The 7th Annual Puerto Vallarta Writers Conference, Mexico

One of my regular contributors*, Ted Druch, emailed me to say that he’s directing the next Writers Conference at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Sadly, I’m too far away but for anyone less geographically-challenged, here are the details:

The 7^th Annual Puerto Vallarta Writers Conference will take place in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, from Feb. 24-26.  The conference theme is “Writing Well” with an emphasis on brevity and economy of expression.

Conference presenters are Jaquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean, the first novel chosen for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club, and considered to be one of the 25 most influential books of the 20^th century. Mitchard will deliver the Keynote Address, and will lead seminars and workshops.

James Strauss, successful Hollyood screenwriter, has written for projects as diverse as House and Deadwood. The Boy, his novel of prehistoric times is being filmed by Walt Disney Studios. He is currently working with the legendary Stan Lee on a new set of superhero graphic novels.

Mitchell Wieland is the editor of the Idaho Review, considered to be one of the best literary reviews in the US. He is a novelist, short story writer, and essayist.

William C. Gordon is a detective novelist, when he’s not practicing law, living in San Francisco with his wife, novelist Isabel Allende. His books have been published in 10 languages. Bi-lingual, he has had a distinguished career defending Hispanic Americans in labor disputes.

Eileen Obser is a member of the Puerto Vallarta Writers Group, though she spends most of her time on Long Island, NY, where she teaches Creative Writing at several colleges and Universities.

Daniel Grippo and Joy Eckel are long-time PV residents. Dan is a publisher and editor, and Joy edits professionally, having edited for many of our local authors. They will be co-leading a workshop on plot, structure, and editing.

Joseph Staszak is the Mexico City Director of ExLibris, an e-publication firm. He will be leading our Sunday sessions devoted to publishing and marketing.

Marcy Posner is a literary agent with Folio Literary Management of NYC. She will be holding private pitch sessions for those who have completed books.

Workshops will include plot and structure, narrative and description, dialogue, memoir and essay, editing, and writing for children and young adults.

The conference will take place at the spacious Los Mangos library, and after the final presentation, the library will be hosting an open  Book Fair with entertainment and book launchings, including works by local Mexican authors in Spanish. We hope to attract a large crowd from the surrounding community.

The cost is just $125 (or $110 if you book today, 31st Jan!). Information and enrollment forms can be found at www.pvwg.com and Ted’s blog is http://selfpublishedandbroke.wordpress.com (home to one of my favourite pictures ).

*you can read everything Ted‘s done for me here: flash fiction no.4, flash fiction no.10, flash fiction no.18, interview, podcast s/s ep.002, ep.004. and ep.006.

 

Blog interview no.265 with writer Guy Cranswick

Welcome to the two hundred and sixty-fifth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with short story author and novelist Guy Cranswick. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.

Morgen: Hello Guy. Please tell us something about yourself and how you came to be a writer.

Guy: Well that is a complex question. The easy part first: I live in Sydney and I’ve also lived in other cities, including London.  As to becoming a writer, well, it seems to me that writers are a type, a personality and writing will be part of their character.  Some find the craft, the voice easily, other take some time. I had times of writing and then stopping but over the last four years it has progressed and I have finished four books.

Morgen: Me too – three for NaNoWriMo and another in between, although I suspect yours are more formed than mine (I’ve done some editing but not for ages so will need overhauls). What genre do you generally write?

Guy:  I write literary fiction. I am not much good at genre and there are layers of craft to acquire in genre fiction. I like crime or mystery genre because like literary fiction, it says something about people; why they do things and what they are driven to do when forces compel them to act.

Morgen: Oh I’m rubbish at saying what genre I write. I say “dark and light” which really is no help at all. What have you had published to-date? Do you have a favourite of your books or characters?

Guy: I have published a collection of stories, Corporate and a novel My Wife, My Job, My Shoes.  Corporate is reviewed here. I am currently working with Jessi Graustein of Folded Word on my second anthology,

Nine Avenues which will be published next year. I don’t have a fondness for certain characters but I like the way this one emerged in a story called Becoming where a man moves into a dilapidated house after his marriage is over and he puts a new life together through the renovation of the house.

Morgen: I can relate to that (not the divorce, though in my case). If applicable, can you remember where you first saw one of your books in a bookshop or being read by a member of the public?

Guy:  I’ve met readers, people who have bought my books after meeting me. It’s gratifying, especially if they remark on the stories. One reader told me he wished the stories were longer, he knew they couldn’t be, but he was involved he wanted more.

Morgen: I’ve had that a couple of times with my anthology Story a Day May which is great but I agree that a story has to be the length it has to be. It’s much harder to trim than pad. What was your first acceptance and is being accepted still a thrill?

Guy: My first acceptance was a few years ago and it was pleasing. I had had rejections – as every writer will have. Being accepted is very pleasing; it means someone else likes the work and wants it shared.

Morgen: Exactly. On the flip side there’s rejections. Have you had many? How do you deal with them?

Guy:  It doesn’t bother me too much. It’d be nice to be accepted by every publisher, but the work may not be what they want, either commercially or artistically. Accept rejection and be confident in the style and qualities and look for another publisher and keep writing.

Morgen: It’s just one person’s opinion. Have you won or been shortlisted in any competitions and do you think they help with a writer’s success?

Guy:  I have been shortlisted and won a small competition a few years ago. They are useful, artistic competitions are not the same as athletics, there is no absolute proof, but at the outset they are good to see how one is going and to perhaps write something to a theme.

Morgen: Are your books available as eBooks? Do you read eBooks?

Guy:  Yes I have e-books and it will be a big part of the future of publishing. My novel is available at Barnes and Noble and iTunes.

Morgen: How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?

Guy: I try to do what I can and that is mostly online. If a shop franchise or media outlet wants me to do readings, interviews, or a tour, that is fine with me. I don’t blog or tweet because I don’t have that much time to give it and to do that well it has to be a commitment. I have quite a full a timetable.

Morgen: You’re not kidding.

Guy: With the new collection, Nine Avenues, it is our intention to post comments and invite feedback so the site will be a blog and a contact point for this set of stories.

Morgen: Ah, stories, my first (and last) love. What are you working on at the moment / next?

Guy: In September I finished a novel which is in the market now. That novel, called “The Hidden Bend”, is about three characters in different places and each one dealing with an event that changes their lives.

I have plans to write a longer novel next year and it has taken shape in terms of character and theme, but I am resting, researching now as I build the necessary energy to write that one.

Morgen: That’s great going to have finished it in September and have it out already, and the follow-up sounds intriguing. What is your opinion of writer’s block? Do you ever suffer from it?

Guy: Luckily I have not had it. I have had times when I have stumbled but planning and thinking it through has worked for me. I tend to plan something out, not to granular detail, but know where it is going. I am sure genuine writer’s block is a worrying moment and I hope it will not touch me.

Morgen: Me too. I’m very lucky; I have ideas pouring out of me… too many for the time I have to write. Do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?

Guy: Not a formal way. I usually go with something that is intuitive. I often use two names, first and surname, to anchor characters. I think it was a technique Francois Truffaut used.  But more than names the characters have to do what they must, to follow a path which a person would do just the same. They should not be plot outlines. The best characters to write are flawed, not criminal, but imperfect as real people can be. They might adore their children but cheat the waiter of a tip.

Morgen: Perfect is certainly dull… we like to relate to flaws. Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?

Guy: With the last novel I was surprised that my editing was light. I had often written a first draft well short of a completed draft and found I had much to fill in. I think with planning and writing every day I came through close to how I wanted.

Morgen: It’s all practice, like anything else. You mentioned research earlier, do you have to do much?

Guy: I am a researcher by nature and background is important but not over done.  I had a character set in an Asian county post war and I thought I might research that but stopped as I started because I realised anyone reading it would look for real connections to real Asian conflicts. So I abstracted it – it makes it more interesting for the reader – less fact – more broad strokes for the character to be shown against.

Morgen: Some writers like quiet, others the noise of a coffee shop etc., do you listen to music or have noise around you when you write or do you need silence?

Guy: Quiet mostly, but as the afternoon moves on I will play music, but by then I am in a revising and review mode.

Morgen: Very organised. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?

Guy: That is intuitive. Some pieces seem right in first and others third. I did write a story in the Nine Avenues collection which uses three characters in each mode of speech. The story opens in the third; then another character is in the first, the final is a boy addressed in the second.

Morgen: Regularly readers of these interviews will know how much I love second. Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?

Guy:  Yes. Some disjecta, shorter stories and probably film scripts which are either made or remain dust collecting unproduced drafts.

Morgen: What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?

Guy: The favourite is the writing, the creation, the language, in making words do things. The least favourite is the tired neck and sore back. When I wrote “The Hidden Bend”, I wrote up to 2,000 words a day over three months. By the end I was nearly broken.

Morgen: Wow. I’m pretty shattered after NaNoWriMo, especially after last November as I was blogging so much as well. What advice would you give aspiring writers?

Guy: If you want to write, you will do it. Nothing will stop you and it’s cheap to do. Most people dislike writing, its lonely and boring but not to a writer. Making it work commercially is another thing but not being a writer all the same.

Morgen: You have to have passion there’s nothing as thrilling (to me anyway) as creating a new character and helping them create their world. What do you like to read?

Guy: I like to read widely and in foreign languages: history, economics, biography, technology and fiction.   Just some titles from memory over the last year or so, Montalbano, the Italian detective series; the Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs; JM Keynes’s great work, The General Theory etc, much quoted and misquoted, which is a pleasure to read and has some dry wit. And French writer; Jean Giono’s, romance adventure, ‘Le hussard sur le toit”. And I return to Faulkner and Beckett at various times, even just for a few pages.

Morgen: A great variety. If you could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what would you cook?

Guy: I like to cook but the choice of people is daunting.  Either choose people you want to talk to such as writers, though some would be talkative and others taciturn, or just drinkers. Or choose people who are famous for being on such dinner party lists. Well then the choice has to be Balzac, PJ Harvey and Billy Wilder, all writers but in different media. The menu would comprise (without dietary regimes) modern French cuisine. Balzac would probably refuse to eat a Thai or Indian meal.

