests me, I read the artist’s name, date and title of the work on the information cards posted on the wall nearby and try to imagine what influenced the artist to paint that particular work, at that particular time in history and at that particular point in his/her career. Who chose the subject? Was the work commissioned? Did politics of the time play a part? I try to merge the information with what I already know. To me, Picasso’s “Guernica,” painted in 1937, following Germany’s bombing of that peaceful Spanish city, speaks volumes about the artist’s grief and outrage.

I work hard to keep my books surprising, novel, fresh. Art theft is a crime rarely portrayed in fiction. Art fraud is rarer still.

In the real world, crimes involving art richly reward perpetrators. (Think, $,$,$.$) If theft is involved, to save money on claims, many times insurance companies will pay substantial sums to recover the works and agree not to prosecute. In the matter of art fraud, often prestigious art galleries and auction houses are involved and both have considerable interest in protecting their image and deep pockets to do so. Whether theft or fraud, if convicted, sentences are light and the guilty usually serve time in white-collar prisons. If you’re seriously intent on crime for your future career, do your homework. Like other high paying fields, it requires preparation and education.

Wednesday, October 16, 2004


Ever wonder what comes first for authors, the plot or characters?


While I work very hard to craft suspense that holds the reader until the last paragraph, I start with one character. Great characters – fresh, thought-provoking, unforgettable – are the essential ingredients to a great book. I can be watching the news on television or reading the newspapers when I encounter a particularly interesting individual involved in a crime, my hyperactive imagination kicks into overdrive. Given a little encouragement it produces a character with past, quirks, strengths, weaknesses, family, friends and associates. Often peripheral people become characters in the emerging plot.
With "Exceeding Expectations," a Palm Beach resident, whose only apparent means of support was wealthy wives, was arrested for kidnapping his daughters 18 years earlier when they were 2 and 5 years old. That juicy story generated the fictional Jack Morgan: an irresistible rascal who is incapable of cruelty, a gifted lover who truly sees beauty, as well as the ease their assets provide, in rich older women. My imagination also provided Jack with a romantic colorful past in Paris and a participation in a crime. Set in the playgrounds of the rich and eminent, Palm Beach and beyond, it’s after his faked suicide in 1961 that readers get to meet the other protagonist in the book, his daughter Charlotte (Charlie) – an indulged, unprepared 23 year-old struggling to cope with the traumatizing loss of her adored father, her sister’s resulting mental breakdown and discovering that she is penniless. Fortunately, a flirtatious young attorney shows up and provides some practical advice on her journey to independence as well as a healthy dash of sizzle.

For my first novel, "Dangerous Lies," an episode of American Justice featuring women from moral respectable families, who had been mistresses to major mob figures, triggered the creation of bookish, beautiful and gusty Tina Berenson Davis. In turn, she inspired Jake Stern, the stone-faced assistant DA, who is obsessed with her seductive presence and envious of her courage.

Wednesday, October 9, 2014
Reprint of my article "Why I Love Book Bloggers" as it appeared in www.WEMagazineforWomen.com

If the term “book blogger” (BB) is new to you, or if you’re simply curious about this relatively recent internet phenomenon, this article is for you. Who are the BBs? Why do they do it? How many followers do they have? Do they accept advertising, and if not, what’s the payoff for them? Why are authors and publishers, including the major players, pursuing them?

BBs number in the tens of thousands. I estimate that 98% are women, but they couldn’t be more varied in age and backgrounds. I’ve met BBs from their teens to their sixties. Doubtless, some are in their seventies and eighties. They can have as few as 30 “members/followers” or as many as 30,000. While their posted numbers are useful for indicating the site’s influence, actual “hits” are typically many times that number. And a BB with a lightly frequented site can still achieve sizable impact by posting a favorable (or damning) review on Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, Facebook, Twitter, plus some international, highly frequented on-line book clubs, like Shelfari.com and Goodreads.com.

The typical BB: After reviewing hundreds of sites, I’ve found that many are run by one or more stay-at-home moms and grandmothers. Some have severe physical problems that make holding traditional jobs impossible. Some are homebound because they provide care to family members needing special assistance: an autistic child, a husband with an advanced case of MS, a parent with Alzheimer’s. Some are retirees. One determined law student, somehow managed to squeeze in precious hours between her studies and social life to read and review two of my books, Dangerous Lies and Exceeding Expectations, for her website. But many have full-time jobs as librarians, teachers, real estate agents, etc.

What genres do they review? Collectively, all of them. Typically, they specify on their websites their preferences and which genres they will not consider. Publishers/authors are advised not to waste energy pitching a book to a vampire aficionado if none of the characters crave fresh blood and shun daylight, as I foolishly once did. I must not have had my first cup of tea the morning I contacted that reviewer. My punishment for that lapse was the most bizarre review any of my books have ever received.