Morgen: He wouldn’t know what he was missing. You mentioned quotes – is there a word, phrase or quote you like?

Guy: There is a quote from Miles Davis, who was talking to John Coltrane. The saxophonist asked Miles Davis’s advice on how to end a solo because he couldn’t. Miles answered in his distinctive whisper, “Take the horn out your mouth.” Silence works. You don’t have to play all the time. The other side of the story is that Coltrane would not finish a solo, his ego was carrying him and Davis told him to end it, in other words, you are in control of what you do.

Morgen: Absolutely… unless the characters are. What do you think the future holds for a writer?

Guy: Very good but not always easy. The opportunities electronically and ability to distribute work and connect is greater than ever. That does not mean huge success or untold wealth are waiting for all. But reaching readers and making the work stand for what it is are achievable.

Morgen: I’m only on the first rung on that ladder but I love it. Where can we find out about you and your work?

Guy:  Short term at Nine Avenues and Google is very good indexing material. Longer term I will have to make a decision on a blog or full site.

Morgen: I have both; a website (http://morgenbailey.com) but the software is terribly un-user-friendly and drives me nuts so it just points to this blog here. Thank you very much Guy. Lovely chatting with you.

I then invited Guy to include an extract of his writing…

“And to fill in your voice, with your presence, I would say softly with barely breath passing from my mouth, I would say, If you wear that dress; then immediately I was in my best suit standing at your front step waiting for you to enter the hallway and I would hold you in my eyes as you walked towards me, unable to stop a smile and I beheld you in that dress; somehow changed as though the fabric harnessed some hidden part of yourself and now it radiated to me. There you were clearer than any photograph and moving towards me as I am now moving to you.

I have walked every step since the end of the railway camp. I left it in a group but now I am alone and I worry if I should break my leg, or fall sick, now, on the way home. I am so close it would be harsh to fail now, to falter; that fate would stop me returning home, and so to find strength I see you graceful, beautiful, in the image I have carried these past four years, and you look at me gently…you are what I see, moving closer down the hallway, slowly. But I am frightened that I will not reach you, that we will not be together at the house, and so I repeat to myself the phrase that has led me so far, because if you wear that dress, I will be home.”

Excerpt from: If you wear that dress, ©Copyright Guy Cranswick

If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the questions. You complete them, I tweak them where appropriate (if necessary to reflect the blog ‘clean and light’ rating) and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know. You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything… and follow me on Twitter where each new posting is automatically announced. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords.

Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me reading it / talking about and critiquing it (I send you the transcription afterwards so you can use the comments or ignore them) on my ‘Bailey’s Writing Tips’ podcast, then do email me. They are weekly episodes, usually released Monday mornings UK time, interweaving the recordings between the red pen sessions with the hints & tips episodes. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays.

 

Post-weekend Poetry 006: ‘The Androyd’ by Vincent Miskell

Welcome to the new Post-weekend Poetry and the sixth poem in this new weekly series. This week’s piece is entitled ‘The Androyd’ by Vincent Miskell.

The Androyd

Androyd, Androyd, lasered bright
Through the vacuum of the night,
What impossible pedigree
Could ruin your immortality?

From what distant ooze or thighs
Burned the fire from your eyes?
With what neuron did it conspire
To crush you with celestial fire?

And what sympathy and which art
Could slay you for your lack of heart?
Then as your parts dispersed in space
Did a smile stretch on its face?

What hapless haploid genome
Could hate you for your soul of chrome?
And as its beam burst you in flame,
Did it feel some bytes of shame?

When the stars expressed their fears
And shaped the planets with their tears,
Were you then an entity?
Is what killed you, now after me?

Androyd, Androyd, lasered bright
Through the vacuum of the night,
What impossible pedigree
Dare ruin your immortality?

I asked Vincent what prompted this piece and he said…

I think Blake’s “The Tyger” is one of the greatest short poems in English. The opening lines are so visual (and visionary) and powerful:  “Tyger, Tyger, burning bright/ In the forests of the night.” One way to try to understand a poem is to write in its style–or in my case–write a parody.  Since I enjoy science fiction, the theme of an android naturally came to mind. Even though one of my aims is to be humorous in the poem, it still echoes some of the power of the original.

Thank you Vincent – I loved it.

Originally from New Jersey, Vincent Miskell lives in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale area of Florida with his wife Jane, Border Collie Bridget, and two cats (Joey and Maggie). Vin works as a writing instructor at two universities and has published nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, including poems in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine and in Star*Line.  In 2006, his poem “Screen Savior” was nominated for a Rhysling Award.  In 2011, his SF poem “Our Canine Defense Team” won second place in the Best Poem category in Asimov’s Science Fiction The Twenty-Fifth Annual Readers’ Awards.

His poems have also appeared in The Lyric, Mobius, Poetic Voices of America, Best in Poetry, and Stories and Ballads.  Currently, he has eight ebooks on Amazon and Smashwords.

If you’d like to submit your poem (40 lines max) for consideration for Post-weekend Poetry take a look here.

The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with author Guy Cranswick – the two hundred and sixty-fifth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, biographers, agents, publishers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords.

 

Blog interview no.264 with author P.I. Barrington

Welcome to the two hundred and sixty-fourth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with multi-genre novelist P.I. Barrington. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. You can also read P.I.’s spotlight here.

Morgen: Hello P.I. Please tell us something about yourself and how you came to be a writer.

P.I.: It kind of chased me down. I didn’t want to be a writer—my first love and always will be is music. I actually started out as a journalist. But somewhere deep down I knew I’d end up writing fiction.

Morgen: I didn’t have a clue. I went to a writing workshop and was hooked. What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?

P.I.: I write in several genres actually. My first published short stories were urban fantasy. Very tongue-in-cheek those, but my first novel(s) published by a publisher were a futuristic crime thriller trilogy, I’ve written sci-fi romance, sci-fi military, cozy mysteries and a short horror-ish story. One day, I hope, I can write in my secret favourite genre’ ancient historical! Oh, and maybe police / military procedural thriller.

Morgen: Like me then. I write whatever comes out although I met three agents in June 2011 who want more crime and I love reading it so I want to write more. Oh, and they also want more historical (not my subject at all). How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?

P.I.: I do almost all of it for both my sister and myself—we co-author books and write independently—and these days budgets from publishers are scant, understandably, so much of my time is spent marketing. P.I. Barrington IS a brand, lol!

Morgen: I think there’s only one interviewee I’ve had who doesn’t need to do any marketing, that their publisher does all the work. There is an upside, that we get to meet our readers. Do you write under a pseudonym? Do you think they make a difference to an author’s profile?

P.I.: P.I. Barrington is a pseudonym. At times I publish under that name, others as I’ve said, I co-author with my sister under the Barrington name. My sister, Loni Emmert, has independently published under her name as well. Personally I do believe that pen names are a great help in more than one way. First as we talked about as a brand. P.I. Barrington is easily recognizable and memorable—it has a great rhythm to it; it’s kind of ‘catchy’ in a way. Second, because of that, it’s easier to market and brand because people immediately associate it with genre and style. Plus, pen names usually sound better than someone’s real name. And then there’s the golden rule of publishing: when you change genre you should change names, either with a pen or with initials and your real or devised name. That’s why Nora Roberts also writes under J.D. Robb as a mystery author.

Morgen: As do a few other authors (Joanna Trollope, Ruth Rendell to name a couple). Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?

P.I.: I’m probably ripe or over ripe for an agent. I’ve been writing so much I haven’t really had time to approach one and there are several great ones I’d love to submit to that I think could understand how and what I write and what my priorities as an author are.

Morgen: It sounds like you and your sister are doing well as you are. If it ain’t broke… Are your books available as eBooks? If so what was your experience of that process? And do you read eBooks?

P.I.: Last question first: I do not read anything at all since I’ve returned to writing seriously. Not that I don’t want to, but I have my own voice which is different and I’m very paranoid of absorbing anyone else’s. Plus I’ve read everything from Milton to Mad Magazine during my life so that’s given me a wonderful base for writing.

Morgen: I have a rubbish memory (author Steve Bowkett told me off once for saying that! )

P.I.: Addressing the first two questions, all of my books, excepting the cozy mystery in print, are ebooks. As I said, my first real novel (trilogy) was with a new e-publisher, Desert Breeze Publishing, and that experience was beyond lovely! The process was both a learning experience and a joy. I truly am happy that I began with a publisher rather than self publishing since it prepared me for self-publishing later. I learned to work with a fiction editor, learned revision is not a horrible torturous process and that working with professionals makes you that much more professional yourself!

Morgen: I think any experience has got to be a good thing, even if something doesn’t work out (where some authors have had and let go of agents, for instance). Did you have any say in the title of your book(s)? How important do you think they are?

P.I.: Yes I pretty much have the entire say, although for my first trilogy, the overall umbrella title of Future Imperfect was in collaboration with my Editor. I came with the individual titles of the books myself and pretty much any after that. Titles are HUGE. In any genre the title is the major hook of the story. That’s the first thing a reader sees and triggers their interest. There are tricks to coming up with good titles, like keep it simple. There are others but talking about them would turn into a class, lol!

Morgen: I love titles and the quirkier the better, but yes, simple and clever is good. Apart from anything else they have to tell the reader what the book is about… or hint at. Who designed your books’ covers?

P.I.: All of my covers with Desert Breeze Publishing were done by the in-house artist Jenifer Ranieri who kicks major ass. Her covers are better than many of the big houses. She’s the best out there I think.

Morgen: They are very striking. What are you working on at the moment / next?

P.I.: I’m too superstitious to talk about them—an old Hollywood habit I can’t and won’t break, LOL!

Morgen: No problem. Do you manage to write every day? What’s the most you’ve written in a day?

P.I.: I don’t always manage writing every single day unless I’m on deadline with a publisher and then it’s constant until I go to bed. I’m the type that needs deadlines desperately or I won’t get anything done! I think the most I’ve ever written in one day was five thousand words.

Morgen: I need deadlines – give me a Story A Day or NaNoWriMo and I write like crazy – I just find the time.  Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

P.I.: Some people think it doesn’t exist but I experience it constantly. I think it comes from author insecurity—can I come up with something as good as my previous work? What if I can’t? And most of all, can I come up with anything at all? I get literally “stuck” at points, even if I’ve got the plotline(s) all worked out except the details. I can’t get out of it by walking away usually. The only thing that really works for me is to get up, put on my favourite music and blast the hell out of it. I don’t listen to music when I write though. Many authors do but I cannot. I have to concentrate on one or the other but never together. Music takes me to another place and frees me from the frustration of writing. Yeah, I know I’m weird.

Morgen: If that’s the case then there’s a lot of us weird people out there. A question some authors dread: where do you get your inspiration from?

P.I.: Oh, I don’t dread it at all. I do have a secret place (hmm, I seem to use the word “secret” a lot…) that I go to that always, always kicks me into gear and that I will never reveal. But so many things can trigger creativity—the weather does it for me a lot. Since I live in Los Angeles I don’t get to experience a lot of rain and so I revere it when we do get some! Travelling also triggers things and also gives a wider experience of casual ‘research’—it’s difficult to set a story somewhere you haven’t been. Pictures from magazines help too.

Morgen: And I’m sure the internet helps considerably. Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?

P.I.: I’d say half and half these days. I used to just “pants” it (writing by the seat of your pants rather than plotting it out) but how I picture my plots is a double rainbow. The top rainbow is the overall theme and plot of the novel or novels and the lower rainbow is the details and actual story itself.

Morgen: So many interviewees have been ‘pantsers’ (as I am) – I guess it’s what works for most writers because their characters take over. Do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?

P.I.: Many times the name comes first. In my latest novel, Isadora DayStar, came from the term DayStar. I used watch a show called “CreationScapes” which showed astounding landscapes with Biblical quotes. The channel itself was called the DayStar network. I thought “what a great last name for a sci-fi space character!” The first name Isadora just popped up and voila it fit perfectly. I was trying to see if I could create a heroine that I hated (long story about another author) so I was trying to make her repulsive as possible. That didn’t happen and she became a labour of love for me (I have a definite thing for losers, lol). As if destined, I happened to be looking at a website of hairstyles, not really thinking of anything and in the middle of a page of about 75 head shots of men and women with styled and glamorous coifs was a picture of an extremely thin woman, perched on a column and a softly spiked haircut. It was Isadora come to life.  Other times the picture comes first. For Crucifying Angel, my heroine Payce Halligan, came from a shot of a woman doing target practice in uniform. I loved the picture and kept it thinking I’d use it someday for something. When Future Imperfect began, I knew she was Payce. I LOVE casting my characters with pics of actors or in the case of Isadora, some unknown woman. One day I’ll post that shot and I’ll find that woman whoever she is! I generally know what they look like, but pictures gives me their physical details. I give my characters names that are both memorable and unique and try not to go over the top with too odd names. As for them being believable, I give them lots of guilt. Lots of it. It’s their psychology that makes them real. People deal with guilt and for the most part it’s a universal experience. Plus the more intense the internal conflict, the more intense the plot. Suspense is a big thing and that guilt drives it along.

Morgen: I quite often use pictures in my Monday night workshops and it’s amazing what we come up with from just a photo of someone random. I love it. You mentioned earlier that you write short stories. Apart from the word count, what do you see as the differences between them and novels and why do you think they’re so difficult to get published?

P.I.: Novels differ from shorts in that in a novel you can expand on the story, include subplots, generally take your time in writing it and make it as complex as you want. In a short, you’ve got to establish the characters, their problem, the plot and resolution and make it all make sense in the end and within a set amount of words—it can be more of a challenge than a novel in those ways. As for more difficult getting short stories published—I’ve never really had a problem with that. I once heard an adage from an editor at a major publishing house (before I even started writing seriously) that publishers / editors are hesitant to publish short stories because they are afraid that the author lacks the discipline to write an entire novel. I have to admit that I’m a tight concise writer, probably from being a reporter, and word count is difficult for me but not because I can’t sit down and write something the novel out fully—I can but I tend to use say, five words rather than twenty-five, a definite word count killer.

Morgen: Which is certainly no bad thing… especially for the likes of (being a short story writer more than anything else). Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?

P.I.: I belong to major writing organizations like Sisters In Crime and previously Romance Writers of America. They are major support systems for writers of all levels and great for mingling with other authors.

Morgen: A few authors have mentioned Sisters In Crime and every time I say I’ll check them out and then get distracted. Who is your first reader – who do you first show your work to?

P.I.: Believe it or not my mother. She’s honest enough to point out weak spots but incredibly supportive.

Morgen: Oh so’s mine but she dislikes most of what I write because it’s too dark (she likes Pam Ayres light and fluffy poetry). Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?

P.I.: I try to edit as much as I can while writing, again the journalism background, but I did once have an editor who told me I had a “fear of grammar” lol! She was right of course.

Morgen: How much research do you have to do for your writing? Have you ever received feedback from your readers?

P.I.: Since most of what I write is futuristic I’m freer to create and make rules up as long as they have verisimilitude (look it up authors and readers). I occasionally do some research usually for setting and protocol if it’s a military based story such as Future Imperfect or Isadora.

Morgen: What is your creative process like? What happens before sitting down to write?

P.I.: First the trigger happens to give me the initial idea. Most of the time I’m running errands so I have time to let the idea percolate in my head—setting, characters, a premise that’s workable or unique or interesting. I pull out my pen and pad collection and try to write up a little scenario if I can maybe a motive or two. Then I think about the characters—who they are, what they want, how many of them there should be, what type personality my main characters have and how they feel about each other and how they interact. How the setting affects each character and the story. It’s all in very general terms at that point however. Plus, I’ve been trying to get a ritual before I write like other authors do but I can’t. I have to just sit down and write, damn it!

Morgen: That’s my trouble – too many distractions. I’ve just been invited to join a group called Tuesday Tales which is great as it gets me writing a short story a week. I can find the time – I’ve written more than 50,000 words each November the past four years for http://NaNoWriMo.org (and http://StoryADay.org last May) as I mentioned earlier. Do you write on paper or do you prefer a computer?

P.I.: You know I do get the occasional urge to write out a scene on paper. It finally came back to me a few weeks ago—that urge to pick up a pen or pencil and just scribble. I prefer the computer because it’s faster and it makes creativity move faster. But I really worry when teachers say they think that teaching cursive writing should be stopped. It’s how mankind learned to first communicate and has always been at the base of civilization. If they stop teaching children this, I believe their tactile learning will diminish or disappear altogether and we’ll have future generations of regressed intellect because they won’t have the capacity to write, communicate or advance intellectually. Their foundation of learning and advancing will be gone. If you look at all man’s eras of civilization that were developed successfully, they all had some type of writing by hand or rock when necessary that allowed ideas to develop, communication to occur and history to be written and remembered. If we remove cursive writing we’re doomed. Okay, that’s my little soapbox.

Morgen: Oh no, carry on, I like a good soapboxing. Some writers like quiet, others the noise of a coffee shop etc. Do you listen to music or have noise around you when you write or do you need silence?

P.I.: I like to have silence but I don’t get much. My desk sits in a corner of the living room and the television is constantly on in the background. I’ve lost some masterpiece phrases or sentences because a commercial comes on and invades my brain and distracts me. Music I never listen to while writing and as for a coffee shop? No way in hell. I’ve tried it several times but I get more distracted by the people there than I do with the TV blasting in my ears!

Morgen: Oh so would I. It takes me forever to concentrate when there’s something going on, to the point when I sometimes stop, which is not good. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?

P.I.: I only write first and third. I don’t really like any of the others to write or even read. Some I even find annoying and off-putting as a reader.

Morgen: Second is certainly an acquired taste. I love it but then I did say (agree with you earlier) that I’m weird. Do you use prologues / epilogues? What do you think of the use of them?

P.I.: There should be some type of rule that prologues and epilogues should never be over a page and a half and that’s sometimes too long! I’ve used both and love them but I try to keep them short and as a teaser in the prologue. Pages and pages of prologue lose me and pretty much everyone I’ve ever spoken to, lol! That’s the key to the problem with prologues; authors think they have to explain things that should be taken care of in the book and plot. Epilogues the same way; they should tie up any loose ends not explained away in the novel. But again keep it short.

Morgen: Absolutely. Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?

P.I.: Oh my God, yes! But at least I don’t burn them in the fireplace like I used to when younger—which may not be a good thing, lol. Some of them should deserved to burned!

Morgen: No! You’d never know whether you’d change your mind. Sometimes I go back to stuff that I think was rubbish and realise that it’s not that bad (other times, of course, I don’t ). What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life?

P.I.: Favorite is when I have a character(s) that I literally love and writing scenes that I particularly love even though those may be hardest to write. Isadora had scenes like that where I had to reduce her to utter desperation and humiliation. That was both agonizingly difficult but also the most intense and rewarding. Oh, and casting my characters—that is the most fun of all for me!! My least favourite things I’d count as doing promotion and marketing myself mainly because it takes so much time and energy.

Morgen: This has been one of my most consistent questions / answers. We all want to write and let someone else do the marketing. If anything, what has been your biggest surprise about writing?

P.I.: I think it would have to be my dedication to it and the professionalism and discipline that I’ve learned and hopefully mastered.

Morgen: Because you want to do it. What advice would you give aspiring writers?

P.I.: They’re going to hate this but I tell everyone the same thing: be your own harshest critic because then no one else will have to. Be brutally tough on yourself without beating yourself up. But you have to be honest: if something isn’t working or is trite and clichéd you have to be professional enough to admit that and to fix or remove it without whining.

Morgen: What do you like to read? Any authors you could recommend?