Owning a blog or web site has financial costs attached to it. Building one takes perseverance. Updating it with author interviews, reviews and accompanying cover photos – daily, weekly, monthly – is time consuming. Even more time consuming is the need to respond to requests, actually read books and write reviews. Authors/publishers, be advised, after the BB agrees to accept a book, there is no guarantee that it will be read. If started, no guarantee that it will be finished, or that that the review will be favorable, appear on the date promised, or not reveal plot “spoilers.”

Do BBs accept advertising? Of the 1,000 or so sites I’ve investigated, only one sought and accepted advertising. So why do they do it? Some bloggers readily confess that the free books they receive fund their book addiction. But it’s more than free books. I think they would all agree that blogging provides stimulating interaction with readers and authors, as well as an outlet for their own creativity.

Can they be bought or influenced? Not the ones I’ve encountered. BBs are proud of their objectivity. They’re fiercely independent individuals. They can afford to be. They are constantly besieged with offers of free books. More than they could ever read in a lifetime.

How well do they write? Like BBs themselves, the range is wide and varied. Some compose intelligent, beautifully crafted critiques. Other reviews are clumsy and laden with grammatical errors. Even if the intent was high praise, it’s impossible to extract an intelligible quote.
As an author, I am ever so grateful to all BBs, women who share my passion for books.

Subscribe to one or more sites that share your preferences in reading material and you will get excellent recommendations.

One of these is articulate bloggers is Deborah Previte, http://abookishlibraria.blogspot.com. Is it any wonder that I was thrilled by the following review she did of Exceeding Expectations, the second book of mine that she reviewed?
* * * * *
“5 soaring stars”
“Charlie, a girl in her early 20's, is just another over-indulged, wealthy daughter of Palm Beach who's major concerns are horses, parties and gossip. Then, her father commits suicide, her sister has a mental breakdown and her posh step-mother leaves them penniless. The beautiful life comes to a dead halt, and Charlie, who never even learned to wash dishes, has to get a job.

When Charlie sets out to discover why her beloved, pampering father would abandon them, knowingly leaving her sister and her without a means of support, she discovers more than she ever could image about him, herself and her abilities to "exceed expectations." She also discovers that PB society may not always get it right about love and class, when she meets and gets help from the brilliant young lawyer, Andy Garcia clone, Raul. Armed with Raul's encouragement, her own pride and tenacity, Charlie uses her only skill; modeling, to help finance herself and her sister while she travels from Palm Beach to NYC, across the US and to Paris in search of some answers.

I appreciate Lisa April Smith as a seasoned author with astute writing skills after having read and reviewed her "Dangerous Lies" last year. She has a brilliance for conveying characters, and the intellectual capacity to place them in historical settings that sparkle with glamorous detail.

In fact, it's the authentic details of the time-periods that make it fun to read Lisa's book as it skips from Charlie's current days of the late 1950's and early '60's to the past Palm Beach and Manhattan, with hints of Sister Parish's posh interior designs, famous museums and artists, the fashions of different eras, vintage cars and high society parties. Her historical and fictitious characters work in sync as they are perfectly set in these time frames, and midst the transitory madness of WWs I and II Paris.

Lisa Smith's writing isn't over-blown with emotion and sappy romance; rather, it is sophisticated and subtle. It's witty, fun and sassy. There's love of family; and, there are affairs of the heart, pain and anxieties that accompany romantic relationships in difficult times, intrigue and madness. I loved this kettle of mystery and suspense that dominates her characters.

I'm a fan of Ms Smith's. I love a good story with interesting characters, a mystery and a romance that's not over-the-top but that rests securely in reality. I like foreign intrigue and the sophistication of art and society. Most of all, I so appreciate an intelligent author of worldly experience! If you do, too, you'll love "Exceeding Expectations." This book has a sequel which I'm dying to read!"


Oct. 7th, 2013 – two days before launch

Following my mission to the planets Windows 8 and Word 2010, I return to the Major Overhaul of my space vehicle website, which requires a teensy triple to settle the nerves following each session. But it will be worth it. Visitors will find several new fun features: like a weekly blog where I reveal secrets and a tempting sample of "Forgotten Tales of China" and much more. Stay tuned for updates.

Oct. 5th, 2013 – four days before this overhauled website launches

Old computer too decrepit to bother with. Bought a new one Thursday. Went from Vista to Windows 8 and from Word 2003 to Word 2010 -- a quantum leap in time and space. Set it up and installed everything myself. Feeling pretty good except for the spacecraft lag and readjustment to gravity.