P.I.: Oh, man, I’ve read everything on the planet! But my personal taste in fiction is ancient historical; Christian is okay but it doesn’t have to be religiously themed. I love Taylor Caldwell even though she’s not contemporary; Colleen McCullough and her Masters of Rome series is my current favourite and she’s my latest hero, a genius and a great writer! Stephen King although that might seem clichéd but I always recommend him for new and experienced authors—pay attention to the way he treats inner monologue.

Morgen: Stephen King’s book ‘On writing’ has been the most recommended so not clichéd at all. Is there a word, phrase or quote you like?

P.I.: From Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave: “The gods only go with you if you put yourself in their path.” It’s never failed me.

Morgen: What do you do when you’re not writing?

P.I.: I’m crazy over flower gardening! Music is my life and always will be and travelling is a must for a half-breed Rom Gypsy LOL!! Parties? I LOVE hosting them because I love cooking!! You have to be creative, inventive and be gracious enough to make every visitor feel they’re the only one there! One day I’m going to invite all the authors I know to a huge party!! It may even be a costume ball or party!! Yeow! I’d love that!

Morgen: Oh so would I (you know me now ). Are there any writing-related websites and/or books that you find useful and would recommend?

P.I.: Yes as a matter of fact!! I’m a great believer in random generator sites especially for science-fiction, fantasy and even historical assistance!! I did an entire two-part blog post on them! Below is a list of the best ones I’ve found though I’m sure there are tons more!

1. Seventh Sanctum: This is one of the best for science fiction and magic and if you have some development skills you can even contribute your generator for others to use! Highly recommended!
2. ChaoticShiny: This is the other best generator, especially for fantasy based on RPG and is for “people who write game or live in fantasy worlds of their own creation”. Highly recommended for fantasy & alternate history writing.
3. ScaldCrow: Interesting but limited and limited to actual RPG rather than directed at writers.
4. Squid: Intense generator with real and imagined world generators (Afghanistan, Egypt, France, Japan and Congo to name just a few!). Definitely worth checking out!
5. Serendipity: Revamped and based a lot on Les Mis but specifically for fantasy authors! Serendipity has name generators from French to Japanese and bonus villain names. Recommended.

Morgen: I could add http://scriptfrenzy.org to that list. In which country are you based and do you find this a help or hindrance with letting people know about your work?

P.I.: I’m USA born and bred so to speak. A thorough American, lol! I live in Los Angeles and of course my career was mostly in entertainment—radio, record labels, films, TV—where else could I be? It’s a definite help because you learn what is commercially viable and what isn’t and what works and doesn’t and how to keep abreast of trends. Plus it’s the craziest industry on the planet Earth!

Morgen: So I’ve heard. If a form of travel is invented that’s quicker than planes and it’s impossible to get travel sickness on, I’ll be there. Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?

P.I.: There’s nothing better for a new writer than a Yahoo writing group! The best and first one I ever joined led me to my first published novels! My favourite is still writingandpublishing (no spaces). Search Yahoo Groups & tell AlleyPat I sent ya’!

Morgen: I’ve signed up to Yahoo and these interviews are automatically posted but I’m not sure where to – I’ve not investigated yet – I’m such a slacker, aren’t I? Where can we find out about you and your work?

P.I.: Several places: my official website: http://thewordmistresses.com, http://desertbreezepublishing.com, http://Amazon.com, http://smashwords.com and finally my blog: http://www.pibarrington.wordpress.com (Future Imperfect). If anyone would like to communicate with me directly: wordmistresses@yahoo.com

Morgen: Is there anything you’d like to ask me?

P.I.: Yeah. How the heck do you manage to do all this stuff? You’re a SuperHero!!

Morgen: Ah, thank you. I started these interviews in June 2010 and it’s snowballed from there. I love doing it but the only way to fit everything in is by sleeping too little. I rectified that – quit my day job as of Christmas Eve eve but am still trying to escape! Thank you P.I., lovely to speak to you again.

I then invited P.I. for an excerpt of her writing and the following is from ‘Isadora DayStar’:

After she’d serviced him, she stood fluffing the Mohawk ridge on the top of her hair in quick nervous movements before a small mirror, glancing back at him and her black bag with her gun inside it, waiting for the chance to kill him. He stood up and began pulling on his clothes and she walked to the table where her bag lay, sliding a hand into it and grasping the gun to slowly pull it out. Before it was halfway out he yanked it out of her hand, spun her around to face him and lifted her up, slamming her against the wall making the mirror jump. He thrust the gun up against her crotch.

“Let me give you three pieces of advice on assassinating people,” he hissed at her. “One, never get close enough to your mark to give them an advantage. Two, never put down your weapon, and three, always, always, get half the money up front.”

If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the questions. You complete them, I tweak them where appropriate (if necessary to reflect the blog ‘clean and light’ rating) and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know. You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything… and follow me on Twitter where each new posting is automatically announced. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords.

Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me reading it / talking about and critiquing it (I send you the transcription afterwards so you can use the comments or ignore them) on my ‘Bailey’s Writing Tips’ podcast, then do email me. They are weekly episodes, usually released Monday mornings UK time, interweaving the recordings between the red pen sessions with the hints & tips episodes. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays.

 

Tuesday Tales 007: Two backwards, one forwards

A lot can happen in 24 hours. Last night (Saturday) I was invited by Jean Joachim to join her invitation-only online writing group ’Tuesday Tales‘. Being (predominantly) a short story author I was thrilled to be asked and gladly accepted.

The idea is that we’re given a new prompt each week, we write a story inspired by it and post it on our blogs / websites. Then we email the link and first two or three sentences to Jean. She then posts them on the Tuesday Tales blog (on a Tuesday ), gives us the link then we go out and shout about it.

This week’s prompt (my first) is ‘save’ and below is the story I’ve written for it. I hope you enjoy it (if ‘enjoy’ is the right word).

Two backwards, one forwards (476 words)

John had never saved a life before. He wasn’t even sure this really qualified – the paramedics had taken over pretty quickly but he’d been the one who’d dragged the woman from the pool, lain her down and put her in the recovery position, something he’d not done since scouts, and Billy Wingate hadn’t counted as someone in any danger.

John hoped the woman would forgive him for chopping off her hair. He’d not been the first one to spot her but the only one with scissors. If it hadn’t been for Amy’s insistence that he mend her doll’s dress, he’d not have had them with him.

“I’ll do it when we get back, Amy,” he’d said.

“I want to take her with me.”

“But you’ll be swimming.”

“You won’t be, so it’ll give you something to do.”

When had his six-year old daughter become such an adult? he wondered. Since her mother died. Now he had both roles: father – breadwinner; mother – nurturer. He was better at the former. More practice: nine years vs. 18 months.

When you go to work, kiss your wife goodbye, as you do every day, stroke the side of her face as something had compelled John to do that morning, you expect her to be there when you get home, laughing and joking. You don’t expect a call from the school asking why no-one’s collected your daughter, regular as clockwork, only Laura’s clock had stopped ticking – just like that – as if the battery had run out. Two hearts, two batteries: Laura’s and their unborn son’s. Two lives he’d been unable to save.

A year and a half later, there he was, sitting by a Spanish pool in the summer’s early morning warmth – an only parent to an only child. A happy one, on the outside.

Amy’s screaming had jolted him out of a doze. Not quite asleep. Just eyes closed. Resting, if anyone had asked. Too little sleep for both of them. Nightmares – shared subconscious.

The sewing kit and tiny dress had scattered on to the concrete as he’d bolted off the lounger and run to where Amy stood pointing at a figure two metres underwater, hair trapped in the drain, costume sparkling like a mermaid.  He’d gone back for the scissors, panicking when he couldn’t find them, then spotting them under a neighbouring empty lounger, he’d straddle-jumped into the pool.

He’d felt guilty, cutting the woman’s beautiful auburn hair with the pathetic, travel-size blades until she came loose and started floating to the top. He swam up after her, grabbed her, towed her by her chin, arm across her chest, as he’d been taught.

She’d been lighter than he imagined she should be. Slim. Pretty. Laura-esque.

He’d felt a pulse, and as he watched the stretcher being taken to the ambulance, he was sure there’d been a hint of a smile.

Although the prompt ‘save’ started the story, the inspiration for the situation from Kate Atkinson’s When Will There Be Good News (character Reggie’s mother died drowning in a pool – no spoiler, we learn it early in the book).

The links to the first six prompts, and resulting stories, and the forthcoming prompts can be found on my new Tuesday Tales page here on this blog. Do go and check out the Tuesday Tales site – it’s a wonderful idea supported by talented writers. And the link that this story appears on is HERE – snuggled in with 18 other writers. :)

So, not only can you read these stories but you could also write your own using the prompts given each week. There’s no word count limit. Single-word prompts are something I regularly give my Monday night workshop and it’s amazing how different our stories can be. You can read some of mine (free and otherwise) at Smashwords.

 

Bailey’s Writing Tips podcast ‘short stories’ episode no.6

Bailey’s Writing Tips podcast ‘short stories’ episode number six, part of a fortnightly series tucked in between monthly hints & tips and red pen critique sessions, was released today.

I’ve been starting off the first few weeks with the flash fiction that have appeared on my blog as ‘Flash Fiction Fridays’, reading out three per fortnight. Eventually I’ll run out so if you’d like to submit yours you can email me at morgen@morgenbailey.com.

This episode featured ‘Zombie Fight Song‘ (999 words) by Bob Frey, ‘The Old Barn’ (411 words) by Theodore P. Druch and a 998-worder called ‘The Visit’ by Ralph Murray.

Bob’s original story contained some strong language so I edited it to suit the ‘clean’ rating of this podcast. I don’t critiquing them but simply read them out and I hope you enjoy this format.

Bob Frey loves to entertain, make people laugh and think, and, perhaps, shake them up a little. He was a copywriter for several top Los Angeles advertising agencies and received several awards for his creative work. When he turned to writing fiction, he found it was a whole new ballgame and he had a lot to learn. He has since published a couple of mysteries, ‘The DVD Murders’ and ’The Bashful Vampire Murder & Comic Book Murders’, and ‘Catawampus Tales’, a book of short stories, a mixed bag of fast food for the mind. Also an actor, he has appeared in some forty independent films and stage plays. Now retired, he lives in Sandy, Oregon, with his wife, Susan.

Born in Milwaukee, educated at Brandeis and later at the Timothy Leary commune in Millbrook, NY, Theodore P. Druch, Ted to his friends, spent most of his life in trivial pursuits – like making a living. After chucking it all and traveling around the world for ten years like a dandelion seed on the wind, he settled in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. He is an active member of the Puerto Vallarta Writer’s Group, and conducts a weekly workshop for serious authors. In the last two years, Ted has published four full-length non-fiction e-books, and is currently working on his first novel, a historical fantasy of 1492 called ‘King David’s Harp’. He fully expects it to be a blockbusting best-seller, filled as it is with pirates, adventurers, corrupt popes and priests, several heroes and heroines, and a search for clues to the hiding place of the harp of King David, the recovery of which might bring about the return of the Messiah. Ted’s books are available at Amazon for the Kindle and at Smashwords for all other readers. ‘Footprints on a Small Planet’ is also available as a trade paperback through Amazon. Ted’s blog can be found at http://selfpublishedandbroke.wordpress.com and you can watch his African Odyssey trailer on YouTube.

Ralph is a London-based graphic designer / sub editor, married with two sons. He finished his debut novel in November 2010 and has been trying to get it published (unsuccessfully) since then. I know that feeling. Ralph says he knows that self-publishing is very much the way to go, but he’s determined to hold out for a traditional publisher (well, that’s the plan anyway). He gets up at 5.00am most mornings to write for an hour before getting ready for work, and is 12,000 words into the sequel of ‘From Out Of The Blue’. ‘The Visit’ first appeared on his blog (http://ralphmurray.wordpress.com) in November.

Thank you for downloading / listening to this short story episode. I hope you enjoy it and I look forward to bringing you another a fortnight. In the meantime, next week’s episode will be a hints & tips unless I receive a short story or novel extract to critique (again you can email this to me). All the links mentioned in these shows are listed on the podcast page of list blog.

The podcast is available via iTunes, Google’s Feedburner, Podbean (when it catches up), Podcasters (which takes even longer) or Podcast Alley (which doesn’t list the episodes but will let you subscribe).

 

Blog interview no.263 with writer Alison Richards

Welcome to the two hundred and sixty-third of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with screenwriter and blogger Alison Richards. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.

Morgen: Hello Alison. Please tell us something about yourself and how you came to be a writer.

Alison: I come from a family of writers. My grandfather immigrated from Scotland to Canada and became the editor of the newspaper in Victoria. My grandmother read poetry, Shakespeare, and the ‘classics’ to me as a child thus greatly influencing my interest in the arts and theatre. I’ve always been an avid reader and often dreamt-up my own scenarios but wasn’t until later in life that I actually started to document them.

Morgen: I have an arty background (photographer father, artist aunt / mother, website designer brother) so no surprise I ended up doing something creative, although I would have loved to have had a writer relative. What genre do you generally write?

Alison: Besides blogging, industrial / commercial content and social networking I write screenplays. I’m interested in true story adaptations specifically ones where I can effect positive global change or social awareness.

I’ve been told repeatedly that I should be writing about my own life, trials and tribulations, but… it seems too close and often too painful to share my own experiences. I suppose, in many ways, I can be more empathetic and connected to my characters because of my drama and suffering.

Morgen: And they’ll therefore feel more realistic to your readers / audience. What have you had published to-date?

Alison: I was first published at age 15. I wrote a poem for my grandmother and my grandfather submitted it to a seniors magazine. I had no idea he had done so until they sent me the publication. I usually never track or save my work. Much like a sidewalk chalk artist, the fun is in the process. It’s not that I don’t value my creations, I just forget about them and move to the next. Since I am more interested in film, the final produced work seems to hold more validity than the literary form.

Morgen: And I’m sure everyone writing books would love them turned into movies. You mentioned your poem, can you remember your first acceptance?

Alison: I can remember the first time I held a cheque in my hand for financing a film. I was such an exhilarating experience and as an adrenaline junkie, one I seek to experience over and over. I loathe the process of funding my projects, but nothing feels better than depositing that money.

Morgen: Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?

Alison: Whenever someone rejects or criticizes my work, I move on. I used to take it personally, but now I realize that what one person loves passionately, another could feel numb to. For instance, I cringe at horror and gore but that’s the top grossing genre in films. I refuse to compromise my ideals and sell out for marketability.

I much prefer being a poverty stricken documentary filmmaker than a successful zombie flick producer. My values are more important than fame or fortune. I wish I could change that, my bank account would be far more impressive as a result.

Morgen: If you don’t have the passion for your genre it’s bound to show in your writing. What are you working on at the moment / next?

Alison: I’m always juggling a slate of projects. It works nicely since I have attention deficit and I become bored and distracted after working on something more than a few hours. I simply close one project and open another.

Keeping many irons in the fire can be beneficial as well. If I’m pitching a story to a potential investor and they pass on the idea, I have several alternates at the ready. For me it seems to be feast or famine. Sometimes I get nothing for weeks or months then BAM! Right now I have 3 hot prospects to shoot on 3 different continents.

Morgen: Excellent. Do you manage to write every day? What’s the most you’ve written in a day?

Alison: I write constantly. Notes, letters, outlines… I read then write, read then write. It’s a pattern that plays itself out day after day. I get up in the morning and wander to my office (just down the hall) push the power button on my computer, into the kitchen to fill kettle for tea then begins the read / write / read / write routine.

Morgen: Sounds heavenly. So you write something every day, do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Alison: I would more accurately call writer’s block, procrastination. It seems whenever I am stumped for something to write, I’m being lazy or unmotivated. If I read something, anything, I am instantly inspired. Whether I act upon that inspiration or not is another thing. When I get lazy, I watch a movie. I consider it research of sorts. It doesn’t matter if the film is brilliant or dull, I always learn something new and gain insights from the process.

Morgen: Oh me to. Since having a go at ScriptFrenzy in April 2010 I appreciated what it takes to write a script, although I only got as far as 102 pages (the minimum was 100 so just scraped in) and have since converted that into the beginning of a novel. Do you plot your pieces or do you just get an idea and run with it?

Alison: Sometimes I sit and daydream or let my mind wander and the most incredible ideas spring forth. I will spend days pondering the situation and elaborate and brainstorm with trusted confidants. If I think it’s worth pursuing I will start to jot down bullet points and main plot points. Other times I will just sit and free-write. I let whatever comes out, release itself to the page. More often than not, it’s pure junk, but every once in a while a diamond of an idea emerges.

Morgen: As a fellow Script Frenzyer said, “You can’t edit a blank page.” Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?

Alison: I have lots of fabulous ideas that will never materialize. I seem to be slightly ahead of the pack technologically speaking. I developed an interactive online virtual Venice Beach Community over 15 years ago. I pitched the idea for a reality style web program where tourists and audience could follow locals and suggest activities for them. The entire series would be shot with ‘tourist’ (simulated to appear as such) or webcam / security cameras. The package included virtual storefronts or shops where you could actually purchase local fare from street vendors, download music from musicians, creations from the artists and branded memorabilia. Today there are hundreds of entertainment portals on the web much like “Venice.com” would have been.

Morgen: It’s a shame it didn’t happen – I love technology. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life?

Alison: Love the freedom and flexibility writing affords me. The process of getting inside a character and analysing potential actions or dialogue never bores me. The worst part of being a writer in the unstable lifestyle. Where is my next paycheck coming from? Will I make this deadline and still produce top-notch product?

Morgen: As someone just about to escape the day job, I have that to look forward to. What advice would you give aspiring writers?

Alison:  I met Ray Bradbury at a writers conference in Los Angeles many years ago. He said the most important thing a writer can do is read. Everyday you should read; non-fiction, fiction and news. Get educated, get entertained and stay informed. It’s what I turn to when I get stumped for ideas.

Morgen: I’ve just bought a Kindle and I’m hoping it gets me reading more (not that I don’t have a houseful of books already)… it’s working so far. What do you like to read?

Alison: I enjoy reading medical literature just as much as crime / thriller fiction. My tastes are all over the map. I have trouble finishing longer format lately. I think twitter has spoiled me. The idea of conveying an idea in 140 characters or less completely fascinates me. Sometimes a 30 second commercial can tell a story just as effectively as a full feature; I’m inspired by the cleverness employed in marketing and media campaigns.

Morgen: I love short. I used to read Stephen King doorstoppers in my teens (often under the duvet with a torch after lights-out) but somewhere along the line, life took over and now the shorter the better… yes, even in 140 characters. Are there any writing-related websites and/or books that you find useful and would recommend?

Alison: I use Movie Magic Screenwriter software and subscribe to their Screenplay.com newsletter. As a teacher and facilitator for media production I often use the lessons and articles from their featured guests (Michael Hauge). The Internet is full of information for writers. I find that a highly specific and detailed Google inquiry brings me to exactly the place I need for the information I am seeking.

Morgen: Isn’t it great. In which country are you based and do you find this a help or hindrance with letting people know about your work?

Alison: Over the past 20 years, I have lived in Vancouver Canada, Venice Beach California and Dubai, UAE. I’ve travelled extensively and value the experience I’ve met along my journey that has enhanced by subjectivity in writing. I’m getting better at self promotion and with technology and tools of today it really doesn’t matter where you live.

Morgen: It doesn’t, that’s true. Are you on any forums or networking sites?

Alison: I find myself using facebook.com, twitter.com and linkedin.com most often. I’m a member of a ton of other sites but find that I spread myself too thin if I venture away from the main three.

Morgen: I’m the same and they’re my top three. Where can we find out about you and your work?

Alison: alisonrichards.com, http://alisonrichards.wordpress.com and http://nonimovie.com.

Morgen: Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

Alison: mother of 3, grandmother of 7… not your typical granny. I love to explore new places, cook ethnic food and engage in intellectual conversation on subjects such as conspiracy theory, the environment and spirituality and religion.  I was recently engaged to a man who turned out to be associate with an international terrorist organization. I’m lucky to be alive therefore celebrate every moment of each day.

Morgen: Ouch. I see what you mean about your drama influencing your writing. Thank you so much Alison.

If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the questions. You complete them, I tweak them where appropriate (if necessary to reflect the blog ‘clean and light’ rating) and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know. You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything… and follow me on Twitter where each new posting is automatically announced. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords.

Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me reading it / talking about and critiquing it (I send you the transcription afterwards so you can use the comments or ignore them) on my ‘Bailey’s Writing Tips’ podcast, then do email me. They are weekly episodes, usually released Monday mornings UK time, interweaving the recordings between the red pen sessions with the hints & tips episodes. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays.

 

Author Spotlight no.53 – Chelle Cordero

Complementing my daily blog interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the fifty-third, is of Chelle Cordero.

Chelle has come a long way since first joining the Vanilla Heart Publishing queue of authors nearly two years ago with her first novel, Bartlett’s Rule. Now with nine novels on the market, she has solidified her standing as a Romantic Suspense author (7 romantic suspense & 2 mysteries). She also has short stories in the VHP anthology With Arms Wide Open, Mandimam’s Press anthology Forever Friends, the VHP anthology Nature’s Gifts, VHP anthology Passionate Hearts and Mandimam Press anthology Forever Travels.

Bartlett’s Rule was named one of Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s Top Ten Reads for 2009; Final Sin was a 2009 Pushcart Nominee; and Hostage Heart, Final Sin and A Chaunce of Riches were nominated in the 2009 Preditors’ and Readers’ poll and had top-ten finishes. Chelle Cordero was recently featured as one of the authors in “50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading” published by The Author’s Show in 2010.

And now from the author herself:

As a child I kept notebook after notebook of writing attempts. In one case I created an entire TV series written specifically for my then-favourite actor; the series he was in was cancelled and after all, wouldn’t his agent be thrilled that someone cared enough to come up with a new script for him? The agent was unimpressed.

I did a favour for a community organizer when I was 18 and wrote a brief article for the local weekly paper. It was published and while I didn’t receive any monetary payment, seeing my name in the by-line was a “pure adrenaline” rush. For years I went back to writing my TV series, (hey even though the agent didn’t like it, I did) and short pieces of prose.

Finally, pregnant with our daughter, I decided to work from home and write full-time. I lucked into an underpaid, monthly column in the cable guide pretty much right away. Other non-fiction spots followed, luckily most had better pay rates. I felt like literally stumbled into writing as a profession.

That was the first time I announced (sort of proudly) that I was a writer. I had gotten paid for my writing and except for that one ungrateful actor’s agent, I had never known rejection. My ego was definitely inflated.

However most of the people who took my pronouncement seriously asked if I had written any books. I had to be honest, while I enjoyed writing ANYthing, I really wanted to create stories, fiction, romantic stories of suspense, mysteries…

So while working freelance as a journalist, raising two precocious kids, keeping a home and volunteering in my community, I found the time to start writing stories. Despite the long list of published credits I had, agents told me I was too new to take a chance on and I finally knew what it felt like to receive a rejection.

My ego was still so super-inflated that each time I received a rejection, I became more determined to get a novel published – I used to tell everyone that I wanted to grow up to be a novelist. I kept writing and finally in late 2007 I submitted a manuscript called Bartlett’s Rule to Vanilla Heart Publishing; it was accepted (there went that ego again!). I finally felt grown up.

I am still a freelance journalist and I enjoy my work. But I LOVE letting my imagination run away and create characters and stories. I still get that pure adrenaline rush each time I see my name on the spine of a book. I enjoy taking different experiences of my life and fashioning it into a novel. It’s amazing to see how something as simple as a grocery store encounter can turn into the beginnings of a mystery.

Nine novels later, short stories in five anthologies, two writing guides and scores more newspaper articles, I absolutely love my life.

I will send anyone who sends an email to ChelleCordero@gmail.com with “Sampler” in the subject a FREE .pdf sampler of all my novels and writing guides.

For more information about Chelle, visit her website at http://ChelleCordero.com or her blog at http://ChelleCordero.blogspot.com. All of Chelle’s novels are available in print or e-book through online retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble and various e-book formats like Smashwords.

The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with Alison Richards – the two hundred and sixty-third of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me. You can read / download my eBooks from Smashwords (Amazon to follow).

 

Blog interview no.262 with writer Sherry Gloag

Welcome to the two hundred and sixty-second of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with romance novelist Sherry Gloag. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.

Morgen: Hello Sherry. I’ve described you as a romance novelist, is this what you generally write?

Sherry: I do write romances, generally I have classified them as ‘mainstream contemporary romances’ but almost every reviewer has added ‘suspense’ to the genre. So I guess I write romance ‘with a touch of suspense’.

Yes I am currently working on a Regency romance.  The first version that went through the critique group I belong to insisted it was ‘too slow’, so I have re-written it and now if I put it through again they would probably tell me to ‘slow it down’!

Morgen: Ah, the pace / narrative drive. What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?

Sherry: Yes I write under the pseudonym, Sherry Gloag, and to date I have had two full length novels published. My debut novel, The Brat, was released by The Wild Rose Press in October 2010, this was followed by my second novel, Duty Calls, which came out in February of 2011 and was published by Black Opal Books, then in January of 2011 The Wrong Target my first novella was published by eTreasures, one, as a stand-alone ebook and also in a valentine anthology with several other amazing authors.

Given the number of Royal weddings that occurred in 2011, including our own Will and Kate, I sat down and wrote a short story which, upon request by and editor, ended up as a 21k novella and, of course, included a royal wedding, insurgents, assassination attempts and the happy ever after.  This, From Now Until Forever, was published in December 2011 by an up and coming successful publisher Astraea Press.

Morgen: My goodness, you’re busy.

Sherry: I have also just had an acceptance on my latest novella, His Chosen Bride, to be released by Astraea press in time for Valentine’s Day, which makes From Now Until Forever the first in a series of four novella series, with His Chosen bride as book #2.

Morgen: Yay, well done. Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?

Sherry: Oh boy, I won’t pretend I could paper my room with all of them, I have been very fortunate, in as much, I couldn’t even paper one wall of my room with them, but yes, I’ve had rejections.  Some, in my ignorance at the time, invited re-writes, which I did not follow up on, because I didn’t know any better back then.  Some were down-right hurtful, and others were bog-standard ‘thanks but no thanks’.

How did I deal with them?  All but one I managed to deal with philosophically.  But that one cut deep, very deep.  But it also motivated me to take that particular book out, re-examine it and resubmit it elsewhere.  Yes it was rejected again, but with so much helpful support and suggestions I had an acceptance by the end of that year.  And so my debut novel, The Brat saw the light of day

Morgen: Rejections certainly make us stronger but hard to take at the time. Have you won or been shortlisted in any competitions?

Sherry: Oh dear!  In truth?  I have been far too chicken-hearted, so far, to enter in competitions, bar one which I never heard back from the organisers.  And that was a very long time ago. *grin*

Morgen: I’ve entered a few (with some success) but even if they don’t get anywhere I find they get me writing new stuff so I have them to do something else with. Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?

Sherry: No, I don’t have an agent, and I don’t know enough to comment on how essential they are to an author.  I do suspect if the author became well-known and built up a huge fan-base, they may well need –and get – an agent, simply to cope with demand.  ‘Well a girl can dream can’t they?” LOL

Morgen: It’s happening that way now; Amanda Hocking went self-publishing and gained a traditional publisher that way. You mentioned eBooks earlier, are all your books available as eBooks?

Sherry: Two of my books are out in print as well as e-format, The Brat, and Duty Calls.  As novellas The Wrong Target and From Now Until Forever will only come out as ebooks. All are available in multiple e-formats and can be found on Amazon.com/uk nook and sony readers + other outlets online.

Morgen: How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?

Sherry: This is where I stumble flat on my face, pick myself up and start all over again. I feel I still have much to learn in the marketing and branding field. I do market my books, in interviews such as this, through several social networking groups, which I am still coming to terms with! LOL, I have a website and blog and am always on the lookout for guest spots and blog guests.

Morgen: It sounds like I do even less marketing than you – I think it’s a slow (but hopefully steady) process. Did you have any say in the title / covers of your books? How important do you think they are?

Sherry: In every case my input has been sought.  It is the interpretation of my input that has, on occasion, provided some hilarity.

Morgen: <laughs> What are you working on at the moment / next?

Sherry: The second in my royal series, His Chosen Bride, has just been accepted, I will be busy with edits on that, soon.  Meanwhile, for the past few years, I have been experimenting with a Regency romance, and constantly hitting blank walls / pages.  This morning, at last I have the ending so can now steam ahead and wrap it up.  I have been working on the story so long I will miss this bunch of characters when the book is finished.  I also have ideas for the next two novellas in my ‘royal’ series and hope to start on them soon.

Morgen: Maybe you could bring the characters back… ooh, or make incidentals main characters – I love it when that happens. You sound fairly prolific, do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Sherry: I write every day.  Perhaps it may only be summaries and prompt notes for myself, or blog pieces.  Do I ever suffer from writer’s block?  Sadly too often!! LOL. But, that too gifted me an unexpected new direction.  One day when totally flummoxed with The Brat, I opened a blank page and simply wrote.  It ended up as a 1000 word short story which was published by the online site LASR (Long And Short Reviews) in June 2009.  Since then I have had several more published and thoroughly enjoy the challenge of tightening my writing into fewer words.

Morgen: Ooh, I’ve not heard of LASR. I’m going to have to check them out. Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?

Sherry: For my sins I am a ‘Pantser’.

Morgen: That means I’ve met a lot of sinners. I’d say 75% of my interviewees don’t plot much.

Sherry: My stories all begin with the ‘arrival’ of at least one of my main characters who then give me enough information to whet my interest and in dribs and drabs they give me more until I start writing.  Then they usually seem to think their job is over and take a hike.  Remember those blank pages I mentioned?  There are times when I get enough of the ‘next bit’ to write prompt notes at the end of the chapter I am working on.  But that’s about as far as my ‘plotting’ goes.

Morgen: As a fellow Script Frenzyer said, you can’t edit a blank page. These characters, do you have a method for creating yours, their names and what do you think makes them believable?

Sherry: I have next to no say in creating my characters or giving them their names.  I have even had one occasion when the heroine suddenly took a ‘skunner’ to her name and changed it.  Of course, she waited to almost the end of the story to do that! As to making them believable, I sometimes wonder where the words and incidents they get themselves into come from.  I do like for at least one of my characters in each story to have an ‘AH-HA’ moment, and the events that lead up to and follow them are usually a total surprise to me.

Morgen: Well, if they’re a surprise to you then there’ll (hopefully) be a surprise to your readers. Apparently JK Rowling was going to kill a character off and he / she wouldn’t let her so she killed someone else off. Not sure if that’s true or not but it would be interesting to know who. Do you write any non-fiction, poetry or short stories?

Sherry: I have written poetry, but not for a long time.  I fell into short stories totally by accident and now participate in, a weekly blog, Tuesday Tales, where we can either post a scene from a WIP of do a complete short / flash piece of writing. (http://tuesdaytales1.blogspot.com)

Morgen: Another new one on me but I took a look and it looks fantastic. What fun! Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?

Sherry: My internal editor has become a pest recently, in as much I find myself going back repeatedly over chapters I considered ‘finished’.  I suspect that in many cases it is to cover my frustration when I hit writer’s block!  I would like to say my writing is more fully-formed now that in the past.  It changes depending on how the characters want me to ‘play it’ and the genre I am writing.

Morgen: I tend to edit four times and call it a day (or with longer pieces submit to my editor after the third then do a fourth after she’s hacked around with it). Do you have to do much research?

Sherry: I am dismal at research, so I tend to find topics that allow me to get away with as little as possible, but there again my characters have their own ideas.  In my latest release, From Now Until Forever, they ‘sent me off’ to research charities that run programs for disabled / physically challenged children.  And I have a nasty suspicion that my next ‘royal adventure’; is going to demand more, it would help if I knew what it was going to be!

Morgen: But then I guess it wouldn’t be so much of an adventure. Some writers like quiet, others the noise of a coffee shop etc., do you listen to music or have noise around you when you write or do you need silence?

Sherry: I love peace and quiet, but DH has tinnitus so there is always background noise in the house.  I simply go in search of the quietest spot available.  Sometimes I do enjoy music as background, but if the book is going well, I won’t hear it anyway.

Morgen: That’s true. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person?

Sherry: I prefer writing in third person, but have written in first for a couple of my short stories.  That was fine, but to do so for a full 21 or 70+k would not appeal to me.

Morgen: Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?

Sherry: Oh yes!  Some have been shredded so they can’t!

Morgen: Oh no! I only shred writing that I’ve typed up. I couldn’t throw anything out as I’d be convinced afterwards that it wasn’t that bad.

Sherry: But those are the learning curves, the measuring stick by which I occasionally go back and compare ‘the writing then and the writing now’.

Morgen: That’s true – I do have some cringe-worthy old pieces but we’re older and wiser now so we can edit them better (or laugh and put them back ). What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life?

Sherry: I love writing.  I love the surprise of reading back what I’ve written to discover where the story is going.  My least favourite aspect is the business side, the promotion and marketing.  Simply because I don’t know –yet – how to maximise it, but I will get there, one day!

Morgen: Most authors have said that – we all need clones so one can write and the other market (or better still, edit and market). Has anything surprised you?

Sherry: That my books sell surprises me, but I love it when a reader then tells me what they liked about the book in question.

Morgen: What advice would you give aspiring writers?

Sherry: Don’t give up, don’t give in, and keep your butt in the chair.  The writing world is filled with beautiful people who are willing to help, support and advise, make the most of it, because your success becomes their pleasure because they become a part of your triumph.

Morgen: That sounds like a quote in itself but is there a word, phrase or quote you like?

Sherry: There are two quotes on the wall in front of me when I am at my computer.  One is attributed to Nora Roberts “You can fix a bad page, but you can’t fix a blank one.” The second is from Robert Gallagher. “Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.”

Morgen: That’s funny. Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?

Sherry: I blog bi-monthly the online blog NightWriters as well as participating in the online weekly event Six Sentence Sunday.  It was SSS that revealed just how powerful writing can be when honed down to six sentences, and when you get to read almost two hundred examples each week, that’s a huge smorgasbord of examples to learn from.

Morgen: Wow. As a short story addict, I love the sound of that.

Sherry: Recently I have joined another online group called Tuesday Tales where we post up a short story or part of an ongoing WIP to a specific weekly word prompt on our blog / website and it is linked to a ‘mother-site’ who provides a list and links to every participant that week.  The novella that is out house hunting emerged from the first three word prompts, and I didn’t even connect them until I wrote the fourth, which never reached Tuesday Tales.

Morgen: What do you do when you’re not writing?

Sherry: Because I enjoy reading I review for several well-respected online review sites.  Sadly as my writing time expands, my reading time is curtailed so I no longer review as many books as I used to.

Morgen: Oh me too. I’ve just bought a Kindle in the hope that it gets me reading more and it sort of is but sadly not by much. What about non-writing hobbies?

Sherry: Gardening is another favourite pastime, I used to think, that unlike my characters, the plants and flowers never answered back, but they do!  Either the flourish or they don’t, and when you’ve put a lot of effort into them, it also becomes a personal insult when your plants sometimes fail!

Morgen: Ooh, then you’d love a Roald Dahl story called ‘The Sound Machine’ – it was one of my favourites (if not my favourite actually) on his Tales of the Unexpected TV series.

Sherry: Walking is a pastime I enjoy, and if I am sure there’s no one in the vicinity, will often interview my character in the hopes they will reveal the next instalment of the book. I also enjoy watching the birds, no, I am not a ‘twitcher’, I just watching the individuality of the birds that come to our feeders and bird table.

I also enjoy working with selenite crystal, which I find very therapeutic.

Morgen: Are there any writing-related websites and / or books that you find useful?

Sherry: Because I am a romance writer most of my books focus on that genre.

Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Mass

Manuscript Makeover by Elizabeth Lyon

You have The Power – Self-Edit your Way into Print by Cindy Davis  (An amazing, and wonderful editor)

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne & Dave King

12 Point Guide to Writing Romance by Kate Walker

Goal, Motivation & Conflict by Debra Dixon

And because I am grammatically challenged, I have

Getting to the point by Jenny Haddon & Elizabeth Hawksley

The Elements of Style 3^rd Edition, by William Shrunk and E.B. White.

Plus – There are tons of online sites where you will find awesome advice and insight, but due to a recent PC crash I am still rebuilding my favourites list.

Morgen: Ouch. I’ve been a Mac owner for a year and can’t say that I miss PC crashes. Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?

Sherry: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Stumble, and a few others.  I still have a lot to learn about the networking side of writing.

Morgen: You’re on them (and a few) so you’re doing the right thing. I’ve not really explored Stumble. I’m on the others you listed plus Google+ and Goodreads but haven’t spent much time there either. <slap wrist> What do you think the future holds for a writer?

Sherry: I think this is both a scary and exciting time for writers now.  There are huge debates about ebooks versus print, but until everyone and I DO mean everyone in the world has electronic access / means of reading, paperback books HAVE to exist.  It is easy for those in big cities where much of the debate goes on to forget outlying counties and countries that do not have access to the net.  So yes, there is a long term place for print books still.

As for digital, the market is expanding at a phenomenal rate beyond the wildest expectations of the most optimistic prophets.  But already there are signs that the ‘bigger’ digital publishers are heading in the same direction as the mainstream ‘dinosaurs’ before them.

There are rumblings about the success of authors who successfully republish their books after their contracts expire with their publishers, so the publishers are extending the terms of their contracts. (Their words, not mine)  But— the question has to be, WHY are these authors garnering such success only after they leave their publisher?  WHY can’t the publisher(s) gain the same success with these authors while they are on their books?

Are we/is the industry falling into the old catch 22 situation of promotion?

It is understandable that in hard times publishers, both mainstream and digital, are reluctant to promote their authors.  They usually have a lot of them and it is both expensive and time consuming. The individual author may not have the same problems of quantity, but they face the same time restraints, after all if they don’t write the publisher has no books.

Do I have a simplistic answer?  Of course not.  If it existed someone else would have twigged it already, but I do think it is going to become the elephant at the table.

Authors shifted to the digital media because they felt short-changed by the big – and small – mainstream publishers, and they’ll shift again, are shifting in their droves, to self-publishing if they don’t feel any benefits from being part of a publishing family whether digital or other.

Publishers want successful authors on their books and that’s both natural, and understandable.

So when the ‘less-than-stella-sales-authors’ move on and their sales begin to rise, it becomes another case of ‘what goes round comes round.’

Morgen: I couldn’t have put that better myself, hear hear. I do think paper and electronic will run alongside each other (now there’s a jogging image!). I have both, and think paper for home, eInk for away. Where can we find out about you and your work?

Sherry: My Web: http://www.sherrygloag.com

My Blog: http://sherrygloagtheheartofromance.blogspot.com

Astraea Press: http://www.astraeapress.com/#ecwid:category=662245&mode=product&product=7105194

eTreasures: http://www.etreasurespublishing.com/products/The-Wrong-Target-by-Sherry-Gloag.html

and http://www.etreasurespublishing.com/products/Cupid-Gone-Wild-Anthology.html

The Wild Rose Press: http://www.thewildrosepress.com/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=862

Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0042QD6S6

Morgen: Wow, that’s a list. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

Sherry: Could I list the blurb and an excerpt of latest novella, From Now Until Forever?

Morgen: Of course, fire away.

For Prince Liam, families meant bad news, unwanted commitments, and the loss of his personal freedom.  Love spawned white picket fences, slippers at the hearth with a wife and kids making demands, so why did those images disappear when he met Melanie Babcot?

Melanie Babcot fought hard to escape the horrors of her youth and vowed to remain single and free, so when paid to protect Prince Liam from insurgents why did her personal pledge fly out the window?

Excerpt:
Liam Fitzwilliam Gasquet stared in amazement at the blooming patch of red milliseconds before the pain exploded in his arm. Some trigger-happy idiot had fired in his direction. Indignation didn’t have time to take root before another bullet kicked the dust at his feet.
Not ‘trigger-happy’.
Intentional.
The rebels had found the fourth and youngest son of Jean-Phillipe Gasquet, ruler of the tiny kingdom adjacent to the Swiss border. When had they discovered his whereabouts?
With a reluctant sigh, he faced the truth of it. They hadn’t ‘found’ him at all. They’d followed him.

Morgen: That was great. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?

Sherry: === Would you be willing to guest on my blog?!!!!! Seriously I’d be honoured if you would.===

Morgen: I’d love to, thank you for asking, Sherry and thank you for chatting to me today.

I then invited Sherry for another extract of her writing…

Jenny skipped along the street, her pigtails flying, her eyes shining, her Cinderella costume blowing in the breeze, and a permanent smile on her face.  She carried her present for Shirley in the plastic carrier bag hanging from her arm. Today her bestest friend was celebrating her ninth birthday with a fancy-dress party, and next week it would be her turn.  Somehow, the figure nine seemed more grown-up than eight.  Nearer double figures.

“You going to Shirley’s party?”

She’d seen the boy in the school playground.  Always on the edge of a group, always watching, and, she shivered now, something about his eyes made her uneasy.  Today was no different, and his costume didn’t help. His smile was inviting, warm and almost gleeful; yet, secretive, Shirley decided. 

“What are you dressed up as?” She studied his cape and the scythe he carried, its blade gleaming in the sun.

“The Grim Reaper,” he said. “And my friend Herakles will be joining me in a moment.”

Damien, that was it!  She’d never liked the name because it always made her think of demons; and demons, she knew, were scary.  Lately they filled her dreams, turning them to nightmares.

She never quite saw their faces in her dreams, only heard their laughter, when it turned dark and evil and woke her up.

For the last couple of nights, she’d tried in vain to wake from the nightmares.  The demon stood there watching her. Whatever she did, wherever she went in her dreams, the demon stood there watching in silent celebration.  (end of story available at http://sherrygloagtheheartofromance.blogspot.com/2012/01/tuesday-tales-lies.html)

Multi-published author, Sherry Gloag is a transplanted Scot now living in the beautiful coastal countryside of Norfolk, England.  She considers the surrounding countryside as extension of her own garden, to which she escapes when she needs “thinking time” and solitude to work out the plots for her next novel.  While out walking she enjoys talking to her characters, as long as no other walkers are close by.

Apart from writing, Sherry enjoys gardening, walking, reading and cheerfully admits her books tend to take over most of the shelf and floor space in her workroom-cum-office.  She also finds crystal craft work therapeutic.

If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the questions. You complete them, I tweak them where appropriate (if necessary to reflect the blog ‘clean and light’ rating) and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know. You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything… and follow me on Twitter where each new posting is automatically announced. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords.

Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me reading it / talking about and critiquing it (I send you the transcription afterwards so you can use the comments or ignore them) on my ‘Bailey’s Writing Tips’ podcast, then do email me. They are weekly episodes, usually released Monday mornings UK time, interweaving the recordings between the red pen sessions with the hints & tips episodes. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays.

 

Flash Fiction Friday 019: ‘The Visit’ by Ralph Murray

Welcome to Flash Fiction Friday and the nineteenth piece of flash fiction in this series. This week’s piece is a 998-worder entitled ‘The Visit’ by Ralph Murray.

The Visit

Rats! It’s starting to rain.

With brolly and collar up, I pass through the gates of the cemetery and along the path to the huge expanse marked off for East London’s fallen.

To the left, sitting in an old wooden shed is my friend the florist. As usual, I put on a bright smile as I approach him because he’s always so cheerful. After all these years of meeting him every Friday, I still can’t make out if he’s naturally an upbeat character or if it’s a professional front he feels he has to portray for his mourning customers.

He looks up as he hears me approaching. “Morning Mary, how are we today? Looks like the rain’s gonna save me the job of washing the old car this afternoon. Bunch of the usual?”

My mouth stretches wider in a facsimile of a smile. “Hello Simon, yes the usual please.”

I watch his bowed and balding head as he sets to work. How strange it is to be working 10 hours a day, six days a week and all the people you meet in all that time are all the same, a continuous conveyor belt of pain passing your shed on their way to a loved one who has moved on. In a way it could be seen as sadder for him because at least after the visit, folks can get back to living their lives but he’s stuck with the dead.

I give him another bright, frozen smile and we exchange flowers for cash.

Coming up to the children’s cemetery, I see a man in his mid-30s sitting on a bench silently bawling. I can’t make out whether it’s his tears or the rain that makes his face wet. He must be aware of me approaching but he makes no attempt to conceal his grief as he stares at the tiny headstone gaily decorated with toys and flowers. Much as I want to look away from the stricken figure, I just can’t. I draw up to him and open my mouth to utter some useless words of comfort but my feet continue their journey.

The moment is gone. I stop and half-turn towards him. My tongue refuses to work, which is just as well. What can I say: “Sorry about the loss of your child but the pain will ease in the passing of time.”

Yep sure! It hasn’t passed for me in 18 years so why should it pass for him?

I watch the back of the heaving broad shoulders for several seconds, then I carry on my solemn journey towards my tombstone.

I pass rows of graves with headstones garlanded with flowers and eulogies for the dearly departed.

The next row is mine and, as always, I slow down and then do a right turn into the unending sense of loss.

Eight graves float by then I stop at the ninth. Without warning my vision becomes blurred. I blink rapidly and it clears.

Stepping from the path and onto the grass, I move toward the marble headstone, then reach behind it for the little folded camping stool. It’s wet of course, but who cares? I retrace my steps, open out the stool and sit before the headstone of Chris Simmonds, son of Joseph and Mary Simmonds.

I must look pretty silly sitting on a stool in a graveyard, but I’ve been doing it for so long I really don’t care. Anyway I just couldn’t stand in one spot for an hour or so, my bunions would kill me. Oh well, at least the rain’s stopped.

I look around. Yep, almost deserted as usual.

It’s funny, I can never remember what I think about when I’m here. It’s like my mind goes into neutral, but when my old back starts to stiffen up and I look at my watch, I’m always amazed at how long I’ve been sitting here.
As I stare at the mound of earth before me, as always at this time, I develop the power to see though the earth and into the coffin. But of course there is no skeleton, instead there’s my son, asleep. He’s about seven years old today and in his bedroom. I gaze down at a face so beautiful it could belong to a girl. My hand, the hand of an old woman, reaches out and smooths the blond curly hair. He stirs but does not wake. I stroke his head again half-hoping he would wake up so I can gather him in my arms and kiss him. Words cannot even come close to expressing the yearning of my heart so I’m not going to try. Loss can only be felt, not conveyed.
As if from another world, someone walks past me. I rouse myself, pick up the flowers at my feet and slowly walk back to the headstone. I go through the weekly ritual of removing the fading lilies, roses and chrysanthemums. I lay them to one side, remove the latest ones from the wrapping paper and carefully arrange them in the pot. When I’m satisfied with the display I wrap the old ones in the paper and place them in the nearby bin.

With the main chore done, I take out a tea-towel from my handbag and wipe the headstone clean. Don’t laugh, I know I must look as mad as a March hare but I guess losing a child must screw you up in one way or another, so you have to me excuse for acting like a crazy old woman.

I return to my seat and fall back into my semi-stupor. It’s as if for six-and-a-half days a week I function normally, but Friday mornings I’m another person in another world, a world of the past, a world where I feel totally complete with the two people I love more than life itself: my husband Joe and my son Chris.

The only difference between them is that one is alive and the other is dead!

I asked Ralph what prompted this piece and he said…

The inspiration for ‘The Visit’ short story is Mary Simmonds, one of the lead characters of my unpublished debut novel ‘From Out Of The Blue’.

The book blurb reads thus: From out of the blue, Mary finds herself with child, and Joe’s world explodes! Joe, a flamboyant and ambitious musician, meets and falls in love with the virginal Mary. After their engagement she mysteriously becomes pregnant. After much anger and angst, Joe decides to stand by her.  ‘From Out Of The Blue’ is Joe’s journey of self-discovery through his relationships with Mary, music and her extraordinary son.

The story started out with Mary as a single young woman and ended as her as a married middle-aged person. I am now writing the sequel with Mary and Joe now in their 70s. I was struggling to get to grips with my heroine as a pensioner, so I wrote ‘The Visit’ in the first person present tense perspective so I can really get a feel for the character in this new phase of her life.

And I have to say it worked. After writing ‘The Visit’ I now feel I know her and that I can proceed with the sequel in the confidence of really knowing her character.

Thank you Ralph, I loved it.

Ralph is a London-based graphic designer / sub editor, married with two sons. He finished his debut novel in November 2010 and has been trying to get it published (unsuccessfully) since then. I know that feeling. Ralph says he knows that self-publishing is very much the way to go, but he’s determined to hold out for a traditional publisher (well, that’s the plan anyway). He gets up at 5.00am most mornings to write for an hour before getting ready for work, and is 12,000 words into the sequel of ‘From Out Of The Blue’. ‘The Visit’ first appeared on his blog (http://ralphmurray.wordpress.com) in November. I’ll also be Podcasting it this Monday.

If you’d like to submit your 1,000-word max. stories for consideration for Flash Fiction Friday take a look here.

The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with Sherry Gloag – the two hundred and sixty-second of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, biographers, agents, publishers, editors and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords.