Welcome to Post-weekend Poetry and the nineteenth in this series. This week we have two sonnets by historical author, poet and forthcoming interviewee Elizabeth Vallone.
I – August to May 2011
Content in a shadowy grove, we stood
Watching ’neath the bridal canopy
As the Indian beat the hide with wood
A tune as mournful as Penelope.
With broad smiles, good wishes rose on our breath.
Golden sunflowers hovered above them
Their deep black centers –an omen of death–
Anointed him through their hanging stems.
Baby wrapped in a shroud, soon after
Buried under the tree of sycamore
Slaying love, bonds and laughter.
Sleepless torment created a sore
That oozed an age of dark despair
Leaving him numb, cold in the wedding lair.
II – The Greedy Visitor
In a dark sarcophagus, gleaming with shellac
He lay ever fine and fair on a white silk cloud–
Cold, hard, so still. I can’t help but move back
To my seat where I sit watching the crowd
Anguished, hurting. They kneel taking my hand.
I feel their touch of love, they feel my pain.
My daughter, mom, hover, make no demands.
I look up glaring, he says his name with love feigned.
I recall treachery, but smile and thank him.
He arrived three months later with tear-stained face.
“Don’t you want Robert’s things?” He’s still so grim.
Did courage or guilt bring him to my place?
Have I misjudged this man who was his friend?
No, for Robert’s things, much money I must spend.
I asked Elizabeth what prompted this piece and she said…
When someone loses a child the pain that one carries is beyond description. It is much more painful than losing a sibling, parent or even spouse. The survivor must grab on to any tool to work through the grief, I’ve taken to writing a sonnet when the pain is overflowing and can’t be contained with yoga, meditation and long walks. The only other time in my life I found compelled to write poetry was when I was a university student and my love at that time left me and that was many years ago.
That’s really sad. I do find writing therapeutic – my heart goes out to you. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Vallone possesses a B.A. and M.S. degree from Montclair State University and Long Island University. She is a teacher and freelance writer. A contributing author to the anthologies Imprints on Rockland County History (1983) and Curragia: Writings of Italian-American Women (1998), Mrs. Vallone published Stone Perpendicular to Stone—A Tribute to the Land of My Ancestors in 1997. In 2005, Beyond Bagheria, a first attempt at historical fiction set in the New Orleans of the 1920s was published. Her latest book, published October 2011, is ‘Barbarossa’s Princess‘. Mrs. Vallone is currently working on historical fiction set in WWI Hoboken, NJ. She lives in Rockland County with her husband and returns on Saturday 12th May for our interview.
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 multi-genre author Tim Girard – the three hundred and fifty-sixth 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 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore, Kobo and Amazon, with more to follow. I have a new forum and you can friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me. Finally, I also now have a new blog creation service especially for writers: http://icanbuildyourwritingblog.wordpress.com.
Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively 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.
Tags: Barbarossa's Princess, Elizabeth Vallone, fiction, historical, interview, Montclair State University, poetry, writing
Welcome to the three hundred and fifty-fifth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with multi-genre author Bobby Nash. 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, Bobby. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Bobby: Thanks, Morgen. My name is Bobby Nash. I’m based out of Bethlehem, Georgia in the United States. And yes, an oh little town it is. I started out with the grand dream of being a comic book artist. To that end I started writing stories for myself to draw. Eventually, others started asking for scripts. Then one day I got the urge to write a novel. Then another. The rest, as they say, is history.
Morgen: I’m the same with NaNoWriMos; once you do one, you get hooked. What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?
Bobby: I write in many different genres. My novels tend to be suspense thrillers, but I have written others. I have a sci fi novel slated for release in April or May called Earthstrike Agenda. My shorter prose work and comic book work runs the gamut from sci fi, to mystery, to super hero, to western, to fantasy, and so on. Certain genres play to my strengths, but I’m open to pretty much any genre as long as I have a good story to tell.
Morgen: Me too. I can’t stick one… ‘dark and light’ is a good a description as I can give them. What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Bobby: It’s quite a list, but here you go. My published work includes:
Novels: Evil Ways [out of print for the moment, but returning in 2012 from New Babel Books], Fantastix [out of print], and Deadly Games! [BEN Books].
Short stories, novellas, anthologies: Lance Star: Sky Ranger Vol. 1, Vol. 2, and Vol. 3 [Airship 27/Cornerstone Books], Startling Stories Magazine [Wild Cat Books], Sentinels Widescreen Special Edition [White Rocket Books], Full Throttle Space Tales Vol. 2: Space Sirens [Flying Pen Press], Sentinels: Alternate Visions [White Rocket Books], Domino Lady: Sex As A Weapon [Moonstone Books], Real Magicalism [Daemon Press], A Fistful of Legends [Express Westerns], The Green Hornet Casefiles [Moonstone Books], Lance Star: Sky Ranger – “Where The Sea Meets The Sky” [iPulp], Ravenwood: Stepson of Mystery [Airship 27/Cornerstone Books], Pro Se Presents: Peculiar Adventures #3 [Pro Se Press], Golden Age Good Girls [Mini Komix], Domino Lady: “Target – Domino Lady” [iPulp], and Blackthorn: Thunder of Mars [White Rocket Books].
Comic books and graphic novels: Life In The Faster Lane, Fuzzy Bunnies From Hell [FYI Comics], Bubba The Redneck Werewolf [Brass Ball Comics], Demonslayer [Avatar Press], Threshold [Avatar Press], Doc Dresden: The Immortal [Odyssey Comics], Jungle Fantasy [Avatar Press], The Garden [Planetary Stories], Fantastix [FYI Comics], Yin Yang [Arcana Comics], Lance Star: Sky Ranger [BEN Books], Urbnpop #1 [Urbnpop Comics], I Am Googol: The Great Invasion [Point G Comics], Domino Lady vs. The Mummy [Moonstone Books], and Airship 27 Presents All-Star Pulp Comics #1 [Airship 27/Red Bud Studios].
And there’s more to come.
I’ve not written under a pseudonym, but I did come up with a couple of good ones that I liked in case I ever decide to use one.
Morgen: Good grief, you could make a book out of your book titles. Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?
Bobby: Oh, of course. Rejections are part of the job and I get more of them than I’d like. You have to have a thick skin and not take the rejections personally, which is far easier to say than do. Rejections sting. You just have to set the rejections aside and keep moving forward.
Morgen: You do. Just the right thing for the wrong person. Have you won or been shortlisted in any competitions?
Bobby: I’ve had a few nominations for the Pulp Ark Awards and the Pulp Factory Awards. I’ve not won, but it is nice to get nominated.
Morgen: Other than blogger awards (I’ve won three ) I’ve not been Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?
Bobby: I do not have an agent. I have been looking for one, but the agent search has been a very demoralizing process so far. I will need one eventually as I would like to work with some of the larger publishing houses and the only way to make that happen is to have an agent.
Morgen: I’d say it is really, yes but you just have to keep plugging away. Are your books available as eBooks? Were you involved in that process at all? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Bobby: Many of the books I’ve worked on are ebooks. Some are not, although I hope they will be eventually. With most publishers I have no say in how the print or ebook editions are put together. Deadly Games! was an exception. I set that one up myself.
Morgen: I’m sure they all will as it’s where books are going. How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?
Bobby: I do a little bit of marketing work daily. The sad fact is that you’re only going to get so much of a marketing push from publishers. That’s just a fact of life. So I make sure I’m out there talking up my books. I learned early on that no one was going to promote my work more than me so I’d best learn how to promote my work if I wanted to let readers know it’s out there.
Morgen: All but one of the authors I’ve spoken to do their own marketing (and the other author does really via social networking) but the advantage is that we get to speak to our readers. Do you have a favourite of your books or characters? If any of your books were made into films, who would you have as the leading actor/s?
Bobby: Not sure if I have a favorite. Each book has a special place in my heart. It’s like choosing between your children. The one that is my favorite today might not be tomorrow.
I’ve not really given a lot of thought to who would play any of the characters in my books, but I’m sure if a production company wanted to make a movie out of one of my titles I could come up with a short list.
Morgen: Did you have any say in the titles / covers of your books? How important do you think they are?
Bobby: Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. It depends on the publisher and whether or not I take the project to the publisher or whether I come on to do work for hire. Mostly not as I do a lot of work for existing books so I’m hired top write a story only.
Titles are important. I think I’ve come up with some good ones so far.
Morgen: So do I. What are you working on at the moment / next?
Bobby: At the moment I am putting the finishing touches on a graphic novel script I’m co-writing with Mike Gordon for New Legend Productions. Not much I can reveal about that one at the moment. I also just started working on a novel featuring the pulp character Domino Lady for Moonstone Books. After that I have a couple of novellas due for a few different publishers then it’s back to work on Evil Intent, the sequel to my soon to be re-released novel, Evil Ways from New babel Books. 2012 is going to be a busy year.
Morgen: Aren’t they all? Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
Bobby: I write almost every day. There are some days where things happen and I just can’t get any work done. Like everything else, writing takes discipline. Since this is my job, I make sure to treat it as such so I don’t miss deadlines.
I don’t believe in Writer’s Block. As a writer friend of mine often says, and I quote, “Do plumbers get Plumber’s Block?” Sometimes the words don’t flow as well as others, certainly. When that happens I switch over to another project so I have a fresh perspective. Or I take a walk, do the laundry, or just get away from the computer for a bit. When I come back I’m relaxed and ready to go back to work.
Morgen: I interviewed crime writer Mark Billingham back in November and he said exactly the same thing (writer’s vs plumber’s block) and I agree. There are ways to get around getting stuck and as you say if you treat it as a day job your brain is likely to keep up. I should actually be saying that writer’s block is terrible (which it is if you do get stuck) and that I have a writer’s block workbook for sale but like anything if you don’t take something too seriously it doesn’t become an issue. Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Bobby: A little of both. I always have a loose idea when I start. With shorter pieces that’s usually enough to carry me through the storytelling process. With novels I have the major beats I need to hit plotted out and then I follow the characters and see which path they take to get from point A to point B. What I don’t do is outline. I’ve tried and it just doesn’t work for me. When I go back to start writing a story I’ve outlined I lose interest quickly because I feel like I’ve already told that story and don’t want to write it again.
Morgen: I don’t plot much although I’m just going back through my novels and am wondering whether I should put more down so I keep track of the threads but we’ll see. Do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?
Bobby: I don’t have a specific form I fill out or anything, but I try to get to know the characters I create the same way I would anyone I meet. I listen to them deal with situations and learn their quirks, habits, and expressions. If I truly get to know my characters then I can drop three characters into similar situations and each one will react to it differently, including coming up with a different resolution.
Morgen: We were talking about this in Helen Hunt’s workshop on Saturday; that some of us get images of what we think our characters look like (either from magazines or Google Images… other websites are available ). Do you write any non-fiction, poetry or short stories?
Bobby: I don’t write non-fiction or poetry. I do write the occasional short story for anthologies. I write for several anthologies. Pulp, action, sci fi, westerns, and more. Anthologies are a fun way to scratch certain creative itches. It’s nice to take risks by writing in unfamiliar territory. Anthologies help me do that.
Morgen: I’ve just had a story placed in a (charity) anthology and would love to have more out there. I reviewed some Sexy Shorts anthologies for my Short Story Saturdays page a couple of days ago and I’d love to have been in the other authors’ company. I guess it would help to send stories out, wouldn’t it? Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Bobby: I’d like to think that every word I type is pure gold, but the truth is that I need editing just like everyone else. I do a lot of my own editing during the writing process, but I’ve also worked with some really talented editors as well.
Morgen: Mine is great. Hi, Rachel. Do you have to do much research?
Bobby: I do a lot of research. How much or how little depends on the project. Google is my friend.
Morgen: Google has a lot of friends. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?
Bobby: I generally write my stories in third person, although different chapters may focus on a singular character’s point of view. I’ve written a few first person narratives when required, but it’s not my preferred method. I’ve not attempted second person. Not even sure how I’d begin.
Morgen: I write loads of it and am so passionate about it that I gave it its own blog page. Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?
Bobby: Probably. I’ve got a lot of started and abandoned pieces. Some may never be finished.
Morgen: I have loads of those but I’m hoping it’s only a time thing and that I will get round to going through them all. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?
Bobby: I love telling stories. I love getting positive feedback from readers and publishers. I’m not crazy about submitting or the hoops that seem to be involved with finding an agent. That’s not fun. As for surprises, I’m always surprised whenever someone recognizes me or my work.
Morgen: I had a lady at a party know my name (and loved my blog / podcast apparently)… told to / by one of my Flash Fiction Fridays podcast contributors. It still gives me a warm glowy feeling. What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Bobby: If you want to write, write. If you want to write as a career, then remember that it is a job and treat it accordingly. Sometimes that means sitting at home all weekend when you’d rather be out doing anything else. Sometimes it means sleepless nights, but the payoff is worth it. Ask yourself what success is for you and shoot for that as your goal.
Morgen: I sit at home all weekend (and weekdays) not wishing I’d rather be elsewhere but certainly that I did more writing. It’s worth it though because I get to meet some great authors. If you could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what would you cook (or hide the takeaway containers)?
Bobby: Wow. Good question.
Morgen: Oh, thanks, it’s one of the most recent.
Bobby: First, Stephen J. Cannell because I never got to meet him in person, although we did converse via email a couple of times. Second, Tom Baker, who was the Doctor Who I grew up with and it would be incredibly cool to meet him. Third, Stan Lee, who was partly responsible for the comics I read as a child that inspired me to start telling my own stories. As for the meal, I’d let them pick the place.
Morgen: I’ve only heard of Tom and he was my Doctor Who too – I had a scarf (probably knitted by my mum) just like his. Is there a word, phrase or quote you like?
Bobby: I say “cool” a lot. Usually, when I get a question like this I pull out a movie quote. Here’s one I use often from my favorite movie, JAWS. “Smile you sonuva–BOOM!” Dr. McCoy quotes from Star Trek are usually good too. Bones had the best lines.
Morgen: I didn’t watch much Star Trek (actually I think I did, I grew up with an older brother after all) but none of it has stuck, other than “beam me up Scottie” of course. Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?
Bobby: I’ve dabbled with editing. I co-write a weekly column for New Pulp (www.newpulpfiction.com) with fellow writers Barry Reese and Mike Bullock called Table Talk. I am one of the co-hosts of the weekly Earth Station One podcast (www.esopodcast.com) along with Mike Faber and Mike Gordon. I also write blog entries about writing at my website (www.bobbynash.com) as well as on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc…
Morgen: What do you do when you’re not writing?
Bobby: Not writing? That’s usually eating, sleeping, or watching TV. It’s a very simple life I lead, no? I do the normal things that people do. I go to the grocery store, hang out with friends, catch a movie here and there, go out to meals, read, do yard work, spend time with my family, things like that.
Morgen: I’d agree with the first bit. If I’m not writing (or rather involved with this blog) I’m eating (actually I do that at the same time), sleeping (ditto ) and the occasional movie, either at home or the cinema. Are there any writing-related websites and / or books that you find useful?
Bobby: I don’t spend a lot of time reading how to sites or books. Not because I don’t think they’re a great resource, but because I’m usually too busy writing to read about the process of writing. One resource that I do use often is Preditors & Editors (http://pred-ed.com).
Morgen: Ah yes, I’ve recommended that on several occasions. Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?
Bobby: Absolutely. I am on many forums and social networking sites. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linked-In, several writers forums, marketing forums, book forums, published author forums, comic book creator forums, and on and on. I even started a Pinterest page recently although I haven’t quite got the hang of that one yet. I have a list on my website, www.bobbynash.com.
Social networks and forums are great ways to connect with fans, readers, peers, publishers, friends, and potential customers. I find them very helpful and quite fun to use.
Morgen: I’d only just heard of Pinterest really recently and still have no clue. Fortunately multi-genre author and interviewee Phyllis Zimbler Miller is going to do a guest piece for me (and everyone else of course) on the topic on Tuesday 5th June so hopefully I can get suitably excited then. What do you think the future holds for a writer?
Bobby: I think the future is bright. The publishing industry, like so many others, is currently in a state of flux. I look forward to seeing how the publishing industry evolves and I hope I get to come along for the ride.
Morgen: Where can we find out about you and your work?
Bobby: My main website is www.bobbynash.com and there are links to my work all over the site. Plus, I’m all over the internet. Just Google Bobby Nash and you’ll find me.
Morgen: Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Bobby: I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to appear on your site. Thanks.
Morgen: You’re very welcome. Thank you for taking part. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?
Bobby: With all of the interviews you do for the website, what are some of the more surprising responses you’ve received?
Morgen: One that comes to mind is crime novelist Sheila Quigley who said that it had taken her 30 years to get published. I have 23 to go. But seriously, that’s some staying power. Thank you, Bobby, lovely to speak to you.
I then invited Bobby to include an extract of his writing and this is an excerpt from his latest novel, Deadly Games! from BEN Books (http://BEN-Books.blogspot.com has more information).
The Rusty Mug Pub was widely known as a favored hangout for the city of Atlanta’s Law Enforcement Professionals.
Simply put, The Mug, as it was affectionately called, was a cop bar.
From the outside, the Rusty Mug Pub looked like a relic from a bygone era where everything had a rustic, old home feel. The wrought iron grating running along the outer edges of the concrete tiled sidewalk was older than most of the bar’s patrons. The walls were made up of deftly placed red bricks made from red Georgia clay. The bricks had probably been manufactured not far away from the very spot many, many years earlier. Who knows, perhaps maybe even before Sherman’s famous fire sale all those many decades past. The place looked like it should have been on a historic tour line instead of serving as a local dive.
It was the kind or place Norman Rockwell would have painted in his day.
And thanks to the clientele, it was a place where everyone truly knew your name and one place no one would ever dare think of robbing.
The Mug was a beautiful place on the outside and the patrons loved it, but the inside told the true tale. On an average night thick smoke would fill the air and the smell of alcohol and cheap cologne would mingle with the smoke from at least a dozen cigars, forming a fragrance unique to the Rusty Mug.
From his secret lair in the wilds of Bethlehem, Georgia, Bobby Nash writes. A multitasker, Bobby’s certain that he does not suffer from ADD, but instead he… ooh, shiny. When he finally manages to put fingers to the keyboard, Bobby writes novels, comic books, short prose, novellas, graphic novels, and even a little pulp fiction just for good measure. And despite what his brother says, Bobby isn’t addicted to buying DVDs and can quit anytime he wants.
When not writing fiction, Bobby attends conventions and writers conferences, promotes his books, teaches writing courses and panels, and is a part-time extra in movies and television. Bobby is the co-host of the weekly Earth Station One podcast (www.esopodcast.com) and writes for New Pulp (www.newpulpfiction.com) and All Pulp (http://allpulp.blogspot.com) news sites.
For more information on Bobby Nash please visit him at www.bobbynash.com, www.facebook.com/bobbyenash, www.twitter.com/bobbynash, www.lance-star.com, and http://BEN-Books.blogspot.com among other places across the web.
***
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The twenty-first prompt from online writing group Tuesday Tales (my fifteenth story for them) was ‘daffodils’ and below is the result. You can read the other writers’ stories for that prompt (please do) here.
Tuesday Tales provides a new prompt each week, the members 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 Joachim. She then posts them on the Tuesday Tales blog (on a Tuesday ), gives us the link then we go out and shout about it. So, without further ado, here is my 454-worder, and strangely this week isn’t second-person viewpoint.
Eddie’s Fault
“Daffodils, Eddie! Mum’s favourites are daffodils. What are these?”
“Gerberas, my love,” Eddie replied, deflated. “It’s all the shop had left.”
“I suppose it would make a change,” she conceded.
Eddie looked at the vases of daffodils filling the hospital bedside table and nodded. “How is she?”
My love, Thelma, burst into tears.
“She’ll be fine, my love,” Eddie said reaching out for his wife’s hand, which remained in her lap.
“She won’t! And stop calling me ‘my love’!”
“I’m sorry, my… People come out of comas all the time. I could bring the CD player and her favourite Andre Rieu… might cheer them up too.” Eddie looked at the only other bed in the room; at the other crying relatives, the other silent patient.
“It’s your fault she’s here!” Thelma snapped, bringing his attention back to her.
“My fault?”
“If you hadn’t… oh, there’s the doctor.” Thelma leapt to her feet. “Dr Chapada…”
“Chapadandraha, Mrs Boyle.”
“Yes, quite.” Thelma looked at Eddie, who was still seated, and glared at him.
He duly stood and waited for Thelma to continue, not an expert on hospitals but an expert on Thelma.
“Any news, Doctor?”
“The tests have come back negative…”
Thelma yelped and grabbed Eddie’s hand who yelped as she crushed it.
“I’m sorry…” the doctor started.
Thelma whimpered.
“No, I mean…”
“Will she be OK?” Eddie chipped in.
“Should be fine, Mr Boyle.”
“Should be?” Thelma eased up on her grip of Eddie’s hand.
“She’s under an induced coma, Mrs Boyle, but her brain activity is normal so in usual circumstances, patients even with her level of crush injuries do go on to make a recovery.”
“Full recovery?” Thelma pressed.
“We’ll know more when she wakes.”
“Thank you,” Thelma said, a little more cheerful.
The doctor nodded and went to the other bed, where an elderly man had had complications after heart surgery.
Thelma returned to her chair and sank slowly, staring at her mother as she lay unconscious, every now and then eyelids twitching.
Eddie watched his wife sit down then joined her. He replayed the events of the previous day in his head; of Thelma driving him back from the supermarket, of her mother coming out of the house to greet them, of the cat dashing across the driveway from under a bush, of Thelma’s confusion between foot pedals and the screaming.
“Thelma,” Eddie started gently. “Thelma,” he repeated, knowing she’d heard but not responded. “What did you mean when you said it was my fault?”
Thelma turned to him, the glare returned. “He’s your cat!”
There was one thing Eddie knew; he was only ever right when Thelma was wrong and he wasn’t going to hold his breath on that one.
The links to the earlier prompts, and resulting stories, and the forthcoming prompts can be found on this blog’s Tuesday Tales page. Do go and check out the Tuesday Tales blog – it’s a wonderful idea supported by talented 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo, and Amazon, with more to follow. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me. Finally, I also now have a new blog creation service especially for writers: http://icanbuildyourwritingblog.wordpress.com.
Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively 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 and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: daffodils, flash fiction, jean joachim, short stories, Tuesday Tales, writing group
Welcome to the three hundred and fifty-fourth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with fantasy and religious fiction author and 30-day challengee Christopher C Starr. 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, Chris. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Chris: Hey everybody! So happy to be here. Something about myself…hmmm. Well, I’m shorter than I sound on paper, my favorite color is blue, I’m an Aquarius (and, ladies, I like candlelight dinners and long walks on the beach). My favourite food is lasagne (and I married an Italian), I frequently change the words to popular songs to suit my mood (or embarrass my kids) and I honestly, sincerely hate pandas.
Everyone says they’ve been writing as long as they can remember. I believe that to a certain extent: I think the combination of your perspective and experiences shape how and what you write. For example, I spent the first 5 years of my life in New Jersey where I learned, among other things, just how tough my head is. I sustained 5 concussions before I was six years old—highlights include running headlong into a brick wall, falling headfirst off a slide, and my younger sister hitting me in back of the head with an iron-cast frying pan. It was bad enough the insurance company advised my parents to make me wear a helmet. You gain a unique perspective on the world from experiences like that. I think it has definitely shaped my sense of humor. I live in Seattle now, where I have plenty of rain and far fewer head injuries.
Morgen: Ah, poor pandas… but then I’ve never met one so what do I know? What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?
Chris: My first novel is a combination of fantasy and religious fiction, along the lines of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. My blog, though, is definitely humorous and seeks to understand how and why I see the world like I do. I’d love to write in every genre. I think it stretches you as a writer and I love a challenge.
Morgen: Me too. I can’t seem to settle on one, although I say I write dark and light so that probably covers pretty much everything. What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Chris: My debut novel is The Road to Hell, and it’s the story of the war in Heaven, the fall of Lucifer and the dawn of humanity, all told from the perspective of the angels. I use my own name—I think Christopher C. Starr is an awesome author name.
Morgen: Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?
Chris: When it comes to my writing, I’m a control freak. When I first started writing, I pursued an agent but got rejected a few times. The first one hurt: who would not want this story? It’s amazing, right? But I started writing around the time the self-publishing boom was taking hold and decided to circumvent the submission / rejection process by publishing it myself.
Morgen: Me too. I didn’t try many (a dozen or so) but I love having the choices self-publishing (eBooks) gives you (me). You said you tried to get an agent, do you think they are vital to an author’s success?
Chris: I do think they absolutely have a role to play, even with the dynamics in the publishing world. Yes we have more access to tell our stories but agents to help grease the skids and provide access and expertise to markets the new author isn’t aware of. I’m a fan of anyone I can learn from.
Morgen: Me too… that’s why I keep going on courses, to conferences etc., but then I just being immersed in writing. Are your books available as eBooks? Were you involved in that process at all? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Chris: My books are available as eBooks and paper. I’m a hands-on type of guy so I learned InDesign to do the layout of my book for print. I did get professional help on the cover and the conversion from print to eBook. I like a challenge but I recognize my limitations.
As far as what I like to read, I do both. I’m impatient so when I find a book online, I love that I can download it and have it right NOW. However, bookstores are my guilty pleasure and I LOVE the feel of paper between my fingertips. There is something very special about holding, touching a book and still gives me goosebumps.
Morgen: I love paper books too but am nerdy about damaging the spines so like hardbacks where I can (although they take up more space) but you don’t get either with a Kindle (and I’ve just treated myself to the new Touch). How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?
Chris: I’m trying to do it all, learning as I go along. I’m learning the power of social networking, taking each bit step by step. I get the blog thing—that much is fun and particularly therapeutic for me. I’ve also learned a lot from my writing through it—just by following stats, I can see which posts resonate with people and which ones fall flat. I’m up to my ankles in Twitter—I kinda get it but it’s tough for me. I also have a full-time job, a wife, 2 kids and a dog and an insane desire to keep writing. Branding is tough. I recently made a food-for-work deal with a Marketing student. We’ll see what she comes up with.
Morgen: I try and keep up with my stats but with nearly 900 postings it’s hard. I just think you need to have a mixture of content and so many of the older posts are still being read that I think it’s good to have variety. Do you have a favourite of your characters? If your book were made into a film, whom would you have as the leading actor/s?
Chris: My favorite character is definitely Lucifer. He’s the most complex character I can imagine: he experiences the full gamut of emotions in his relationship with God and his emotional arc takes him literally from the heights of Heaven to the depths of Hell. It’s quite a journey but he gets to be so deliciously mean along the way and he enjoys every minute of it. Lucifer is incredibly fun to write. If it were to made into a movie, I’d have Terence Howard or Bradley Cooper as Lucifer (who actually was cast as Lucifer in the upcoming Paradise Lost movie) and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson or Idris Elba as Michael.
Morgen: “deliciously mean”, I love that. I’m a big fan of Bradley Cooper (‘Limitless’ was brilliant) but Idris Elba is a great choice. I missed the first series of Luther but had heard the hype and so saw the second. I rarely watch TV (too busy) but let’s just say I’m selective (Dexter is another ‘won’t miss’). Did you have any say in the covers of your books? How important do you think they are?
Chris: My wife is a graphic / web designer. I had plenty of say in the covers. She won. Even in this electronic age a cover is vital. A raggedy cover looks cheap and unprofessional and readers will expect the writing is equally bad. Invest in your cover. Do it professionally.
Morgen: What are you working on at the moment / next?
Chris: I have three things in front of my right now: Come Hell or Highwater, which is the sequel to The Road to Hell; a screenplay, which will serve as the outline for my next novel, Rabid (yes, I outline in screenplay form—I see all my writings as movies); and a Celebration of Wickedness—30 days of blog posting about some of my favorite villains in literature and cinema.
Morgen: Rather you than me on the screenplay. I wrote 102 pages for Script Frenzy and found it far too bitty (but I liked the story so have it as part of a novel). Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
Chris: I don’t write every day. I know: I suck. I want to. Between work and family and my trash tv fetish, I skip it. I never have writer’s block, though. For me, writer’s block doesn’t exist: in my experience it’s usually the writer fighting against what the story wants that causes the writer’s block. The story wants to go one way but the writer doesn’t. Stories have lives of their own. They go where they need to and once you write them into existence, they do and say what they want. And no writer escapes unscathed. Writing is about honesty; writer’s block occurs when the writer is not honest about what needs to be written. My cure for writer’s block: stop trying to write it and just write it. Once you get out of your own way, it gets easier.
Morgen: You don’t suck at all. I keep saying that 300 words a day is 100,000 words a year but I do about that (the 300 not the 100,000!) a week for Tuesday Tales and if I didn’t have that… Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Chris: I get an idea and usually mull it over for a few days, twisting and turning it so I can get a better feel for the scenario or the characters. Until I can see a scene—see how they move and react and get a feel for the story. Once I can see it, once I can hear it, I can write it. I kind of outline: I do use Viki King’s How to Write A Movie in 21 Days method. I break everything down into a movie script, mainly because dialogue is the toughest for me and screenplays rely on dialogue. I also like the pacing movies have. Once the screenplay is written, I write a draft from there.
Morgen: You mentioned a couple of your characters earlier, do you have a method for creating then, their names… what do you think makes them believable?
Chris: Characters are always a part of you so I incorporate things that I see from real people—little traits or phrasing they use. Things that make them come alive. I say every line of dialogue out loud (often in public) and hold entire conversations with myself. If I can’t make those conversations sound believable, it’s back to the drawing board.
Last summer, I took my daughter to the movies and she saw the trailer for the Green Lantern. In the trailer, they say that only one man can save the Earth. She looks at me and says, “Why is it always a man? Why can’t a girl save the world?” Valid point. It wasn’t until then that I realized how few female characters, especially females of color, there are in popular fiction. I’m going to be writing heroines for a while. For her.
Morgen: It’s amazing the difference saying something in your head to out loud – it’s so much easier to spot flaws out loud. I’m planning to see the new Marvel Avengers movie on Tuesday (my treat after my Red Cross stint) and Scarlett Johansson plays a strong woman in that… but yes, heavily male-dominated. Do you write any non-fiction, poetry or short stories?
Chris: Only non-fiction is on my blog. I can’t do poetry—I don’t get it—although I used to write rap lyrics in college. I have one short story so far. I’m too long-winded.
Morgen: It’s so funny you should say that about poetry, it’s exactly what I say (about not getting it, not writing rap lyrics ) but short stories are my first love so I have over 100 of those (probably over 200 but I haven’t been counting recently). Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Chris: I don’t think you ever stop editing. I never want to. I look at everything I’ve written and, though I think it’s done after the first pass, I always find stuff I would change or do over. Finding that happy spot between it being done and that one more thing is tough.
Morgen: I agree but I suppose a second opinion helps with that. Do you have to do much research?
Chris: I’m a lazy writer. I make stuff up. As I switch genres, I’m sure I’ll have to do more research but, right now, it’s all the fruit of my imagination, baby.
Morgen: What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?
Chris: I used to be wholly a third-person type of writer. And then I heard Lucifer’s voice, clear as day, and I wrote it just like I heard it. Haven’t been able to go back. Since I tend to write in the gray (I don’t think anyone is wholly good or wholly evil), I like being able to describe, from their point of view, that descent from good to evil. I like that transition and I like the inner monologue that accompanies such a fall.
I’ve never tried writing in second-person and I think the only time I’ve ever read it was those Choose Your Own Adventure books that came out when I was a kid.
Morgen: I love second person – and most of the shorts on my Tuesday Tales page are second person but I do remember the Choose Your Own from my (sort of) childhood… Will Sutton mentioned those only yesterday. Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?
Chris: All of my writing is utterly fantastic. At least it is in my mind. The first full thing I remember writing was a screenplay sequel to the 1986 Transformers movie. I remember creating something called Dragatrons. Not my finest hour.
Morgen: But you’re oh so much wiser now so you can fix it. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?
Chris: My favorite aspect of my writing life is that it exists at all. There are so many frustrated writers who want to see their words in print but they can only see one way to do it. They’re silenced but, in many ways they’ve silenced themselves. And they miss out on this fantastic writers’ community. It’s like a special club only a few people get to be a part of.
The least favorite aspect is the business end of it all. Praying for someone to actually purchase my book. Hoping someone reads my blog. Finding ways to be heard over the cacophony of people talking all at the same time. Trying to find time to manage that part of the writing life with the part of life that isn’t writing.
The thing that surprised me at all is that people actually read and like what I write. Writing is such a solitary endeavor and you’re writing for this enigmatic “reader” that you never get to see. It’s cool when they finally start to have names, faces, opinions. That makes it fun.
Morgen: I’ve had a lot of writers say the same thing (about the surprise and least favourite). It’s great speaking to your readers but there’s no doubt that marketing takes away precious time from the actual deed of writing (so I may be mad but I’m starting up a service to create blogs for other writers – details on my writer for hire page – we shall see how popular that is (or not). What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Chris: Do it. Don’t aspire. Don’t reconsider and mull it over and plot and plan ad infinitum. Do it. Commit. Put words on the page. Tell your story and forget about trying to sell it. Tell the story you’re meant to tell, not the one you think we’ll buy. That’s the story I want to read,
Morgen: Because the passion will be behind it. If you could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what would you cook (or hide the takeaway containers)?
Chris: Paul Robeson (the 20th century Renaissance man), Leonardo da Vinci (the real Renaissance man), and Stevie Wonder. We’d have pizza.
Morgen: Can we make that four people and I’ll join you (Stevie Wonder’s ‘Lately’ is one of my favourite songs). Is there a word, phrase or quote you like?
Chris: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Morgen: In other words, the old 300 words a day is a 100,000 novel in a year. Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?
Chris: Nah. I work for a talent management software company as a training manager.
Morgen: ‘talent management software’ wow… the geek in me is intrigued by that. What do you do when you’re not writing?
Chris: When I’m not writing, I’m fantasizing about not doing P90X, watching movies, laughing at people fall, and hanging out with my husky, Rocky the WonderDog.
Morgen: Cute. Are there any writing-related websites and/or books that you find useful?
Chris: I’m passionate about the Indie Book Collective and the Creative Penn. I mentioned Viki King’s How to Write a Movie in 21 Days.
Morgen: Joanna Penn (aka The Creative Penn) was here earlier this month… Easter Sunday in fact. Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?
Chris: I’m on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and Edgy Christian Fiction. They are valuable and I’ve met some fantastic writers and bloggers. Keeping up with it is tough—at least it is for me. I think I’d get more out of it with a more cohesive strategy. Still working on that.
Morgen: What do you think the future holds for a writer?
Chris: I think the future is richer than ever. The gate is being crushed. I think we have a lot of work as indies to bring up the quality of our work, to act as our own gatekeepers, so to speak. But I think the opportunity to take your story directly to the reader, directly to the world is phenomenal. I think it only gets better from here.
Morgen: I hope so… it’s exciting. Where can we find out about you and your work?
Chris: You can find me at my blog (www.christophercstarr.net), on Goodreads, Facebook or Twitter (@SuperStarr73). My book is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Morgen: Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Chris: Thank you so much for having me! I think what you’re doing is fantastic for writers like me and I can’t thank you enough.
Morgen: Oh, you’re very welcome. It has rather consumed me over the past year (and 29 days, but who’s counting ) but it’s very rewarding (if not in book sales, definitive trickle), in visits to the blog (53,000 in that time) and of course getting to meet so many writers. I live and breathe it so it’s wonderful. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?
Chris: When are you coming to the States? I owe you a drink.
Morgen: Planes and I don’t get on so whoever invents time travel or computer-to-computer transmission of liquids first gets my business. Thank you, Chris. Good luck with the rest of your 30-day challenge, last day tomorrow… then I start Story a Day.
Christopher C. Starr is the author of The Road to Hell: The Book of Lucifer, the first novel in the Heaven Falls series. These stories examine the God’s relationship with Heaven and Earth, told through the eyes of the angels. The next book in the series, Come Hell or Highwater, is scheduled for late 2012 / early 2013.
Chris makes it a point to look at the dark side of his characters, both heroes and villains, and his work explores the “grey”—that place where good and evil come together in all of us.
When he’s not being chased out of churches, Chris enjoys comic books and movies, staying away from cemeteries, and poorly participating in P90X. He lives in Seattle with his wife, two kids (The Boy and the Honey Badger), and his husky, Rocky the WonderDog.
***
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 information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
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Complementing my daily blog interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the eightieth, is of mystery, suspense author and interviewee Patricia Gligor.
Patricia Gligor lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. She enjoys reading mystery / suspense novels, touring and photographing old houses and traveling, especially to the ocean to see lighthouses. She has worked as an administrative assistant, the sole proprietor of a résumé writing service and the manager of a sporting goods department for a local retail chain but her passion has always been writing fiction. Mixed Messages, the first novel in her Malone Mystery Series, was published earlier this month by Post Mortem Press and is available on the publisher’s website and Amazon.com.
And now from the author herself:
“If you can dream it, you can do it!”
Three years ago, my position as an administrative assistant for a large corporation was eliminated company wide. Literally, one minute, I had a job and, the next minute, I didn’t. At first, I was devastated. I’d worked there for eleven years and planned to stay until I was old enough to retire. I was making a decent amount of money and I had great benefits. Why would I leave? But, suddenly, I had no choice.
Except that I did have a choice. I could choose to wallow in self-pity, worried about whether or not I’d be able to make it financially considering the current economy, and I could resent my former employer or I could choose to make the most of the wonderful gift of time I’d been given.
I opted for the second choice and I got serious about my writing career. My dream had always been to become a published author and I’d written Mixed Messages over the course of more years than I care to say. It took that long because I’d let my job and other obligations get in the way of pursuing my dream.
So, for the first time in my life, I made writing a priority! I spent more hours each week writing than I’d ever spent at my full-time job. First, I went through Mixed Messages, rewriting and editing. Then, I plotted, outlined and wrote the second book for my Malone mystery series. At times, it was scary but I held on to the belief that “If you’ll do what you can, God will do what you can’t.”
And He did! He brought some very special people into my life. Sunny Frazer and the members of her Posse, an online marketing group, taught me the importance of establishing an online presence and guided me in how to do that. Catherine Hershberger, a member of the Queen City Writers critique group, gave me invaluable constructive criticism on the first three chapters of my novel, which greatly improved the book.
Then, a friend of mine, Jan Thomas, realizing that I was finally “serious” about my writing, went out of her way to tell me about a local event that a couple of small press publishers were scheduled to attend. I met Eric Beebe, the publisher of Post Mortem Press, that day and immediately sent him my query. Three months later, he sent me the contract to publish Mixed Messages! My dream had come true!
Morgen, I’d like to thank you for having me here today. I hope your readers will visit me at: http://pat-writersforum.blogspot.com.
Yes, folks, please do. You’re so welcome Patricia, it’s great to have you back here.
Patricia can also be found at http://www.postmortem-press.com/mixed.php and http://pat-writersforum.blogspot.com and her books are available from Amazon.com.
The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with short story author, article writer and 30-day challengee Christopher Starr – the three hundred and fifty-fourth 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 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore, Kobo and Amazon, with more to follow. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me.
Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively 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 and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: Catherine Hershberger, Eric Beebe, fiction, mystery, mystery suspense, novels, Patricia Gligor, Post Mortem Press, Queen City Writers, Sunny Frazier, suspense, suspense author, suspense novels, writing
Welcome to the Short Story Saturday review slot and the tenth review in this series. This week’s is of the Sexy Shorts charity anthologies by Accent Press.
Anyone who knows me or has been following this blog will know how much I love my short stories and none more so than funny ones (and dark ones) and the Sexy Shorts series are just my thing. Although the stories are predominantly written by women (and quite probably for women), Robert Barnard, Bill Harris and David Wass to name three of the male contributors, they have something for everyone. Each book is themed and I have…
- Sexy Shorts for Summer: including stories by Cathy Kelly, Fiona Walker, Adele Parks, Carole Matthews, Jane Wenham Jones, Lynne Barrett-Lee and over thirty others. One of my favourites (and not because she’s a prospective interviewee but probably because it’s about two writers ) is short story author, novelist and writing guru Della Galton’s story ‘Waiting’. As you would expect these stories are written with a summer theme but in most cases this is just timing and with titles such as Julie Cohen’s ‘Whipped Cream Dreams’ (I’ll never see Sainsbury’s and stationery binders in the same light ) and Sara Sheridan’s ‘HP Sauce’ just make sure you’ve eaten before you start reading them. Julie Cohen did a talk last weekend, by the way, at the Chipping Norton Literature Festival, on writing sex scenes – it was fantastic!
- Staying on the topic of food is the Sexy Shorts for Chef collection, foreworded by Anthony Worrall Thompson. As you would expect they revolve around food but are so varied that you get caught up with the story not the theme. Top names such as Adele Parks, Sophie King and Veronica Henry mix with lesser known authors and that’s what I love about these collections, even if you think you know an author’s writing, there are still pleasant surprises in store… occasionally perhaps where a novelist is outside their comfort zone (although this is not a bad thing).
- Jane, Katie Fforde and Sue Moorcroft appear amongst many others (including better-known-for-her-crime-writing Lesley Cookman) in Sexy Shorts for Christmas and although you would expect all the stories in this collection to be Christmas-themed (and best read at that time of year) surprisingly they’re not; Jane’s (hilarious Carla’s Gift) and Lesley’s (Wedding Day) being two of the exceptions and like the others in the series they’re so varied that they needn’t be themed at all.
- Sexy Shorts for the Beach is another light read and as ‘Woman’ magazine put it, “A fine collection of heart-warming stories”. Of course there are levels of heart-warming but suffice to say they all have a degree of ‘sexy’. Regular short story authors in this collection include Jan Jones, Linda Mitchelmore and Sally Quilford.
With each story averaging less than 10 pages they’re perfect for a coffee (or my case, tea) break. Whatever your taste in short story, there’s something for everyone here and with a contribution from every new copy sold going to Cancer Research, even if the book sits on your shelf you’ll have had a warm glow from knowing you did your good deed for the day… or in my case four of them.
If you’d like to submit your story (50 to 2,500 words) for review take a look here.
Mystery / suspense author and interviewee Patricia Gligor’s spotlight follows shortly then the blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with short story author, article writer and 30-day challengee Christopher Starr – the three hundred and fifty-forth 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 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo. My eBooks are also now on Amazon, with more to follow. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me.
Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively 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 and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: Accent Press, Adele Parks, anthology, Anthony Worrall Thompson, Bill Harris, Cancer Research, Carole Matthews, Cathy Kelly, collection, David Wass, Della Galton, Fiona Walker, hp sauce, Jan Jones, Jane Wenham Jones, Julie Cohen, Katie Fforde, Linda Mitchelmore, Literature Festival, lynne barrett, Lynne Barrett-Lee, Robert Barnard, Sally Quilford, Sara Sheridan, short stories, Sophie King, Sue Moorcroft, Veronica Henry
Welcome to the three hundred and fifty-third of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with writer and publisher Will Sutton. 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, Will. Please tell us something about yourself.
Will: My name is William Sutton (Will for short) and I’m currently based in Cambridge, England, although later this year, I’ll be moving to Wilhelmshaven in Germany.
Morgen: I love Germany. How did you come to be a writer?
Will: I wrote my first book in grade school, when I was 11 years old. My friend and I wanted to write a few comic books and sell them to our friends at school. His contribution was to tell everyone and help sell the book, but I actually wrote and drew the comic, which later became Ollie the Octopus.
Morgen: What fun. You run Safkhet Publishing, can you please briefly explain the structure of your publishing house… perhaps who’s involved along the process of an acceptance to the book / story being published.
Will: Our company structure is very straightforward. Kim, who is both my business partner and my wife, and I are wholly responsible for the day-to-day activities of Safkhet. We’ve divided up management responsibility for the imprints: her imprints are Safkhet Cookery and Safkhet Soul, and my imprint is Safkhet Fantasy. We both manage books in the Safkhet Select imprint, as these are books that (a) don’t fit into the other imprints and (b) we believe in them anyway.
Morgen: “we believe in them”, I love that. How does a writer submit to you?
Will: Generally, we only accept submissions that follow our submission guidelines on our webpage. Submissions sent here are rerouted to the appropriate imprint managing editor, depending on the genre of the manuscript. If the manuscript passes our rigorous testing and analysis, it is discussed in editorial meetings that we have while we walk Mozart, the office manager and family dog, in the park. Assuming the book is a go, then we write up a contract, get it signed, and begin the arduous process of copyediting and proofing, cover design, text layout, and (most importantly) marketing the book to be.
Morgen: My dog thinks he’s the manager too so I let him and we have editing meetings like your editorial. Do you write yourself? If so does this help with deciding which projects to take on?
Will: Yes, I do write myself. I think it only helps with deciding in that I understand what it is like to submit your “baby” – your manuscript that you’ve slaved for years over – to the publisher. Otherwise, we accept books that either fit our imprint or we personally like.
Morgen: The $64,000 question: out of all the submissions you receive, what makes a book / story stand out for all the right reasons?
Will: For me and for Safkhet Fantasy, I really only want to publish the books that really move me or stand out among the crowd. The work has to be grammatically and content-wise great already, the characters well-developed, and the storyline and plot gripping or downright hilarious. I’ve read quite a few fantasy books in my life and it’s got to be really, really good. Otherwise, I can’t put my soul and effort behind it 1000%.
Morgen: Absolutely. Like a writer, if you don’t care it’ll show. You mentioned your various imprints, what genres do you accept? What would you suggest an author do with a cross-genre piece of writing?
Will: We accept cookery, romcom, fantasy and some non-fiction. As non-fiction does not have its own imprint, it’s got to be really moving or interesting to get accepted. Cross-genre works might be accepted – that’s what Safkhet Select is for. I suggest authors submit if they’re willing to do what we ask them to do – help 1000% in promoting and selling their books, for example.
Morgen: Every author (bar one and she’s still active on Twitter / Facebook) I’ve spoken to has realised they need to actively market themselves. It’s a tough job but they know it’s a necessity these days. Is there a genre that sells better than others or that you can’t get enough of?
Will: I’ve just been recently convinced that romcom is a big seller. I used to think fantasy was a winner, but the hype over Recipes for Disaster is starting to convince me. Me personally though, I really like fantasy and science fiction. However, the sci-fi I want to see more of is the William Gibson / Philip Dick / Aldous Huxley types of sci-fi: near-future, post-apocalyptic or alternate reality. Also, I think I could get interested in steampunk, but only if it has a magical quality to it.
Morgen: I’m glad to hear about romcom – I submitted a chick lit I wrote to three agents at Winchester Writers Conference last July and was told by more than one (to my face) that “chick lit is dead”. I’m sure the chick lit authors out there would have been pleased to hear that (not). You mentioned earlier how to submit, can you suggest some do’s and don’t’s when submitting to you.
Will: Do follow the guidelines, be honest, be personal but respectful and be ready to take direct constructive criticism. Don’t not follow the guidelines (:)), flip out if we reject your work, submit horror or erotic works, send mass-mailings, or be impersonal. We want authors who are real people and who want to work for their book. If we can’t see that the author has taken the time to send to us directly, then that author will have a hard time fitting into our Safkhet family.
Morgen: And that’s the impression I get. I’ve interviewed three of your authors so far (Sheryl Browne, Bruce Moore and Will Macmillan Jones), and went to Sheryl’s book talk recently (which was great; we ended up having a conversation about second person viewpoint ), and it does feel like a ‘family’ which an author would want from their publisher, an advantage perhaps over a larger publishing house. This is a question that I ask authors but I think is just as relevant to you as a publisher: what was the first book / story you published?
Will: Our first book was Ollie the Octopus. It can be downloaded for free on our website, and it is an interactive PDF, with the original artwork.
Morgen: I did, and it’s really sweet (so I ‘liked’ and tweeted it ). To your knowledge, have any of your published books / stories won or been shortlisted in any competitions?
Will: No, but we are looking for as many ways for our authors to get into these competitions.
Morgen: What do you feel about an author writing under a pseudonym? Do you think they make a difference to their profile? And would you recommend an author writing under different names for different genres?
Will: There’s absolutely nothing wrong with an author writing under a pseudonym. It is only important that the author is able to keep up with the social media contacts under that pseudonym. Having one identity in the world might be easy, but handle two – or even three, as I’ve seen with some authors – and the work involved in keeping those identities up-to-date becomes phenomenal. I don’t see any reason why an author would write under different names for different genres, especially because one name is hard enough to keep popular. I understand that an author might want a different name if the name was connected with a certain genre, such as Stephen King with horror. But then developing the following that the author has under the other name becomes a huge effort, once again because the other name has no following. In the end, it is not really relevant whether your fans read your horror fiction, crime fiction, fantasy or non-fiction political books, so long as they read them – and buy them.
Morgen: Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine), Joanna Trollope (Caroline Harvey) and Nora Roberts (JD Robb) write under those pen names but their followers know that but I guess they don’t want their usual readers to pick up their book expecting one thing and getting another but yes, being known as one name is hard enough. Now for, in theory, a simple question: what’s your opinion of eBooks, do you publish them and do you read them?
Will: I think eBooks are another great way to get a book out to the public. There are readers who want to read on computers, and would rather download and read on their technological devices than read a book in the paper version. Not providing material to these readers is cutting out a significant portion of the reading market.
Most of our books are available as eBooks on the Kindle. You can easily find them by going to the book’s page at http://www.safkhetpublishing.com and clicking on the links on the left side of the page.
Morgen: Most of the people I’ve spoken to (myself included… although that would imply that I talk to myself ) say they read both formats. I love knowing when I go out that I have 400+ books available should I have some time to kill, but I have so many paper books at home that I don’t think I’ll get through them all in my lifetime. Poetry and short stories are, in my opinion anyway, the two most hard done by genres… what do you see as the future for them? Do you think the eBook revolution will help given that eBooks seem to be getting shorter?
Will: Poetry definitely has a niche and can still hold its own, but for the mass market, poetry may be just a bit too esoteric. Those publishers of poetry are strong in their market. They don’t try to hit the mass market, because they know that the mass market isn’t interested in poetry – they want easy and fast reads. So long as there are lovers of poetry, there will be a demand. Short stories are difficult to deal with, as they need to be in collections or anthologies – and the quality of the stories vary greatly, not just from story to story but from author to author. Take Ray Bradbury, for example. Ray Bradbury was a great writer, prolific in the science fiction and fantasy genres. He’s one of my favorite authors. His book “The Martian Chronicles” is a collection of short stories focused on Earth’s colonization of Mars, and the destruction of the Martian society in the process. As a whole, I think it’s brilliant work. But within, there are stories that are just too weird, too esoteric for the mass market. These days, only those who read it contemporarily even remember it – only those who either read it as a kid or are still involved in the genre even know about it. If you ask those readers, they’ll most likely say that Bradbury’s work is great stuff – but when pressed, they might just admit that not all of it was that great. Another popular contemporary short story writer is John Updike. Updike wrote some great stories, too, but some of them are just either too esoteric to understand, or just not very good. The stories are carried on as works of art, but not because the work was good, rather because they were written by John Updike.
EBooks are just another method of distributing content. The biggest issue I have with eBooks is that they are relatively easy to produce. I should mention that good eBooks are still just as difficult to produce as physical books are. However with the Kindle Direct Publishing and the number of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) software programs that convert Word documents into ePub files, the eBook market is literally flooded with unedited tripe that dilutes the great works out there with its mediocrity.
Ultimately, it is definitely more cost-efficient for poetry and short stories to make an impact in the eBook format than in the physical copy format. Other than that benefit, it is a customer demand issue.
Morgen: That’s probably why I love writing / reading short stories more than anything else; because I’m weird and esoteric… or at least my writing is. Is there a plot that’s written about too often?
Will: In fantasy, it is the “Horrible evil threatens to destroy all that is good – a handful of rag-tag adventurers sally forth and save the day by killing the big bad evil guy and thus avert total disaster”. The part that really makes no sense is that by killing the one bad guy, the entire army of evil is wiped out.
Morgen: Like the hero never getting even a scratch in a movie shootout. Do you have to do a lot of editing to the stories you accept or is the writing usually more or less fully-formed?
Will: We leave as much as possible to the authors, with comments and style guides. Safkhet has a style guide and we ask our authors to use it. As new common issues arise, we ask our authors to do those corrections. Otherwise, we do rigorous copy-editing and proofreading before layout (sometimes simultaneously). Of course, we try to find as many errors as possible before going to print, but we sometimes miss one or two. If our readers find errors, we’d love it if they tell us so we can fix those errors in the next edition.
Morgen: I hope the same for my eBooks because although they’ve been through at least two people (myself, my editor… sometimes other first readers) it’s always possible. For your purposes, does it matter what point of view a story is written in? Have you ever printed any in second person? What’s your opinion of second person?
Will: I personally like third person. I find it difficult to relate to a character that narrates in first person. I’ve never printed in second person, and I haven’t given second person much thought, as I’ve never even seen a submission in second person. The last time I saw a relatively successful second-person fiction was when I was a kid. I read the Choose Your Own Adventure series whenever I could. It is very much like a solo role-playing session. However, after a while, I feel like the plot is railroading me and I really don’t have any choice as to my future in the story. Interesting for a while, but it really loses steam in the end.
Morgen: I loved them too, which could contribute to why it’s my favourite viewpoint now… for short pieces anyway. It’s fairly unheard of so I’ve even given it its own page here. Given that more emphasis these days is put on the author to market their published works or indeed themselves as a ‘brand’, how involved are you generally with your authors post-publication?
Will: I talk to all my authors at least once a week. Some I talk to on the phone for an hour or so at a time. Safkhet functions like a family. Our authors are just as involved in the business as we are – only to different degrees and with different responsibilities. We stay involved with them because all of us sell their books, not just us or them. It is very important to our business that we all integrate together and work together to sell the books.
Morgen: That’s refreshing to hear as some authors have said that although they’re with a publisher they’re pretty much left alone, which is a shame. You’re currently in the UK but moving to Germany, do / will you find this a help or hindrance with letting people know about, or distributing, your publications?
Will: Thanks to the internet, we could be anywhere and still produce books for whichever market we want to be in. The only difficulty is in hosting a live event in a country where we are not.
Morgen: That’s true – maybe we’ll all go over to video conferencing or YouTube. Speaking of technology, what do you think of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and more business-related such as LinkedIn? Do you think they’re invaluable or too time-consuming?
Will: Using social media is the core of our marketing. They are completely invaluable.
Morgen: You mentioned earlier that you also write, what genre do you generally write and have you considered others?
Will: Currently, I write children’s books and academic articles. As of yet, I have not considered writing in any other genres, primarily because I am too busy running Safkhet.
Morgen: What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Will: To date, I have published an eBook called Ollie the Octopus, which has been translated into German and also has a secondary storyline with the same illustrations, called Ollie Saves Sally. This book I published as William Banks, to honor my grandfather, William Banks, who was a printer and watercolour artist.
Morgen: Ahh… Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?
Will: I have not gotten any rejections yet. I imagine, though, that should I have gotten rejections, I would either continue on with representing my book to other publishers, and ask the rejecting publisher for feedback, so that I can possibly improve my next submission.
Morgen: They say it’s more difficult to get an agent these days than a publisher, do you think agents are vital to an author’s success?
Will: I think that agents might be useful for getting your copy to one of the Big Six, but otherwise, an agent is not vital to an author’s success. Many times, an agent represents the author incorrectly, or has other interests in mind.
Morgen: Or done very little, as I’ve heard in a few cases. We’ve talked about eBooks, do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Will: I like to read both eBooks and physical copy, although I don’t actually have an eBook reader; I read the eBooks on my laptop.
Morgen: It’s so easy, isn’t it. Do you have a favourite of your books or characters? If any of your books were made into films, who would you have as the leading actor/s?
Will: My favourite character in my book is definitely Ollie himself, followed by the Offisher. I’m not sure who the voice over for Ollie would be – maybe Michael J Fox.
Morgen: That would be fun. How important do you think titles / covers are?
Will: I think an author should have input into the title of the book, but not total control. This is because the author may have knowledge of his genre, but the publisher has knowledge of the market – and can tell whether a seemingly “cool” title is a winner or a flop.
Morgen: Absolutely. What are you working on at the moment / next?
Will: Right now, the next Ollie book is just in planning stages, as I’m primarily focusing on my day job as a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and on my role as an editor / publisher at Safkhet Publishing.
Morgen: Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Will: I usually just get ideas and run with them. If I have to stop for the day, I’ll write down my ideas at least, so I can pick them up again for next time.
Morgen: Do you write any non-fiction, poetry or short stories?
Will: I do write academic articles when I can find the time. And I blog. Other than that, I don’t write anything else.
Morgen: I’m not sure how relevant this is for ‘Ollie’ but do you have to do much research?
Will: Not really, although I want to make sure that I don’t make underwater characters do things that their real counterparts could never do (apart from the anthropomorphic actions like speaking English, of course).
Morgen: What point of view do you find most to your liking?
Will: I like to write in third person. I’m not a big fan on books that are written in first person, but I do see the value in it for some genres.
Morgen: Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?
Will: Yes, but most are in my head.
Morgen: What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?
Will: My favourite aspect of my writing life is when I can realise an idea and write the whole shebang in one sitting. My least favourite aspect is not finding time to write and watching the ideas and tasks pile up in my inbox.
Morgen: Time. Yes. My biggest bugbear. If you could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what would you cook (or hide the takeaway containers)?
Will: Assuming language is not a barrier, I would invite Albert Einstein, Ben Franklin and Socrates to dinner – and we would have a homemade roulade with braised green cabbage and vanilla ice cream for dessert.
Morgen: Yum. Is there a word, phrase or quote you like?
Will: I like the phrase that Uncle Scrooge from the Donald Duck cartoons says in German:”Wer den Kreuzer nicht ehrt, ist des Talers nicht wert.” (translated to English – Those who don’t honor the Kreutzer are not worth the Thaler.”)
Morgen: I’ve been to Germany loads of times and love the little cartoons they put in between programmes, even if I don’t understand every word (German’s my second best language after English) I get the gist. What do you do when you’re not writing?
Will: When I am completely off, I like to go on long walks with my wife and my dog in the park or through the city. Kim knits and I crochet. I also like to play Dungeons & Dragons on weekends with her and our friends.
Morgen: Where can we find out about you and your work?
Will: http://www.safkhetpublishing.com; http://safkhetpublishing.wordpress.com; on Facebook and on Twitter.
Morgen: Thank you, Will, for being so thorough today. It’s been really interesting.
I then invited Will to include a short biography and he said…
People on the net are all into cloud tags these days, so here is my biography written in “cloud tags”:
Doctor of law; lawyer; Cambridge lecturer; role-player; writer; publisher; legal advice dispenser; friend to animals; dreamer; jogger; dog-lover; hiker; skier; child; non-smoker; non-drinker; lover; husband; organic-meat-eater; chocolate lover; traveler; Texan; IT person; web designer.
***
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Welcome to Flash Fiction Friday and the thirty-second piece of flash fiction in this series. This week’s is a 742-worder entitled ‘Bowing Out’ by novelist and short story author Marc Nash.
Bowing Out
She sat where she had sat countless times before. In the harsh glare of the lights fringing her mirror. Fourteen naked bulbs to show her up in all her rawness. Stark like a Noh mask.
Fourteen interrogatory lamps burning into her face. Garlanding the looking glass, festooned like wedding arch colonnades. Though she’d only ever experienced those as scenery on the theatre stage. The lights so tightly focused, they barely penetrated the darkness beyond her.
Every evening and prior to matinees and premiers, her ghostly, disembodied head floated in the mirror as she caked it in thickly layered cosmetics. The bulbs’ other function, foreshadowing the dazzle out on the stage itself. If they couldn’t efface her features here at close range, then it augured well for her characterful expressions to prevail under the spotlights, tractor beamed in the footlights.
This particular mirror seemed as venerable as she. The glass had flowed, rucked and bubbled, like her own skin corrugated with wrinkles. Tarnished where the silvered paint had chipped or turned green with verdigris. Aping her liver spots and burst blood vessels. She loved the bulbs for blasting such imperfections away under their unforgiving blare. The mirror on her dresser at home was not nearly so forgiving.
It occurred to her that in all the years sat in place, she couldn’t ever remember a single bulb having popped. The divine power of the theatre, palace of illusion.
There was a time when other bulbs popped. Those of the Press cameras. Preview nights, gala performance evenings and end-of-run parties. Fluid, promiscuous alignments of leading men and first ladies, arm in arm with supporting cast members all beaming in the lens. Dissolved at the moment of the striking of the set, as each heads on to their next role. Another theatre, different dressing rooms. The same fourteen bulb guard of honour.
Sadly she had witnessed her own mind’s bulbs pop one by one. It was getting progressively harder to recall her lines. There were no unseen stagehands inside her head to replace the burned out filaments.
Now there was a dearth of good luck telegrams wedged into the mirror frame. While the best wishes cards accompanying bouquets of flowers had also dried up.
Neither wigs, nor curlers sat on her dresser. Simply not required any more. She could not get away with counterfeiting ages other than her true one, unlike in the past. Her skin so dried and cracked. Even the greasepaint could no longer suggest any glossy suppleness. It just seemed to disappear down the fissures in her brow and cheeks as it required ever greater volumes to recongeal her face whole. Far greater preparation time was demanded, when all she wanted to do was lie down on the ottoman and rest her weary eyes.
The cubicle was smaller than she was used to. No other background hubbub of fellow actors full of life and lusts. Exercising their voices along the full range. Practising the entire gamut of human emotion and intrigue beyond the world of the play, centred instead within these tiny rooms.
For she was of such an age now, whereby she only appeared in monologues. Wistful treatises of old women looking back on unfulfilled lives. Playwrights didn’t seem to credit the venerable woman with any ability to pursue relationships still. Seemingly audiences could only feel pity, not desire, at this juncture of her life.
Her hair pulled back by the band, face blanched or greyed out in hue, these were the only effects directors were after for her nowadays. Like a ghost. The bereft Trojan women. Her appearance was as if she had ceased the make-up process at the foundation stage. Her dressing robe and protective serviette towel barely having to be removed for the performance, as she played women confined to dressing gowns, asylum smocks or wrapped in a bed sheet.
She knew it wouldn’t be too much longer that she would be able to stare into that mirror and recognise the face staring back at her. Be it disguised or unadorned by emulsion. Her ministrations complete, she flicked the light switch off. The bulbs did not die immediately. She watched the reflected light in her satellite eyes fade gradually in the mirror. Until only the spectral outline of her death mask remained square in the flat plane of glass.
She was sat where she had sat countless times before, with only the green “Exit” light to illuminate her way.
I asked Marc what prompted this piece and he said…
I have always been fascinated by the multi-bulbed mirrors in theatre dressing rooms. Something about the bulbs being naked and so many, as well as how they frame the mirror like ivy. The many bulbs contrast with the single spotlight out on stage. And then there’s the transformation of the actor in the mirror under makeup and wigs.
Thank you, Marc.
Marc Nash is London born, bred and resident. He says he’s always resorted to the written word, thinking himself an observer by temperament. After a brief adolescent delusion that he could write lyrics, he passed over into writing stage plays for 10 years from University onwards and then when his twin boys arrived in the world meaning he couldn’t really hang around theatre bars at night, he tried my hand at prose fiction. His blog is www.sulcicollective.blogspot.com, he’s @21stCscribe on Twitter and is very active there. He has a couple of websites on the novels, http://marcnash.weebly.com and http://marcnashNIMN.weebly.com as well as a YouTube channel with 17 literature related videos (just type in sulci collective into the search function).
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 writer and publisher Will Sutton – the two hundred and fifty-third 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 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore, Kobo and Amazon, with more to follow. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me.
Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively 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 poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: flash fiction, Marc Nash, novelist, novels, short stories, Twitter, writing, youtube
Welcome to the three hundred and fifty-second of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with non-fiction and short story author and novelist Philip Bradbury. 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, Philip. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Philip: I wrote stories at school and then gave up till I started again when I turned 40. I learned to meditate and, from the stillness, stories emerged, along with the hunger to write. So, I asked the editor of a New Age magazine to allow a male writer (me) to write for her magazine, for the first time. I badgered her once a month for a year and, eventually, she gave in and asked for one article. It had such an overwhelming response that I became a regular columnist for that and other magazines in three countries, for 12 years. Then friends badgered me (I got my own back!) to put the articles into a book and so it just went from there and I can’t stop the words.
Morgen: I know that feeling (it’s finding the time that’s the hard thing). But well done you for persevering. Many wouldn’t have done. What genre do you generally write?
Philip: Personal- and business-development. I started writing non-fiction (and still do) but have always felt that people learn easier and more happily through stories. So, I’ve written short stories and short novels and have just competed my first novel – the first novel ever written that’s based around A Course in Miracles.
The theme of my books is always about taking those scary, exciting and powerful actions towards that which makes our hearts sing.
Morgen: I love that. What have you had published to-date?
Philip: Non Fiction
Stepping Out Of Debt And Into Financial Freedom
Conversations on Your Business
Whose Life Is It Anyway?
The Lawless Way
Change Your Mind, Change Your World (with Anna Bradbury)
The Meaning of Larf
Understanding Men
Dactionary – the dictionary with attitude
Planting and Growing Your Business
Fiction
An Olympic Challenge
The Royal Bank of Stories
Circles of Gold
Morgen: I love the sound of your dictionary with attitude. Apart from your New Age hiccup, have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?
Philip: I have had over 200 rejections and, initially, it was a shock as I thought I was the only writer on the planet. Having got over that, I’ve almost come to believe that I will never be accepted by a publisher or writer’s agent and so have self-published.
Morgen: Yay! I only have 28 rejections to-date and I never say never but have gone my own way too. Have you won or been shortlisted in any competitions?
Philip: Currently on the shortlist for the Amazon Breakthrough Award for 2012
Recent Writing Awards
March 2010 at http://bit.ly/cqqK5x
July 2010 at http://bit.ly/97oQga
August 2010 at http://bit.ly/aX1eLi
October 2010 at http://bit.ly/ae7eZS
January 2012 at http://bit.ly/wwi7QA
Morgen: Wow. It just goes to show that determination gets you places. So you don’t have an agent but do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?
Philip: I know it would be so helpful to have one as I’m a great writer but not a good marketer – marketing is what I need.
Morgen: But I find even authors with agents still have to do most of their marketing. Only one author I’ve interviewed so far has said they don’t do any but she’s active on Twitter and Facebook so she is indirectly. Are your books available as eBooks? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Philip: All of my books are available as e-books (as well as paper-back) and I’ve never read an e-book.
Morgen: I’ve only recently bought a Kindle but I do like it. I only tend to use it on my travels (paper books at home) but I love knowing I have 400+ stories in my bag. Do you have a favourite of your books or characters? If any of your books were made into films, who would you have as the leading actor/s?
Philip: I like all of my characters, even the bullies – they’re real people to me. It would be nice to have a unknown actors play my characters so they would then have a chance to break through into stardom, just as I would love to as a writer … we’d be breaking through together.
Morgen: Presumably being self-published you chose the title / covers of your books? How important do you think they are?
Philip: Yes, although it would be good to have someone else outside of me, someone who knows the marketing better than I do. I don’t know how important the titles / covers are but I am sure they help in some way.
Morgen: An attention-grabber, I think. What are you working on at the moment / next?
Philip: Currently writing two novels – Wrong Place, Wrong Time is set in mid-USA and is about a young city woman caught in bizarre circumstances in a small town with no apparent way out.
The second, Expulsion, is based in London and Egypt and is the story of a young man made redundant from a bank and who then finds his ex-employer has been diverting large amounts of funds to finance corrupt regimes in Africa … loosely based on my own experiences of being made redundant from a London bank.
Morgen: Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
Philip: Not every day and, yes, I do get writers block. I write about five days a week and find that stressing over writers block only makes it worse. I take time out, go for a walk, a coffee or a meditation … be still (inwardly) in some way and the words return.
Morgen: That’s what most authors say. I think our brains need a change of scene… literally. Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Philip: I’d dearly love to be able to create the bones of a story from start to finish and then to write the flesh onto those bones. However, to date, I just get a sentence in my head, write it down and the next arrives and so on – I have no idea what I’m going to write until it’s on paper.
Morgen: Oh but I love that… when the characters take over. Do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?
Philip: I try to make my characters believable so that people will identify with them and, therefore, will feel inspired to take the steps in their lives that my characters do. So it’s a fine balance between giving them names, characteristics and actions that are memorable and also believable.
Morgen: Do you write any non-fiction, poetry or short stories?
Philip: Yes, all three.
Morgen: Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Philip: I usually try to edit it but, in the end, I seem to return to the original words and punctuation that first appeared on paper. My wife then edits the final draft and she sees it as a reader does and so I then have to refine things to make it more readable from that point of view.
Morgen: A second opinion is vital isn’t it because we know what we mean. Do you have to do much research?
Philip: I haven’t done much in the past as most of my writing is from my own life experiences … well, perhaps that is my research! However, for Expulsion and Wrong Time, Wrong Place I am doing much more research than ever before as they’re getting further from my life experiences.
Morgen: What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?
Philip: I normally use third person and have never tried second … I had never heard of it till this question!
Morgen: Oh yay! I’m so passionate about it that I created a page on this blog just on that topic. Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?
Philip: Perhaps. However, since it’s easier to publish nowadays – and free to get books into Amazon and out as e-books – most of my completed books end up in the marketplace. Some of my poetry and songs are less marketable and so they may not enter the public domain. Be good if they did though!
Morgen: There’s a constant debate over quality vs quantity but we can never please everyone. One of my short stories (April’s Fool) had one complaint that it was too skimpy on the details but another saying there was too much detail. Sometimes you just can’t win. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?
Philip: Least favourite – Marketing. I just feel as if I don’t have the skills for that and having an agent and/or publisher would certainly help with that.
Favourite – the feeling of having created some inspiring words. I get that five days a week.
Surprise – One person told me that my writing had stopped her committing suicide and started her really living and several people have told me it has changed their lives by giving them skills, ideas and confidence to do what they had previously feared (but wanted) to do.
Morgen: Wow. Saving a life has got to be the highest accolade. Being heard of by a random stranger at a party in the US (as told to me by a blog contributor) has been my kudos so far. What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Philip: Listen to all the advice, let it go and then listen to the song in your heart. And, if you find it impossible not to write, never, ever, ever give up.
Morgen: I won’t be. If you could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what would you cook (or hide the takeaway containers)?
Philip: Mark Twain (for his humour), Paulo Coelho (for his persistence) and Jesus (for his forgiveness) – and I don’t know what I’d cook as I’m sure they’re all above being picky about what to eat. Their lives are bigger than that. If I was in New Zealand, where the sun shines, I’d invite them around for a BYO barbeque and there’d be nice surprises about what food they brought.
Morgen: If you have a BYO you can’t have any complaints. Is there a quote you like?
Philip: They told me that when I got older I’d lose my mind. What they didn’t tell me was that I wouldn’t miss it much ~ Somerset Maugham
Life is a series of opportunities, neatly disguised as problems – not sure who said that.
Morgen: According to http://www.freewebs.com/strengthingod/inspirationalquotes.htm it’s Charles Swindoll. Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?
Philip: Teaching new writers how to write and how to publish. I also publish books for other people and I’m a commissioning editor for O-Books.
Morgen: Ah, publishing and editing… I have questionnaires for publishers and editors… I should have you back. What do you do when you’re not writing?
Philip: Travel, teaching and A Course in Miracles.
Morgen: Are there any writing-related websites and/or books that you find useful?
Philip: LinkedIn has many writing and publishing groups – usually helpful and experienced writers there.
Morgen: Isn’t it great. A few weeks ago I’d almost run out of interviewees so I put shout-outs on LinkedIn and am now booking into October! Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?
Philip: On several Linked In groups, www.thenextbigauthor.com, Goodreads and several other groups. Nothing tangible (i.e. money) has come of any of these groups but I find it comforting and uplifting to be surrounded by my fellow writers. And, sometimes, they tell me about writing competitions (which I always enter) or feature me in their blogs!
Morgen: They do say it’s not what you know but who. I have a competitions page here and am gradually adding to it. What do you think the future holds for a writer?
Philip: Much as it always has – a changing world, a quickly changing technology and more writers than books. What’s different is that writers have more apparent choices and can get their books to markets far quicker than ever before. What is the same is that the books still have to appeal to a discerning and unfathomable reading public.
Morgen: Where can we find out about you and your work?
Philip: Our website, my Blog, Amazon profile, Smashwords profile, LinkedIn, Facebook page.
Morgen: Plenty of choice. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?
Philip: You run a successful writing group. How did you get it started and what makes it so successful?
Morgen: I picked it up where crime novelist Sally Spedding took off. She was leading an evening class at the local university. I’d attended for a couple of years when she announced she was moving to Wales. I volunteered to take her place and we’ve been going over since (just celebrated our fourth anniversary). We’re lucky that we have great people. We can be firm but fair and it works really well. I still keep in contact with Sally and she sees some of us at conferences… it’s great. Thank you, Philip.
I then invited Philip to include an extract of his writing and this is the start of ‘Wrong Time, Wrong Place’…
Feeling like a dice tossed from the gnarled hand of a mad gambler, she wondered how she’d ended up here. She always took the main route, the quickest road. Always. Just this once, for some stupid reason, she took the scenic route. Why? Well, here she was and no going back. She let her annoyance slide out under the door.
She knew she could have turned around and walked out. She could have, well, just walked round the corner, down the street, and found a shop or café with a toilet. Or she could have hopped right back in her car and driven to the next nowhere town, wherever it was. Or taken a drive and a walk and found some trees. Just have a pee somewhere else, like she’d never been here. No one had seen her come in. No one would notice her leave. No should haves. Just could haves.
Anyway, as it happened, she did none of those things. She just stood there, leaning back against the basin, looking at the person sitting on the floor. Straight, blonde hair slightly awry, like a breeze had played with it momentarily. One eye closed, the other glazed and staring at the grey, cinder-block wall opposite; the one Kristy had her back to. Her skin looked vacant, unlived in, like she had left without a note of goodbye.
With 14 books published, Philip aims to be a writer who is read and respected worldwide, before he slips into “Father Time’s withered hand”.
He is a recovering accountant / lecturer who has been a columnist, editor and publisher of magazines in NZ, Aust., South Africa and Czech Republic. He’s currently a commissioning editor for Business Books and a freelance writer and editor for clients around the world.
In New Zealand, he experienced life as an accountant, credit manager, company director, shepherd, scrub-cutter, tree pruner, freezing worker, factory worker, saxophonist, army driver, tour bus driver, stage and television actor and singer, builder, lecturer, facilitator for men’s groups, reporter, columnist, editor, publisher, writer, and in South Africa as an AIDS workshop co-facilitator. In the Australian bush he was a barman, horse and camel trekker and stock-whip teacher, and in England as an accountant, corporate trainer, estate manager, university lecturer, commissioning editor, website editor and freelance writer.
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Tonight’s guest blog post, on the topic of failed projects, is brought to you by author, blogger, poet, lyricist and interviewee Nathan Weaver.
Failed Projects
Failed projects. They’re like a flock of birds in a world with no shore. Nowhere to go, nowhere to land. They just flap until they exhaust and plummet to their death, slowly drowning in a sea of sorrow. A sea of wonderment. What if there was an island just over that next horizon, if I’d only held out for a little longer?
I would have to say with each successful project, you fail a mountain of others in its wake. And if we’re not careful, we can find ourselves overwhelmed with the failures, and forget the accomplishments. Or worse, we’ll find ourselves wanting to blame someone or something for things left undone. This sort of negative reflection can be unhealthy, and prevent future successes, because groaning about past failures will begat future ones.
In a lot of cases a failed project isn’t a result of someone, but a result of the project itself. Maybe it was doomed from the start, as the saying goes, whatever that means. Maybe it just didn’t have the guts to come into its own. Maybe… there can be a lot of maybes.
But, Nathan? What are you talking about? What does this have to do with writing? And quit depressing me by reminding me of all these past failures of mine!
Have you ever started a story, and never saw it through to the end? For whatever reason, you gave up on it, or the creative well ran dry on it? Or worst of all, you finished it and it fell flat? If you’ve been writing for long, I’m sure you know what I mean.
How do you leverage these failures with your state of mind? I don’t know that there is a perfect answer, a truth that never waivers. I wish there was, it would make writing a lot easier. I’ve been looking back over my failed projects a lot lately, and kicking my toes against the dusty ground. Shuffling around, sulking my shoulders about them all. But finally the other day, I mental-kicked myself in the backside and said, “Man, buck up, you’ve done a lot!”
In the past 4 or 5 years, I’ve been silently fighting what I am sure is ADHD, which has obviously not helped matters. But still, I’ve written, or half-written, over 50 short stories and novellas, outlined three or four novels and drafted one. And there is a laundry list more of achievements I could go on about, though I’m not doing so to brag, but to make a point. All while I felt I was failing projects left and right, which I was, I was also accomplishing a decent amount as well.
But better still, what I’ve come to realize is that even the projects you think you failed never really fail. At least, not in writing. There’s always a chance that some new creative jolt will revive the once dead bird, and you’ll be sitting in front of your computer with an undead bird and a zeal to get that story done. Point in case, I recently went back to work on a novel I’d started developing back in 2002, but hadn’t had any luck with in ten years! I hadn’t even thought of the story in about six or seven years, but then about a month ago my mind headed off into a direction for a story and then my mind said, “Hey, man, this is similar to that old idea, you should combine the two.” And the result is that I now have a story that I had once given up on, running the creative gauntlet once more. I didn’t realize, but that bird was still flapping out over the waves of uncertainty. It has now landed, and is catching its breath before the next flight.
But what about you? What about your failed projects? Don’t fret, just make sure they’re neatly documented and set them aside for now. Down the road, you may find yourself face-to-face with that bird again, wondering how in the world it made it across the great divide between conception and success. And it will be looking to you with hungry eyes, begging for a few bread crumbs. And what will you do? Will you feed it, or will you not even notice it as you sulk around wishing it was there?
And if you have to blame someone, blame Sally Pinkerton, that’s what I do. She’s an easy target, since she’s always scraping the bottom of the barrel anyway.
Thank you Nathan – it’s great to have you back!
Nathan Weaver, says he’s been writing for a “ridiculously long time”, and think he’s just starting to get pretty good at the nonsense. Do check out his two recently self-published books, Fatal Flaws and Everything. Both were collaborative efforts, and are cheaply priced. You can find him and his writing at http://talesfrombabylon.com and you can find me in his Rogues Gallery.
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. If it’s writing-related then it’s highly likely I’d email back and say “yes please”.
The blog interviews return as normal tomorrow morning with non-fiction and short story author, and novelist Philip Bradbury – the three hundred and fifty-second of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, autobiographers 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore, Kobo and Amazon, with more to follow. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me.
Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively 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 and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: author, blogger, lyricist, Nathan Weaver, novellas, Rogues Gallery, short stories, writing, writing tips
Welcome to the three hundred and fifty-first of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with mystery, non-fiction writer and poet Rebecka Vigus. 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, Rebecka. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Rebecka: I am a resident of northern Michigan. I am two hours shy of the Mackinac Bridge, in the process of selling my home and moving to a warmer climate. I retired from teaching in 2012 after a long and marvellous career. Now I can devote my time to writing and other hobbies. I started writing nonsense poems as a kid and something I wrote when I was eleven or twelve prompted a teacher to tell me that one day he’d see my books in print. I have worked to that goal ever since.
Morgen: Good luck with the house move. I’m tempted to say, “keep your writing safe” but I’m sure it’s one of your most precious items. What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?
Rebecka: I am a mystery writer, although I started my writing career as a poet. Someday maybe I’ll think about romance, but only if there is a mystery involved.
Morgen: They are hugely popular. What have you had published to-date?
Rebecka: I’ve self-published several books: Only a Start and Beyond is a book of poetry; So You Think You Want to be a Mommy? is a self-help chapbook for tweens and teens; Secrets, Out of the Flames and Target of Vengeance are mysteries. Unforgettable Books Inc. released Cold Case: Sleeping Dogs Lie at the end of February.
Morgen: You’re like me, and like writing different things. Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?
Rebecka: I do not have an agent. I’m not sure that one is a necessity. I found a small press with the help of a writer friend.
Morgen: They do say it’s more difficult these days to get an agent than a publisher and small presses are certainly paving the way (as the cliché goes). Are your books available as eBooks? Were you involved in that process at all? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Rebecka: At this time the only eBook I have is Cold Case: Sleeping Dogs Lie. My publisher has had me involved as much as possible. I read paper books. There is too much eye strain to read on my computer I don’t see how eBooks change that.
Morgen: I thought that but eReaders, on the whole, aren’t backlit so not really that different from a book (although you get no spine damage with a Kindle ). How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?
Rebecka: To this point all the marketing has fallen on my shoulders. With the acquiring of a publisher I am getting ideas on how to market and having an input on to the strategies that will work.
Morgen: If you find out what they are, do let me know… ooh, or even better, write me a guest post on them. Did you have any say in the title / covers of your books? How important do you think they are?
Rebecka: I have had input on all my titles. If your title is not catchy or eye grabbing you lose sales. No one wants a book that looks boring.
Morgen: I do love ingenious titles and smart / clever covers and they’re often what first attracts me to the book but I still bought James Patterson’s ‘The Quickie’ which I think is an awful title, but then it’s co-written with Michael Letwidge, the team for the brilliant ‘Step on a Crack’. What are you working on at the moment / next?
Rebecka: I am working on a book launch for May. On the writing end of my work, I have recently finished three short stories that will be made into eBooks and the second book in the Macy McVannel series that starts with Cold Case: Sleeping Dogs Lie.
Morgen: Not long now then, I’m really grateful for you taking time out to do this interview. Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
Rebecka: I do not write daily… more’s the shame. I’d get a lot more accomplished if I did. I don’t know that I have writer’s block as I have story ideas that get stuck. I walk away from the story and work on something else. Usually it works out.
Morgen: That’s what most authors have said, it refreshes our brains. Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Rebecka: I am a seat of the pants writer. I get an idea and run. Sometimes it takes me where I think it will and other times it surprises even me as to where it goes.
Morgen: I’m the same. I plotted the first one (well, about four pages of notes) and it went off-track quite a few times so have been less planned since and enjoy following it as it weaves. Do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?
Rebecka: I am a people watcher. My main character for Secrets was a woman who was sitting on the other side of a restaurant. I wrote her features on the back of a placemat. Names make me crazy, so I have taken to using old family names. At least in the Cold Case book. McVannel was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name. The characters are believable because they have human flaws; nail biting, pacing, regrets and they feel emotions.
Morgen: So that hopefully relays to the reader. Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Rebecka: Editing…I edit as I go. I have family members who go through to find my errors. I edit again. Cold Case: Sleeping Dogs Lie even went through a writer’s workshop. It has been edited twice by my publisher and me. It got a final edit when the galley proof came. I was looking at the book set up last night and still wanted to make changes. I will be the death of my publisher. It has to be the best it can be. We don’t change the substance of my writing, we use better descriptors.
Morgen: It amazed me recently when a fellow LinkedIn member said he was going to do his own editing. Unless you’ve been writing your whole life, and then some, there’s no way the writer should just put their work out without a second opinion. Not to be sold, anyway. As you say it has to be the best it can be before you can expect a reader to part with their time and money (especially where the latter is more valuable than the latter). Apart from anything else an editor or first reader often comes up with great suggestions. Do you have to do much research?
Rebecka: It depends on what I’m writing. For Out of the Flames I knew nothing about arson. I called a friend who is a fire fighter and had just completed a course on arson. She brought me her text book, notebook, notes, and showed me a website to refer to. I have a copy of Black’s Law Dictionary I refer to. I also have several friends who are police officers that I call on from time to time.
Morgen: How useful is that! If you don’t know your facts there’s going to be a reader who does and will take great delight in telling you when you’re wrong. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?
Rebecka: I’m not sure. First person for me is harder however the Macy McVannel series will be in first person. Yes, I’ve written second person. I took a week-long class at the University of Iowa’s Summer Writing Festival and we did second person for an assignment. Not sure I’d want a whole book in second person.
Morgen: There aren’t many of them. Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights Big City is probably the most well-known. I have it and haven’t finished yet and it’s tiny (182 pages) but I love to write it and reading it in short pieces is no hardship for me. It’s an acquired taste and I’m weird… or as Haruki Murakami is quoted as saying “I’m not so weird to me”… I have a badge to prove it. Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?
Rebecka: I think all writers do.
Morgen: Some of said they haven’t but I’d be surprised if someone doesn’t over their entire writing career. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?
Rebecka: The best part is seeing the story come to life. I’m not sure I have a least favourite. Yes, I get surprised when my characters take over and start writing. It amazes me every time. Like they think they are in charge or something.
Morgen: They are. It’s my favourite too. What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Rebecka: Don’t quit. Find a job to pay the bills, but write every chance you get. I self-published in 1978. I was very young then. The book was titled Only a Start. It was my poetry from age sixteen to twenty-three. I gave most of them away. Yes, that book is included in Only a Start and Beyond. My dream was to write a novel. I entered National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in 2005 and wrote my 50,000-word novel in 21 days. Yes, 21 days. Was it finished then? Not a chance. It was 2006 before it was published with a vanity press. That novel was Secrets. It’s been a small success and has helped me build my fan base.
Morgen: I’ve done NaNoWriMo four times and find it’s the only way to get me writing huge chunks (especially 2010’s which was 117,540 in 29 days ). I’d struggle now with the blog taking so much time but I did manage it last year (albeit 3,000 in the first weekend then 47,000 in the last 8 days)… to say I was tired was an understatement. If you could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what would you cook (or hide the takeaway containers)?
Rebecka: Wow, it would be an amazing mix. I’d invite Elizabeth I, Eleanor Rosevelt, and Maya Angelou. I think high tea would be in order, complete with scones and pettifores.
Morgen: Very gentile. Is there a word, phrase or quote you like?
Rebecka: I try to live by four words: Imagine, Dream, Believe, Achieve. I think all writers have something they strive for. I imagine my characters, dream about what could happen to them, believe in my ability to bring them life, and work to achieve that.
Morgen: My four are Passion, Patience, Purple and… er, Cuddle. Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?
Rebecka: I do reviews for other writers. I am also very interested in giving young people a chance to explore writing. I’m very willing to do writing workshops…even in schools.
Morgen: Ooh, do you do book reviews? I’m always looking for names to add to my reviews page so when I have to turn down requests I can point them in another direction. What do you do when you’re not writing?
Rebecka: I crochet. I am learning glass fusing, love hiking and swimming. I think it is time to get back to my agricultural roots and plant a small garden. I love flower gardens, too.
Morgen: Gardening is very therapeutic. It takes me forever to make the time to go into my garden but when I’m there, I’m there for ages and I enjoy it. Are there any writing-related websites and / or books that you find useful?
Rebecka: There are a ton of websites out there: www.dailywritingtips.com is a good one. Janefriedman.com is an excellent source. Jane also puts out a daily blog for writers. www.fundsforwriters.com is done by Hope Clark and is a place to find writing work that pays and tips on how to find funding. The last one is www.fictionistaworkshop.com. They have a collective for writers that helps tremendously no matter what stage you are at.
Morgen: They all ring a bell but I’ve not been on them (or if I have not for ages), thanks for that. Where can we find out about you and your work?
Rebecka: I’m pretty easy to find www.ramblingsbyrebecka.blogspot.com is my blog. Rebecka Vigus-Author on Facebook. I am working on a new website.
Morgen: Thank you, Rebecka.
I then invited Rebecka to include an extract of her writing…
Detective Sgt. Macy McVannel,” I saidflashing my shield to the uniformed officer while looking at the door hanging by its hinges. “Where’s the victim?”
The officer on duty replied, “No victim.”
“Taken to which hospital?”
“No victim, Sergeant.”
“What do you mean no victim?” I was gettingimpatient.
“This was a disturbance call. When we arrived, there was no one here. We cleared the rooms, saw blood, signs of a struggle, called for detectives, and crime scene techs.”
“My partner, Detective Tom Maxwell, is coming, help him with the canvass.”
He nodded.
Standing in the doorway I wondered how it had come to this; detectives on domestic calls. The room reeked of stale cigarettes and cheap perfume. On the night stand, by the bed, was a lamp with a worn lampshade with beads glued haphazardly around the bottom. Lying on the nightstand were some tabloids, True Confessions was on top. An ashtray full of cigarette butts sat beside the magazines. The sheets on the unmade bed looked and smelled as though they had not been washed in weeks.
Through the worn, tacky curtains a neon light from the bar across the street blinked. It added to the dismal atmosphere in the room. The dresser had been purchased cheaply and painted black to hide the scarred veneer. The top was covered with cosmetics, nail polish, and hair accessories. The once elegant floral wallpaper was peeling and had faded with age.
Retired teacher Rebecka Vigus spends her time writing, reading, crocheting, hiking, and swimming. She travels seeking the ideal place to call home.
Cold Case: Sleeping Dogs Lie is the first book in her Macy McVannel series. She has been busy penning the second book, Crossing the Line. She has also written three short stories soon to be released as 99 cent Ebooks; Ghost House, How Did I End Up Here? and Dixie’s Dilemma.
She loves spending time with family and friends. She is the mother of one and grandmother of three. She finds time to crochet preemie afghans for a neo-natal unit and volunteers to read and teach writing in local schools. Find her at www.ramblingsbyrebecka.blogspot.com.
***
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 information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, 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.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome critique for the four new writing groups listed below and / or flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays. For other opportunities see (see Opportunities on this blog).
The full details of the new online writing groups, and their associated Facebook groups, are:
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, biographers, biography, books, characters, children’s, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, flash fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, interview, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mystery, mystery, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novels, paranormal, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, publisher, Rebecka Vigus, rejection letters, rejections, romance, science fiction, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story author, story authors, story writer, submissions, Twitter, vampire, western, Wordpress, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing group, writing magazines, YA, youtube
Complementing my daily blog interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the seventy-ninth, is of crime and mystery author and interviewee F M Meredith aka Marilyn Meredith.
Marilyn Meredith is the author of over thirty published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest Bears With Us from Mundania Press. Writing as F. M. Meredith, her latest Rocky Bluff P.D. crime novels are No Bells and Angel Lost, the third and forth from Oak Tree Press. Marilyn is a member of EPIC, Four chapters of Sisters in Crime, including the Central Coast chapter, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America.
And now from the author herself:
What you May or May Not Know about Marilyn Meredith aka F. M. Meredith
I’m a fourth generation Californian. (Not too many people can say that—though three of my kids are now fifth generation Californians.) I’ve only lived in two other states (Maryland and Virginia) and that was only for a short while. I’ve traveled the 3000 miles across the United States once by train, three times by car. Two of those times happened when hubby and I drove a VW bus with three of our five kids in it and tent-camped all the way to the East coast and back again. (Not something I’d recommend.)
Over the years I’ve had all sorts of jobs beginning with baby sitting from the age of 10 (what were the parents thinking), as a teen working in a hot rod store, whenever I needed extra money I worked as a telephone operator back in the days of the old-fashioned switchboard, a teacher in a school for developmentally disabled pre-schoolers, a teacher in day care centers, a pre-school teacher in a ghetto, and for over twenty years I owned, lived-in and operated a licensed facility for six developmentally disabled women. During that time I developed and taught state-approved classes for administrators of homes like mine.
I’ve done all sorts of volunteer jobs: PTA president and newsletter editor, Camp Fire Girl leader for 10 years, Sunday School teacher for all ages (still doing that for third to six graders), also still newsletter editor and program chairperson for the Public Safety Writers Association conference.
I met my husband on a blind date and married him after only knowing him for six weeks. We’ve been married for 60 years now even though my mother said we’d never make it. We raised five children and now have eighteen grandkids (raised a couple of those too) and eleven great-grands.
Since I was a girl in grammar school (all those eons ago) I’ve written stories and plays. I didn’t get serious about getting anything published until I was a young grandmother. After writing and rewriting and receiving many rejections, my first published book was a historical family saga based on my own family’s genealogy. From there I moved onto mysteries because that’s what I liked to read. I also wrote a psychological horror, three Christian horror novels, and a romance with a touch of the supernatural.
Along the way I’ve had encounters with agents who did nothing for me except waste a lot of my time plus a couple who taught me a lot, three publishers who were dishonest, and two publishers who sadly died, and a couple who decided to quit the business. I am so fortunate that I now have two publishers, one for each of my series. Mundania Press publishes the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series (Native American female deputy sheriff in the Southern Sierra of California), Bears With Us, is the latest and Oak Tree Press that publishes my Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series that’s about the members of a police department in a small beach community along the California coast that I write under the name F.M. Meredith. No Bells is available now.
I lived in a beach community for over 20 years and now make my home in the foothills of the Southern Sierra.
When I’m not writing, I love spend time with my family. I also enjoy reading and watching movies.
I do want to thank Morgen for hosting me again.
You’re so welcome, Marilyn – come back anytime.. ah yes you will be; a guest blog on the 3rd May.
You can find even more about Marilyn and her writing via… http://fictionforyou.com and her blog at http://marilymeredith.blogspot.com.
CONTEST: The person who comments on the most blogs on my tour will win three books in the Rocky Bluff P.D. series: No Sanctuary, An Axe to Grind, and Angel Lost. Be sure and leave your email too, so I can contact you.
The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with mystery author and poet Rebecka Vigus – the three hundred and fifty-first 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 also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo. My eBooks are now on Amazon, with more to follow, and I also have a quirky second-person viewpoint story in charity anthology Telling Tales. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for my Post-weekend Poetry page.
Tags: author, author spotlight, Christian horror, crime, ebooks, FM Meredith, historical family saga, interview, Marilyn Meredith, mystery, novelist, novels, psychological horror, Public Safety Writers Association, romance, series, supernatural, Tempe Crabtree
Welcome to the three hundred and fiftieth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with fantasy and horror author Lea Ryan. 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, Lea. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Lea: Hi, Morgen! My home base is located on the outskirts of the Indianapolis, Indiana area, which is in the US. I started writing my first novel about ten years ago. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I hadn’t written creatively since I was a kid. It was just a creative outlet, I guess.
I spent the following years improving my skills. I read books about writing, author blogs and practiced endlessly, and I loved every minute. I reached the point where I decided that I wanted to get serious about writing. It’s my dream to some day be able to quit the day job and write full-time.
Morgen: I had that dream too so I did it. Probably mad, as I’m still on the bottom rung of the literary ladder (second rung if you include this blog, perhaps) but it’s a wonderful (if not scary) feeling. Let me know when you do and we’ll celebrate. What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?
Lea: I have two genres of choice: fantasy and horror. Generally, I like to write stories in which anything could happen, so those are good genres for my wild imagination. I’ve considered heading into the romance genre. Most of what I write has some romantic element, so I could see myself farther into that territory at some point.
Morgen: All popular genres and I think these days (unless with a top publisher) there’s more flexibility for an author with genre… especially if you do what I do and write almost everything (first novel = lad lit, second = light suspense, third = pure chick lit, fourth = crime, fourth & a half (not finished yet) = lad lit). Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Lea: I’m pretty meticulous about plotting out novels. I use outlines and character worksheets before I start writing. Then, while I’m writing, I carry around a notebook in which I plot scenes in greater detail as I move along. It’s like starting out with a far-off view of what the story is and gradually zooming in on the details. This approach seems to work pretty well.
Morgen: Other than the first one I didn’t do much plotting but I’m going back to edit them all now and I think I might do a timeline… something I picked up from novelists Jill Mansell and Helen Black at last weekend’s Chipping Norton Literature Festival (Jill: several A4 sheets taped / folded to A5, smothered in post it notes and Helen: A4 sheets with scene summaries laid out in her dining room!) and :) Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Lea: I obsess over editing. My work may not be 100% flawless all of the time, but it’s not for lack of effort. By the time one of my books hits the shelves, I’ve read it around ten times and my editor has been through it. I also recently started using beta readers. They’re helpful if you can find someone who has the time.
Morgen: With the exception of spelling mistakes there will always be two people who see a novel differently. Of all the feedback I’ve had for my free eShort April’s Fool (thankfully mostly very positive) one reader said there was too much detail, he just wanted to know what happened but another (my first review on Smashwords) said it was “a bit skimpy on the details but we get the idea”. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?
Lea: I’ve never tried second person. I’ve used first and third person. My second book, Destined for Darkness, is written in the first person. I think I prefer writing from that point of view because more of the protagonist’s personality filters through. The connection between the writer and the character and the reader and the character is more intimate.
Morgen: Second person isn’t to everyone’s taste but I’d urge every writer to have a go – I’ve just put up a page on it on my blog. What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Lea: Never give up on writing, and never stop striving to be better.
Morgen: Absolutely. A successful writer is one who didn’t give up. What do you do when you’re not writing?
Lea: Most of my non-writing time is spent with my husband and my kids. I have an 8 year old and a 14 year old. They’re crazy and awesome little people. I love video games too. We just got an Xbox Kinect, which is very cool. I’m mostly a Playstation girl, though. My game of the moment is Prince of Persia, Forgotten Sands.
Morgen: I love ‘Word Drop’ but don’t play it very often (I sneak a go on Facebook occasionally). Are there any writing-related websites and/or books that you find useful?
Lea: Yes! On Writing, by Stephen King. There is also one called Book in a Month (by Victoria Lynn Schmidt), which is almost a writing class in itself. There’s some good information on plot architecture and character development that I wish I had when I first started writing books. If I taught a writing class, I would use that as the textbook.
Morgen: I don’t know Victoria’s (although I have something similar ‘First draft in 30 days’ by Karen S Wiesner) but Stephen’s is the most recommended here, and rightly so. What do you think the future holds for a writer?
Lea: I think writers have a very bright future. The internet holds limitless possibilities. Writers can spend more time writing books instead of knocking on closed doors with agents and publishers. I don’t have anything against traditional publishing, of course, but the freedom of independent publishing is a beautiful thing.
Morgen: Isn’t it, I think it’s terribly exciting. Where can we find out about you and your work, Lea?
Lea: My website http://www.LeaRyan.com has information about my books (including links to a couple of freebies) and multimedia stuff like trailers and illustrations, extra content for the books.
I usually post on my blog a few times a week – http://Lea-Ryan.blogspot.com
I do movie reviews and sometimes post excerpts of whatever I’m working on.
Morgen: Thank you, Lea.
I then invited Lea to include a synopsis of one of her books and this is ‘Lair of the White Wyrm’: a modern horror inspired by Bram Stoker’s final novel.
Sometimes when you run from your problems, they follow you.
Eric Duncan wants nothing more than to be an ordinary, sane guy. He believes he can escape his troubled past by leaving home. However, the voice in his head, that of his dead friend Benjamin, fights him every step of the way.
Eric finds his new home is a place filled with secrets far darker than his own. A monster prowls the grounds, and it wants to keep him close.
He will discover that his inner demons aren’t the only things he should fear. In order to confront the wyrm and survive, he must also face the worst parts of himself.
Available from Amazon, Smashwords.com and Limited Time Print Edition on Lulu.
***
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 information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, 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.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome critique for the four new writing groups listed below and / or flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays. For other opportunities see (see Opportunities on this blog).
The full details of the new online writing groups, and their associated Facebook groups, are:
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, biographers, biography, books, characters, children’s, creative writing, crime, critique, ebooks, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy and horror, feedback, fiction, flash fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, horror, horror author, interview, Kobo, Lea Ryan, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mystery, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novels, paranormal, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, publisher, rejection letters, rejections, romance, romance genre, science fiction, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story author, story authors, story writer, submissions, Twitter, vampire, western, Wordpress, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing group, writing magazines, YA, youtube
Tonight’s guest blog post, on the topic of ending story openings, is brought to you by contemporary women’s fiction and Regency romance novelist, blogger and writing guide book author Alicia Rasley.
The End of the Beginning
I’d like to blog about openings to stories—that is, how to effectively start your story. It’s a subject big enough, I could write a book about it, and probably will! (Here are some posts on my own blog that discuss openings.) So to keep this relatively short, I want to focus on the all-important last paragraph.
The beginning of a story has a lot to do, and it might be most helpful to write your opening, write the rest of your story, then come back and revise the opening so it is more effective in setting up the plot questions and themes. I was helping a friend with a story just today, and we discussed the “end of the beginning”. This book is about a girl raised in Europe who was forced by her parents to study piano for years. She is disillusioned by music and eager to get far away from her parents, so chooses a college in the US that has lost its music program. That’s the opening, setting up her college story.
I suggested that the author think about what is going to happen later in the book. The college is going to resuscitate the music program and recruit the protagonist to be the first major, and in the end of the book she’s going to found her own punk band, showing that she has chosen her own way (not the parents or school). Boy! This is good, because it forces her to change, to learn to value her own talent, to choose rather than just react.
The end of the opening, however, could set up the “praxis” of her journey, by posing a bit of a conflict or question. In a way, the last paragraph in the opening could serve as a “hinge” to the rest of the story, actually helping to open up to the rising conflict and rising action of the middle, and hinting at the theme that will be resolved in the ending.
His first chapter has her choosing a college, deliberately selecting the one that has lost its music program. I suggested a final paragraph that would emphasize what the author wants the reader to think about. But to achieve that, he must identify what that is! Does he want the reader to think about her disorientation at being in the US after Europe, a fish out of water? Or her sense of her musical talent being trapped by the expectations of her parents even as she arrives in this new place?
He agreed with the latter, that her journey should start with her resistance to those expectations about music, and so he wanted to draw the reader’s attention to this. So he ended the first chapter this way, “My first class was History of Culture, in the Humanities Quad. Shoved into a corner of the lecture hall was a grand piano, swaddled in a gray quilted cover. I hurried past and took a seat in the center, directly in front of the professor.”
This sets up the conflict between her desire to be “merely a student” and her musical talent, and provides a concrete action (hurrying past the piano) to symbolize the beginning of her journey from resistance to self-acceptance. If the author wanted to emphasize her “fish out of water” aspect, how could that be achieved with the same situation (entering her first class lecture hall)? Maybe she could look around and realize that everyone else in the class is dressed down while she dressed up? Or that she has the wrong textbook?
Another way to use that final paragraph in the first chapter is to set up a motif (a recurring thematic image or concept) which the rest of the story will develop. For example, in my Regency novel Poetic Justice, the first chapter pits the hero John against an enemy, who tries to trick him by offering an alliance and then trying to kill him. I was worried that the adventure of this opening would conflict with the quieter aspects of the rest of the story. But when I realized that no matter what the situation, John was always being “tested”, especially by the class system that scorns him as a tradesman.
By the time his shipmates arrived panting, daggers drawn, the light was gone entirely and the dock was slippery with blood. Two of the bandits had fled, and the third lay unconscious on the dock. John loosed his death grip on the saddlebag, let his first mate take it, let his steward peel his fingers from around the knife and put it away. He nudged the bandit with his foot. “Tell your employer,” he said, then paused to drag in a breath, “that I passed that test too.”
Thus, in the final paragraph of the first chapter, I emphasized this motif of “the test” to connect this scene with the rest of the story, which develops and finally resolves the recurrent pattern by having him pass the ultimate test by winning the heroine’s heart.
Look at your own first chapter and think of how you might use that last paragraph to set up the rest of the book, by establishing the context or conflict, by posing a question the rest of the story will answer, or by connecting the first scene with the rest of the story using a theme or motif. Any examples from your work?
Finally, I’d like to thank Morgen for asking me to guest blog here!
You’re so welcome. That was great, thank you, Alicia!
Alicia Rasley is a RITA-award winning novelist who has been published by major publishers such as Dell, NAL, and Kensington. Her women’s fiction novel The Year She Fell has twice been a Kindle #1 bestseller in the contemporary fiction category. Her articles on writing have been widely distributed, and many are collected on her website The Writer’s Corner. She also blogs about writing and editing at Edittorrent. Her Regency romance Poetic Justice is currently available as a Kindle Select book. She is also the author of the plotting guidebook The Story Within, available for the first time in electronic format.
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. If it’s writing-related then it’s highly likely I’d email back and say “yes please”.
The blog interviews return as normal tomorrow morning with fantasy and horror author Lea Ryan – the three hundred and fiftieth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, autobiographers 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo. My eBooks are now also on Amazon, with more to follow, and I also have a quirky second-person viewpoint story in charity anthology Telling Tales. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me.
Tags: Alicia Rasley, beginnings, blogging, chapters, contemporary women’s fiction, endings, literature, novelist, Regency, regency romance, romance, romance novelist, writing, writing guide
Welcome to the three hundred and forty-ninth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with mystery / thriller author Bob Doerr. 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, Bob. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Bob: Hi Morgen. I’m a retired career U.S. Air Force officer, now living in sunny San Antonio, Texas. I have only been seriously writing for the past few years, but I think I’ve always had the writing bug. Over the years I have written a number of short stories for fun and some specifically for my children and grand children when they were learning how to read. After the Air Force, I worked for eight years as a financial advisor before fully retiring from my day jobs. I now write full time.
Morgen: Having been in the Air Force you must have some great inspiration. What genre do you generally write?
Bob: I write mystery / thrillers, but I have considered other genres.
Morgen: Like children’s books. What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Bob: I’ve had four books published to date under my own name. The titles are Dead Men Can Kill, Cold Winter’s Kill, Loose Ends Kill, and Another Colorado Kill. The books comprise the Jim West Mystery / Thriller series. A fifth book in the same series will be released late this year.
Morgen: Great titles. Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?
Bob: When I tried to get my first book published, I suffered through nearly seventy rejections before I finally landed a small, independent publisher (Total Recall Press) who took a chance with me. I understood that it was normal to receive numerous rejections, so I simply ignored them and kept plugging away.
Morgen: Best way to be, it’s just the right thing for the wrong person. I interviewed poet Alice Shapiro back in October and she’s with Total Recall too. Have you won or been shortlisted in any competitions?
Bob: I have been very fortunate in that both Cold Winter’s Kill and Loose Ends Kill were selected as Finalists for the Eric Hoffer Award in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Loose Ends Kill also garnered the 2011 Silver Medal for Fiction / Mystery by the Military Writer’s Society of America.
Morgen: Well done. Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?
Bob: I do not have an agent, but I do think an agent can be very helpful to an author’s success.
Morgen: But apparently it’s more difficult these days to get an agent than publisher and you’re an example of that. Are your books available as eBooks? Were you involved in that process at all? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Bob: All my books are available as eBooks, however I was not involved in that process as my publisher took care of all of that. I read both eBooks and paper copy.
Morgen: Me too. Most people I speak to say they read both (if they have both) and I think it’s great that I can have 400+ books with me at any one time. How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?
Bob: I try to do a lot of marketing for my books. As I work with a small publisher with a limited budget, I find I have to do most of my marketing myself. After getting published, the biggest obstacle to an author is in developing a following. There are thousands of good authors and good books out there, but I believe the majority of readers, even serious readers, are only familiar with a small fraction of them. If they’ve never heard your name, how can they be expected to check out your books?
Morgen: That is the hardest part, which is predominantly part of why I started this blog and although my book sales are still a trickle (but to be fair I do very little marketing other than links at the bottom of each posting, I plan to do more when my novels are out) but I have heard (from a US contributor) that a random fellow party goer had heard of me and loved my blog / loved my podcast (that was a thrill) and I met a highly respected journalist at the Chipping Norton Literature Festival (which was brilliant!) at the weekend and when we swapped business cards she’d already visited my blog! Anyway, enough about me. Do you have a favourite of your books or characters? If any of your books were made into films, who would you have as the leading actor/s?
Bob: Excellent question! My favourite character is my lead character, Jim West, but I do not have a favourite book. I have thought about who I would like to play West in a movie but have never decided on a specific candidate. Every time I see a movie or television show with a decent 40-50 year old male actor, I think about it.
Morgen: I’d watch it if someone like Joseph Fiennes was in it (I’d watch it anyway of course ). Did you have any say in the title / covers of your books? How important do you think they are?
Bob: I think both book title and cover are important. If done well, both can help snag a potential buyer’s attention. I had very little say on the covers to my books, although my publisher does include me in the process by giving me some of his choices for comment. He is much more flexible with the book titles. My first two book titles came as a result of negotiation, but for the last two he accepted my proposals.
Morgen: You do have to think that the publishers know what they’re doing but even so they’re your babies, aren’t they. What are you working on at the moment / next?
Bob: Right now I’m finishing up my fifth Jim West mystery / thriller. When that’s done, I’ll be finalizing a young adult scifi / fantasy that I’ve been working with my granddaughter.
Morgen: Ah ha, yes children’s… you have the experience so it does make sense, and I bet she’s thrilled to be involved. Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
Bob: My goal is to write at least five times a week, and I’m able to make that goal on most weeks. Fortunately, I rarely suffer from writer’s block.
Morgen: Me too. I find I have so little time to write that I don’t want to waste it. Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Bob: I love to get an idea and run with it. The plot comes together while I work my way through the book. I do have a general, overall concept of where I’m going, but it’s malleable and certainly nothing written down or charted.
Morgen: I’ve written four and a bit novels (which I’m currently editing) and I plotted a fair amount (well, about five A4 pages) for the first one and it vaguely stuck to it but then I did less for the others. Do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?
Bob: I do not have any method for creating my characters but I do have to write their names down as I create them. If I don’t, I lose track of them, and I find myself scrolling back through the pages trying to find a name for a character I created earlier in the book. I hope I make my characters believable. When I create a character, I try to picture him or her in my mind and I try to give them a personality.
Morgen: I’ve written short stories before (and some really short) where I’ve changed names part-way through and realised (or not!) as I’ve read it out to one of my critique groups. Do you write any non-fiction, poetry or short stories?
Bob: I’ve written a variety of short stories, but no poetry or non-fiction.
Morgen: I only tend to write poetry for a specific purpose and all my non-fiction so far (more published than my fiction actually) has been about writing. Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Bob: I still have to do a lot of editing. I feel like I’m improving as a writer the more I write, but I still spend a lot of time editing.
Morgen: It’s practice isn’t it. Play a piano or snooker and you have to practice. Do you have to do much research?
Bob: Fortunately, not too much. I spent nearly thirty years conducting and supervising criminal investigations and counterintelligence operations. I also set my stories in places with which I’m familiar.
Morgen: Good plan (me too). What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?
Bob: My books have all been in the first person. I have dabbled with third person, but not with anything that’s been published. I have not attempted second person.
Morgen: Oh you should. It’s not to everyone’s taste (to write or read) but it’s my favourite and pretty much all that’s coming out at the moment. Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?
Bob: Of course. I imagine we all do. A lot of that, however, I wrote in the past for fun and family.
Morgen: Or ‘therapy’. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?
Bob: The editing aspect to my writing is my least favourite. I now use a professional, but I still go over my book three or four times before its ready for her. My biggest surprise is how much I really enjoy the writing!
Morgen: Snap. As well as someone else picking up on errors they come up with some great suggestions (mine does anyway). What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Bob: Stick with it. Join writers’ groups and participate in their critique sessions and contests.
Morgen: Yes, do they’re great. I run / belong to four groups and I get something out of each one. If you could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what would you cook (or hide the takeaway containers)?
Bob: Well if my wife was out of town I would seriously consider Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, and Ingrid Bergman, but since that probably wouldn’t work, I’d be fascinated to be able to talk to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill. Of course, I would have to serve up some good ol’ Texas barbeque.
Morgen: Well if it was a barbeque maybe we could have them all. I was at the cinema recently and saw a poster of ‘Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter’ – I’m not sure it’s one I’ll be going to although it sounds like fun. Is there a word, phrase or quote you like?
Bob: If a man stranded alone on a desert island speaks out loud, since there is no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?
Morgen: I’d since there’s no-one to say otherwise, no, he isn’t, unless he’s saying that marketing of eBooks is easy. Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?
Bob: I review books for a writers’ organization and teach a short course to aspiring writers.
Morgen: I often get asked to review books but don’t have the time so let me know if you’d like to volunteer. What do you do when you’re not writing?
Bob: I play golf, read, and spend time with the grand children when I can.
Morgen: Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?
Bob: I’m on a number of networking sites and while there is some value in belonging to these groups, I wouldn’t consider any of them that “valuable.”
Morgen: What do you think the future holds for a writer?
Bob: I think the future is bright for writers. The time is drawing to a close where a half dozen or so major publishing houses can control the bulk of what is being published. A future writer will have to do more on her own to prepare her books, but getting a book out and in easy reach to more people than ever before is now a reality.
Morgen: The joy of doing that is that you get to speak to your readers directly, that’s wonderful. Where can we find out about you and your work?
Bob: I welcome everyone to visit my website, www.bobdoerr.com, my author’s page on Amazon, or my author page on Facebook.
Morgen: Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Bob: I would like to thank you Morgen, for this opportunity to appear in your blog. You are doing a great service to new authors by allowing more readers to become familiar with us.
Morgen: You’re very welcome, Bob. I enjoy it.
Bob Doerr grew up in a military family, graduated from the Air Force Academy, and had a twenty-eight year career of his own in the Air Force. It was a life style that exposed him to the people and cultures in Asia, Europe and of these United States.
Bob specialized in criminal investigations and counterintelligence gaining significant insight to the worlds of crime, espionage and terrorism. His work brought him into close contact and coordination with the investigative and security agencies of many different countries and with the FBI and CIA. His education credits include a Masters in International Relations from Creighton University.
Bob is now a full time author, with four mystery / thrillers already published and a fifth to be released in the fall. Two of his books, Cold Winter’s Kill and Loose Ends Kill, were selected as finalists for the Eric Hoffer Award. Loose Ends Kill was also awarded the 2011 Silver medal for Fiction / mystery by the Military Writers Society of America.
He lives in Garden Ridge, Texas, with Leigh, his wife of 39 years.
***
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 information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, 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.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
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Welcome to Post-weekend Poetry and the eighteenth poem in this series. This week’s piece is by Jackie Atkins.
Waiting Game
Pintsized dabs of cotton balls nodding in the sea
Cloudy sprays of sea tingling sour braveries
Like towers leaning on a rocking horse dais
Layered sky of braced curtains shutting off the gilt
As sea gulls huddle on the beach for radiance
Promised to them if they endured the night-time blue
Like constant retainers, profiteers of the beach
Amass their time to press their revered covenant
Grasping rhythms of the day by never flinching
Waiting for their guarantee without a movement
Silent in this nakedness and faceless current
Unhesitating in their patient steadfast gaze
How I wish I could be them and stand so faithful
Never fretting, never flinching as a handmaid
Sustaining profounder horizons on the brink
I asked Jackie what prompted this piece and she said…
Though the wintertime on a summer beach is cold and windy the sea gulls are content to sit and wait in a huddle of fifty or more at a time with not a feather ruffled.
I love that. Thank you, Jackie.
Jackie Atkins is a television script writer who has recently sold an idea to Family Television Network. The planning is in the works for a 26 series to be developed by EWTN in Irondale, Alabama. For now, she is contented with writing theater reviews and commentary for www.broadstreetreview.com, walking on the beaches of Cape May, New Jersey and contemplating another short story. She has existed financially with jobs as a horse jockey, paralegal and bartender. Now she is at rest.
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 mystery / thriller author Bob Doerr – the three hundred and forty-ninth 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo. My eBooks are now on Amazon, with more to follow, and I also have a quirky second-person viewpoint story in charity anthology Telling Tales. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me.
Tags: chapbook, Jackie Atkins, Jackie Schifalacqua Atkins, poem, poetic, poetry, scriptwriting, writing
The twentieth prompt from online writing group Tuesday Tales (my fourteenth story for them) was ‘car’ and below is the result.
Tuesday Tales provides a new prompt each week, the members 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 Joachim. She then posts them on the Tuesday Tales blog (on a Tuesday ), gives us the link then we go out and shout about it. So, without further ado, here is my 473-worder (second person, as I so often do).
Appearances can be deceptive
Sitting outside the bank isn’t your idea of fun. They said they wouldn’t be long but whenever Ernie’s involved you know his clock works differently to everyone else’s. You should have brought a book but he wants you to be on your guard, be bored while he’s chatting up some ‘skirt’ as he calls them. You’re more of a ‘know what you want, go in and get it’ person, although this isn’t exactly shopping.
“It’s not life or death,” Jack says, which you find funny as you know it could be. Not funny ha-ha, of course, it’s never ha-ha.
“Got to keep your mind on the job, professional at all times,” Jack says every now and then, within earshot of Ernie, despite knowing it won’t even go in one ear let alone out the other.
You expect violence and sometimes you get it, or Ernie or Jack do, but it’s part of the risks you take, doing what you do. Your heart’s thumping – you want to know what’s happening on the inside, be part of the ‘action’.
Each time you see them go in you wish you weren’t the driver, the “getaway” as Ernie calls you, only without the ‘t’.
Your trousers are too tight and wish you’d not had an extra slice of toast at breakfast but the adrenalin will burn it off soon enough, it’s only the first job of the day.
The clock on the dashboard is fast, Jack’s idea to try and keep Ernie in check, but you both know that’s pointless.
A brand new Mercedes pulls up on the double-yellow lines in front of you and you tense. The door opens slowly and you reach for a gun you know isn’t there. White hair is the first thing you see and when the man turns round to shut the door, you realise he must be at least 90. He hobbles between your van and his car and reaches inside his jacket. You lean forward to get a better look and see him pull out a wallet and continue his slow journey to the cashpoint. A simple transaction and he returns, carefully putting what looks like a single note into his wallet and placing that with equal reverence into his pocket. He smiles at you as he passes, lowers himself stiffly into his car and drives away.
Relaxing a little, you look at the bank as your colleagues come out laughing, Ernie patting Jack on the back, Ernie wiping his mouth. They’re both holding cases you know are stuffed with money and you start the engine.
With the cases stowed, Jack gets in beside you, Ernie in the back and you speed away.
This is only your first month but you know you’ll fit in – three being the magic number, one for each red dot on your Securitas logo.
The link to the other stories for this prompt is here.
The links to the earlier prompts can be found on the Tuesday Tales page here on this blog. Do go and check out the Tuesday Tales site.
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 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore, Kobo and Amazon, with more to follow. I have a new forum, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me. I also now have a new blog creation service especially for, but not limited to, writers.
Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called Short Story Saturdays where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively 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 and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: flash fiction, Tuesday Tales, weekly writing exercise, writing, writing prompt
Welcome to the three hundred and forty-eighth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with psychological thriller novelist and guest postee Rachel Abbott. 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, Rachel. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Rachel: I’m Rachel Abbott, and I live in central Italy – in an old converted monastery. Not as huge as it sounds, because there were only ever four monks here, but it does have its own little chapel.
I was lucky enough to sell my business in the UK about 12 years ago, and that gave me the opportunity to give up work a lot earlier than I would have expected to, which in turn gave me the chance to write, something that I had been wanting to do for years.
Morgen: Your ‘house’ sounds wonderful and with your surname, the perfect place. I’ve just given up my job (20 years early) although I still do bits of work for them (and will probably have to for a while) but at home, which is wonderful. We’re living the dream, aren’t we? What genre do you generally write?
Rachel: I write psychological thrillers – I find people completely fascinating and I should really have been a psychologist. I tend to create scenarios in which people who appear on the surface to be completely normal are actually hiding dark secrets. I did toy with the idea of writing for young teens. I had a really good idea that I still love, but when I tried to write, it just wasn’t good. By trying to write for a younger age range, my writing became very stilted.
Morgen: I think I’d be the same, not helped by not having children. What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Rachel: My first novel – Only the Innocent – was published in November 2011 for the Kindle and other e-readers. I’m delighted to say that it reached Number 1 in the UK Amazon charts on 18th February.
Rachel Abbott is a pseudonym which I actually decided to use because I wasn’t sure I could handle publishing something in my own name if people didn’t like it. Fortunately, it appears that the majority of people do like it, so I needn’t have done that. However, I like the name Rachel Abbott much more than my real name!
Morgen: Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?
Rachel: I do have an agent, but I didn’t until Only the Innocent had become successful. I don’t think that an agent would have had much impact on sales of the Kindle version of Only the Innocent, but I am confident that in the future my agent will have a huge impact on my writing. I have found her to be immensely helpful and supportive and whether we decide to go the traditional route or stick with self-publishing, I am confident that it was the right decision. If I am honest, I would still really like to see my book in a bookshop, and the best chance of that is with a good agent. I tend to read on my Kindle or iPad now, but I have a massive library at home with thousands of books. I just love them.
Morgen: I don’t have an agent and do feel that they earn their keep (in most cases) but I love being able to do our own thing, making our own choices. How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?
Rachel: To date, I have done all of my own marketing – with no budget at all. When I launched Only the Innocent, I had no sales platform – nobody knew I existed. So it was a very steep learning curve. I used Twitter extensively to start with – and although people say that you only perhaps pick up one or two sales a day with Twitter, the reality is that in the early days of selling a book, every individual sale is vitally important to the book’s visibility on Amazon.
Morgen: It is absolutely, and realistically even a book or two a day is good. Your cover is very striking, please tell us more about its design and how important do you think they are?
Rachel: A friend of mine designed the cover. We used to work together, and now he is the Creative Director of a large company. But when I told him what I was doing, he wouldn’t let me use anybody else and insisted on doing it as a favour.
I think the cover is really important. I’ve seen lots of discussion about this, and I’m sure that people don’t actually buy a book because of its cover, but I think it might make them decide to look twice. A poorly designed cover seems to somehow show a lack of commitment.
Morgen: I think it certainly makes them look twice. What are you working on at the moment / next?
Rachel: I’m working on another thriller. The detective will be the same, although his role in the investigation will be quite different. All the other characters are new. As with Only the Innocent, the new book is about people who appear on the surface to be ordinary people, with the ordinary flaws that everybody has. But at least one person is hiding a deadly secret. It is very different in setting and relationships to Only the Innocent, but I do hope that it will evoke the same reaction in readers.
Morgen: I went to a crime writing workshop (hosted by novelist Helen Black) at the fantastic (and unbelievably first!) Chipping Norton Literature Festival yesterday afternoon. I’ve been to a LOT of talks over the past seven years and although it’s was only an hour, including questions, it was one of the best I’ve been to. Perhaps because of the timescale, Helen packed in so much information that I felt I learned such a lot about writing generally, and I thought I knew so much already. It was pure nuts and bolts and has really fired me up to squeeze in writing new crime novels as well as editing the four (various genre) novels I’ve written already (plus everything else ). At her book signing one of the ladies who bought her book (there were men as well) said she struggled to write every day and I said I’d only worked out recently that 300 words a day equates to 100,000 words a year. Feasible really (I certainly plan to ). Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
Rachel: I would love to write every day! At the moment, I am still marketing Only the Innocent – it was great to be at number 1 in the UK, but I would like to make more of an impact in the US, and I want to maintain the momentum. So I am writing a lot of guest blog posts, and posts for my own blog. But I am going to be strict and focus on my writing every afternoon.
I don’t suffer from writer’s block – I suffer from planner’s block! I plan my novels with absolute precision, and I have to completely understand the motives of each individual. In my novels, everybody has a story. There are really no spare parts or padding. Each and every person has something going on in their lives, and these lives are all intertwined. I have recently had a problem with my really “bad guy” because I couldn’t quite come to terms with what this person had done. It didn’t feel quite right, so I struggled for a couple of weeks to clarify in my mind how everything would fit together.
Morgen: Two thirds of the readers of this blog are from the US so hopefully this will have a dent (if not an impact) over the ‘pond’ (this interview comes out 7am on a Monday morning so should catch their late Sunday evening). Thrillers are one of the most complex to write, and you say you plan with absolute precision, how do you plot your stories?
Rachel: Massive plotting, planning, character sheets, flowcharts, timelines – I am obsessive about it. I need it to be 100% clear in my head before I start to write. That’s not to say that other ideas don’t pop up from time to time, and they get added. But the plot is everything in a thriller, so it has to be just right.
Morgen: The first talk of ChipLit was a women’s fiction panel (with Katie Fforde, Jill Mansell, Fiona Walker, Veronica Henry – hosted by the brilliant Jane Wenham Jones) and when the question of ‘how’ they write, Jill came out with an A5 folded timeline which was just landscape A4 sheets sellotaped together with post-it notes of the plot on them. By using post-its she could peel them off if they were in the wrong order as she was planning or writing the book. I’m going to use that process (Helen does something similar with A4 sheets with the scene number, characters, location, and summary, all in order on her dining room floor) instead of my Word document of notes as I’ve found one scene happening before something that’s already happened, so I’ve ended up dating each chapter but a more linear process does sound good. Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Rachel: I write very long – far too much detail. But I write very quickly so I just get on with it once the planning is done. I don’t check back over what I’ve written until I get to the end. Then I get a big red pen and chop out huge amounts.
Morgen: I write quickly too and perhaps with too much detail, currently too many cups of tea in the first novel so all but two or three will go! Do you have to do much research?
Rachel: I did for Only the Innocent. I had to find out when Rohypnol was first used in the UK, how Eastern European prostitutes get into the country and what they cost to ‘buy’ from their smugglers. I needed to find out how to kill a man without poison or blood. My husband was getting a bit concerned that the police would be round any minute if they were monitoring our Google activity.
Morgen: They’d arrest thousands of us writers if that were the case. One of my favourite aspects of writing (I’m a nice person really, but I do have a dark streak when it comes to fiction) is that we can kill people legally. If you could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what would you cook (or hide the takeaway containers)?
Rachel: Daphne du Maurier because she must have been an amazing person, Stephen Fry because he’s just so bright and so funny, and David Beckham for my personal titillation!
I would cook spice crusted tuna and chicory salad, a fillet of beef in a soy honey glaze with Tuscan potatoes and green beans, fresh apricot sorbet with a raspberry coulis.
Morgen: Yum. I like your choice. I went to a talk by Alan Davies (who’s on QI with Stephen Fry) and some of the questions were about Stephen and you could tell Alan had a wonderful time recording the programme, even though he usually gets ‘picked on’. What do you do when you’re not writing?
Rachel: I love to cook. I have actually written a couple of cookery books – but only for friends and family. We did talk about publishing them – but I have no idea when I would have the time.
Morgen: But you have them, that’s the main thing, they’re there for when you have the time. Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?
Rachel: I chat to people on Amazon forums and on Goodreads. I love it. It’s great to discover other people’s perspectives, but I have found that everybody is unbelievably supportive. It has been a huge and pleasant surprise to me how people really seemed pleased about the success of others, and how ready they are to help those who are struggling.
Morgen: I was amazed when I started writing how friendly (mostly) the writing industry is. I think we all know how hard it is and, like learner drivers, we all empathise and help where we can. Where can we find out about you and your work?
Rachel: I have a website at http://www.rachel-abbott.com and a blog at http://rachelabbottwriter.wordpress.com. My books are available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.
Morgen: Lovely, thank you, Rachel.
I then invited Rachel to include an extract of her writing…
Laura Fletcher indicated left, and swung her car abruptly from the main road onto the unlit lane which approached Ashbury Park. Slamming her foot hard on the brake, the car slowed to a crawl as she stared nervously at a strange white glow, lighting up the sky above the trees ahead. She cautiously turned the final bend towards the gates of her home, and was met with a shattering sight.
‘Oh, dear God’, she whispered.
There was no escape. The hordes of press, hearing the deep hum of her Mercedes coupé, rapidly whipped their cameras round towards her. The television teams swiftly adjusted their arc lights to point at her approaching car, the bright beams penetrating the interior of her car with their harsh glare, momentarily blinding her. It wasn’t unusual to see photographers at these gates, and she could practically taste their excitement. After all, Hugo’s fame and near celebrity status had virtually been built by these very same individuals, as he skilfully fed them just enough information about his work to maintain their interest.
But this was different. This was a feeding frenzy.
And there was only one way that she could gain access to her home. Hugo had insisted that the electric gates had a keypad opening system rather than a remote control. That way, he could change the code regularly. Remotes could be lost, or even sold to the highest bidder.
Rachel Abbott is the author of best selling novel Only the Innocent. She spent the majority of her working life running an interactive media company that designed and developed software and websites, mainly for education. Her company was sold in 2000, and although she continued working for another 5 years, she also fulfilled a lifelong ambition of buying and restoring a property in Italy, where she now lives with her husband and their two dogs.
***
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 information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, 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.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome critique for the four new writing groups listed below and / or flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays. For other opportunities see (see Opportunities on this blog).
The full details of the new online writing groups, and their associated Facebook groups, are:
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Bailey’s Writing Tips podcast ‘short stories’ episode number 10 went live 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 do email me should you like to submit your own (clean and not too graphic please).
This episode contained 753-worded ‘Refugees in the cave’ by Joy V Smith, ‘Baby Fat’ a 837-worder by Sheila Pierson, and a ’A Fine Day’ (1498 words) by Jim Sellers, the latter of which hasn’t appeared on Flash Fiction Fridays as it’s longer than the 1,000-word maximum but is available to read on Jim’s website (http://playandscribe.com). The links to all these are on this blog’s podcast’s short stories page. I don’t critique them but simply read them out and I hope you enjoy this format. See the links above to read the stories… or hear my dulcet tones on the podcast.
Sheila Pierson is a writer and has finally come to grips with this, and without therapy. She has written short stories, essays and poetry since she was a young child, now pursuing this craft with the passion she has for it. She is currently working on a collection of short stories for publication. The novel always lurks in the shadows, grumbling in the corners of her bedroom just as she drifts off to sleep. Sheila blogs at http://sheilapierson.wordpress.com and can be found on Twitter @sheilapierson1.
Joy was born on a farm in Wisconsin and still love barns and the smell of silage (“an acquired taste,” she says). She lived in Boston after graduating from college, and is now back in Florida (not retired) where she spent some of her childhood. After selling wildlife habitat in the country, she bought a foreclosure earlier this year and had to replace the kitchen, among other things. They’d even taken the kitchen sink! Thanks to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which takes place each November, Joy’s now written three novels. She three blogs: her writing blog, her media blog and her house blog.
Jim Sellers is a writer and musician, pro on the former and avid amateur on the latter. His website http://playandscribe.com is shared between his two primary interests; as a writer posting short stories and useful links and in the Guitar Player pages you will see samples of his music and some thoughts I have on playing music.
Thank you for downloading / listening to this short story episode – I hope you enjoyed it. The next episode will be a hints & tips episode then short stories return a fortnight thereafter.
All the details of the podcast episodes are listed on the podcast page and sub-pages and my email address to submit a short story for critique (or review for the Short Story Saturdays) is morgen@morgenbailey.com.
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).
You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo. My eBooks are now on Amazon, with more to follow, and I also have a quirky second-person viewpoint story in charity anthology Telling Tales. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for my Post-weekend Poetry page.
Tags: Bailey's writing tips, flash fiction, interview, Jim Sellers, Joy Smith, Joy V Smith, national novel writing month, podcast, Sheila Pierson, short stories, writing
Welcome to the three hundred and forty-seventh of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with writer and artist Lesley Fletcher. 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, Lesley. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Lesley: Hi Morgen. I am an artist / writer living in Montreal and a Canadian in every sense of the word. Being Canadian is actually part of my definition as more and more I am learning that ‘we’ seem to have a collective personality on many levels; the most important to me being the ability embrace different cultures and maintain a level of spiritualism without letting religion and racism disturb the mix.
Writing came to me via my visual art. As I painted the characters from my first book (Prom Girls a North American Rite of Passage) they provided stories that I had no idea resided in my brain’s filing cabinet.
Although I applied and was accepted into journalism school many years ago, life managed to veer me in other directions. It was not until four years ago that I remembered the dream of being a writer and have been pursuing it since.
Morgen: I was only two years earlier, although I only realised a couple of years ago that I wanted to do it for a career… that part I’m still working on. What have you had published to-date?
Lesley: My first book, mentioned above, followed closely by two children’s books – “Hey Angel!” which is for very young readers or a bedtime type of story and “All I Want for Christmas is a Wishmas Tree” which is about immersion and acceptance in a multi-cultural world. Finally I just published “5 Pillars of the Gypsy” – A collection of art (about 50 pieces) and poems meant to connect the reader with their inner voice and emotions.
Morgen: The ultimate picture book. Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?
Lesley: Yes, without details I can say rejection is a part of life. My skin has grown thicker and my esteem has grown stronger in spite of it.
Morgen: Excellent. Well, not excellent that you’ve received them but that they’ve helped you. Mine have made me more determined – they’re just the right thing for the wrong person. Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?
Lesley: Nay I am an Independent Publisher all the way. If an agent knocks I will answer though as I believe a top ranking agent can certainly help an author catapult to a higher level. ‘Vital’ is a big word that doesn’t seem to fit as there have been so many documented successes not owed to agents or publishers for that matter. Time changes everything as does technology.
Morgen: It does, and I love it (I grew up with an older brother). Speaking of technology, are your books available as eBooks? Were you involved in that process at all? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Lesley: eBooks are a phenomenon in a way. I don’t think anyone realised the impact they would have on the industry! I did publish “5 Pillars of the Gypsy” as an eBook with Kindle Select because of the opportunity to offer it free and to fill the need for instant access. I had reservations as e-books have not been very image friendly until recently. I did the formatting myself. Actually other than the editing and proofing I produced the whole book myself including cover and layout. Recently I downloaded a desk-top version of Kindle where I have three books awaiting me. The thing is, after being on the computer most of the day, I really like the idea of curling up on the couch with a good book and so as yet they remain un-read. I have a fondness for the feel of paper and don’t imagine that will change any time soon. All of my books are available in print.
Morgen: Most people I’ve spoken to say that they won’t give up paper books and there’s nothing stopping anyone curling up on the couch (sofa ) with a paper book, I do (all too occasionally) but I love having 400+ books (including mine ) with me when I go out. How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?
Lesley: My days are filled with marketing in one way or another. Because I have been in a production mode with both my art and with books (four in three years) I was not focused on marketing. Now I have almost got myself on a schedule I can live with. I know I am not the only one that gets distracted by the Internet so I feel free to say that I end up flipping through art collections, reading blogs / news etc. but I think it will all tie in at some point. I have been fortunate to meet many great talents via Twitter and LinkedIn and even Facebook although with FB I am a bit uncomfortable with the Author and Artist page ‘liking’ as they are not fully interactive so I keep my personal page and welcome adding friends. Yes I am Branding Me.
Morgen: I love that and yes, I get swayed by FB and Twitter (and the ping of my email) but I’ve been good the last couple of days and actually closed them most of the time, although yesterday I was volunteering at the Chipping Norton Literary Festival (and am again today) so was living Facebook and Twitter. Do you have a favourite of your books or characters? If any of your books were made into films, who would you have as the leading actor/s?
Lesley: I favour my latest book. On the title page I say ‘This is my heart’ and I mean it. The courage it takes to expose ones heart is not describable especially for a (former) introverted person as me. Now, if you will indulge me… It would be a dream of mine to have my work (5Pillars) interpreted into a stage production such as Cirque du Soleil. This is really a cheeky dream because their latest production is based on Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’. Still, I can close my eyes and see it all unfold.
Morgen: It’s funny you saying you were introverted, it does seem different online – you can be someone else and seeing how friendly and hugely encouraging fellow writers are (online and in real life) it’s easy to have your confidence boosted. Did you have any say in the titles / covers of your books? How important do you think they are?
Lesley: All of my covers consist of my artwork so yes I had a lot of say! I believe I read that 80% of shoppers pick the book up based on the title and cover alone so these are extremely important qualities. I know that I personally fall into that percentage. We are a visual world.
Morgen: I’m not too fussed about covers (although if they grab me then all the better) but I love titles. That said a bad one won’t put me off (I did by James Patterson’s ‘The Quickie’!) providing the content looks good (in James’ case it was co-written by Michael Letwidge and I bought it because of how good their ‘Step on a Crack’ was). What are you working on at the moment / next?
Lesley: I have been writing and writing in my portable notebook (paper!) and toying with tackling schizophrenia in a fictional setting but it is such a heavy subject that I cannot be sure of moving forward with it. I do have several other ideas but no firm commitment to anything right now.
Morgen: Maybe you could do a bit of everything? Do you do a lot of editing?
Lesley: Major time consumer – yes.
Morgen: Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?
Lesley: They just did, Morgen.
Morgen: Oh dear. Right at the start of this interview you said that your characters provide your stories (my favourite aspect of writing), what’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?
Lesley: Writing comes as a first nature to some people but it does not to me. I have to be totally committed, in the zone and heads down without interruption of even normalcies of life like eating or sleeping or dressing on a schedule. This has caused me a great inconvenience. I took a trip in order to write and wrote nothing worth noting – I was disappointed in myself for that but surprisingly all of my travels combined to produce my poetry. I now have a ‘stand back and run with it’ mentality. I love to read back what I have written and be surprised by the fact it came from me. Do you know what I mean? What is meant to surface will surface for me but at its own pace.
Morgen: I absolutely know what you mean. Sometimes I look at older pieces (and they don’t have to be that old) and be pleasantly surprised (others times I cringe, of course). What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Lesley: Be true to yourself.
Morgen: That’s a great one but is there a word, phrase or quote you especially like?
Lesley: There are so many but I will stick with Albert Einstein’s – “The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. Those who walk alone are likely to find themselves in places no one has ever been before.” I have a tendency to be a bit daring in the eyes of my peers so find this suiting.
Morgen: Daring is great. What do you do when you’re not writing?
Lesley: I am an avid Texas Hold ‘em player. Nothing as refreshing as playing poker with the guys who spend the evening talking about subjects totally out of my realm of thinking and expertise! Oh and art of course.
Morgen: I hope you’re making notes when they tell you so you can use it in your writing. Are there any writing-related websites and/or books that you find useful?
Lesley: Yes. I told Sandra Beckwith that she was my new Guru because her blogs are so relevant to the current book business. Sandra’s site offers free access to priceless information and she, herself is accessible which is a rare commodity. One of her lines is “ And because you’ve found this valuable resource, you probably already know one of the dirty little secrets of book publishing: “You are responsible for marketing your book.”
Morgen: I don’t know Sandra so I’ll have to take a look. You mentioned a couple earlier but are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?
Lesley: I really like LinkedIn. Now that I have figured out how to properly use it, it has become a very valuable resource as have the writers who post their experience, expertise and humanness.
I am starting to warm up to Twitter (@gypsyles) as I have now connected with a wonderful variety of minds and have learned a few tips. I followed @CeeBee308 who is a native Montrealer too and a successful author who markets his own books (Claude Bouchard). On his website he answers how he built his Twitter community. What I admire about Claude is he is also accessible and true to his word as he answers tweets, promotes other authors (he has 250k+ followers) all while branding himself in a non-aggravating way.
Morgen: I was listening (as I do every Sunday evening, and commenting in the chatroom) to online Radio Litopia’s After Dark programme with guest Jeffrey Archer and he said he dictates his tweets – apparently his secretary prints them off and he dictates his replies – now to me, that’s the ultimate in cool, although a lot of what Twitter is about is instant banter so he’d miss out on that. What do you think the future holds for a writer?
Lesley: The same as it always has but with an improved ease-of-use manual. Someone said write a great story and a great book will happen. (I think I said that to myself! lol)
Morgen: All we need now is for great people to buy them. Where can we find out about you and your work?
Lesley: My website is the best place to connect and to have an overview of my artwork and books. The contact page has live social networking links and each of my book covers has links directly to Amazon. My Amazon Author page has a Bio and all my books listed.
Morgen: Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Lesley: Yes, I will be offering my book free as a Kindle download today and tomorrow (April 22, 23) and invite all to enjoy, relate and connect with both myself and “5 Pillars of the Gypsy.”
Morgen: Oh yes folks, please do. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?
Lesley: YES! who would you have to dinner if it only had to be a choice of three. Would they all get along or would your choices be self-indulgent?
Morgen: No hesitation. I’d have my dad (who died September 2001), Roald Dahl (who my dad took photographs for) and Kate Atkinson. My favourite two authors and my favourite father. I think they’d get along, despite my dad not recognising Roald when he first brought a film into my dad’s shop to be processed (he had to ask his name). Roald obviously forgave him as he went to his house in Great Missenden a few times (including taking a video of one of Sophie Dahl’s birthday parties). Kate’s always struck me as someone who’d get on with anyone, as my father did, so I think they’d all get on famously. I do wonder if I’d have been a writer sooner had I known (or perhaps I knew but didn’t pay attention) at the time that my father was working for Roald (so I never met him). I love to read and write dark stories with a twist so Roald’s influence obviously rubbed off on me. Thank you, Lesley, for asking.
Lesley: Morgen, I would like to thank you very much for taking the time to interview me and for the all the work you put into helping writers better themselves as well as offering a marketing platform. It is truly appreciated.
Morgen: I appreciate the authors volunteering themselves. It’s a LOT of work (practically full-time) but I enjoy it (and it helps when sometimes it leads to a book sale ).
I then invited Lesley to include an extract of her writing and this is from the 5th Pillar of the Gypsy – excerpt of ‘The Gypsy (part1)’
When the winds of change
Grow silent
And the gypsy
Is confused
And there is no
Other avenue
She wishes
To pursue,
Then the hands
Of time
Will falter
And the spirit
Disengage,
Then no longer
Will her
Soul survive
No fire in her gaze.
She lays her head
To bed at night
Somewhat mystified.
The bed is
Warm and solid.
The house
Is cool and calm.
Then why is it
This gypsy
Feels not
That she belongs?
***
Update October 2012: My book, 5 Pillars of the Gypsy is now available through Smashwords and I have received seven 5-star reviews which have aided in dictating the direction of my writing. I am currently developing a stage play based on one or more of the concepts from the book.
Also as a connection point I now have a blog about both my art and my books along with others. I have opportunities for interviews, exposes and guest posts from all artists including photographers, visual artists, authors, musicians (the works).
***
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 information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, 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.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome critique for the four new writing groups listed below and / or flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays. For other opportunities see (see Opportunities on this blog).
The full details of the new online writing groups, and their associated Facebook groups, are:
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Complementing my daily blog interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the seventy-eighth, is of Nina Munteanu.
Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist and novelist. In addition to eight published novels, she has authored award-winning short stories, articles and non-fiction books, which have been translated into several languages throughout the world. Recognition for her work includes the Midwest Book Review Reader’s Choice Award, Delta Optimist Reader’s Choice, Foreword Magazine Book of the Year, Speculative Literature Foundation Fountain Award, and the Aurora Award, Canada’s top prize in science fiction.
Nina has published over a hundred articles and short stories since 1995. She is contributing author of Suite 101 and served as assistant editor-in-chief of Imagikon, a Romanian speculative magazine. She currently serves as editor-in-chief of DL Publishing in Palm Coast, Florida. Nina regularly publishes reviews and essays in magazines such as The New York Review of Science Fiction and Strange Horizons, and serves as staff writer for several online and print magazines.
Nina lectured at colleges and universities for over twenty years. Nina has been providing personal coaching and group workshops for writers on all aspects of writing and publishing in fiction and non-fiction venues for over fifteen years. Nina’s guidebook on writing, “The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now!” was nominated for an Aurora Award. It is being used in several schools and universities. It was translated and published in Romania by Editura Paralela 45.
Nina’s award-winning blog The Alien Next Door hosts lively discussion on science, travel, pop culture, writing and movies.
And now from the author herself:
I’m a successfully published author with acclaimed novels, short stories and essays published all over the world. But what if I told you that I never read as a kid, I was the worst speller in my school and I used bad grammar? I didn’t excel in typing class and practically failed English 101. Based on my Career Aptitude Test score, the school counselor recommended that I go into some trade like car mechanic.
Let me tell you a story… When I was ten years old, it was 1964 and I’d taken my favorite rock group’s song to heart, the Beatles’ “I Want to be a Paperback Writer”. It was an incredible moment of clarity for me and despite being challenged by my stern and unimaginative primary school teacher, who kept trying to corral me into being “normal”, I wasn’t going to let anyone stem my creativity and eccentric—if not wayward—approach to literature, language and writing.
As a teenager, I wrote, directed and recorded “radio plays” with my sister. When we weren’t bursting into riotous laughter, it was actually pretty good. She and I shared a bedroom in the back of the house and at bedtime we opened our doors of imagination to a cast of thousands. We fed each other wild stories of space travel, adventure and intrigue, murmuring and giggling well into the dark night and long after our parents were snoring in their beds. Those days scintillated with liberating originality, excitement and joy. I also enjoyed animation and drew several cartoon strips, peopled with crazy characters as I dreamt of writing graphic novels like Green Lantern and Magnus, Robot Fighter. My hero was Ray Bradbury; I vowed to write profoundly stirring tales like his. Stories that lingered with you long after you finished them. Stories that made you think and dream and changed you imperceptibly.
Then life got in the way. I grew up.
Well, that, and the environment intervened. I quietly held my dream of being a paperback novelist close to my heart, even if it was closeted in my subconscious. I discovered a cause worth investing a fervent energy: the well-being of our planet. With the cause came my relentless pursuit of a science degree, which proved worthwhile in my “calling” and self-expression: to make science accessible to the lay-public and to write hard-science fiction stories and novels of substance. The latter didn’t happen for several years after I acquired my Masters of Science degree. Once I began publishing fiction stories, I never looked back. And as far as I’m concerned, the sky’s the limit now.
A few years ago, I quit my day job as scientist at an environmental consulting firm and moved across the country to an artistic community on the east coast. I am currently travelling the world and pursuing my dream as a full-time author and writing coach. Come, walk with me, and pursue your dream. It’s for the taking.
I think most of us reading this will know how ‘life getting in the way’ goes. Thank you, Nina.
You can find more about Nina and her writing via her website www.ninamunteanu where you can find her teaching DVDs, webinars through Writer’s Digest University, and other teaching materials.
The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with artist and writer Lesley Fletcher – the three hundred and forty-seventh 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo. My eBooks are now on Amazon, with more to follow, and I also have a quirky second-person viewpoint story in charity anthology Telling Tales. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me.
Tags: Aurora Award, Delta Optimist Reader’s Choice, Foreword Magazine Book of the Year, Imagikon, Midwest Book Review Reader’s Choice Award, Nina Munteanu, Speculative Literature Foundation Fountain Award, The New York Review of Science Fiction and Strange Horizons
Welcome to the three hundred and forty-sixth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with comic fantasy (and a little horror) author Will Macmillan-Jones. 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, Will. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Will: Hi, I live in South Wales, a beautiful and myth-haunted area of the UK. Perhaps it’s one reason I’ve started writing. The inspiration seeps upwards from the very soil, and even manages to infiltrate my 50 something mind… when it can find room amongst the clutter, of course. The real reason I started writing? I love to entertain, but I can’t sing, can’t dance, and when I pick up my beloved guitar my dogs run howling for cover.
Morgen: My singing has the same effect on my dog. I’m not too bad on a keyboard (the beginnings of a few things anyway) but never tried the guitar. What genre do you generally write?
Will: Principally, I write comic fantasy. I grew up listening to the great radio comedy shows like The Goon Show, and Round The Horn, and love the wild, irrepressible anarchic spirit that runs through those scripts. I also write some children’s fantasy, and a little horror.
Morgen: I say I write dark and light so I guess we have a balance between humour and the creepy. What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Will: So far, Safkhet Publishing have been kind enough to take my comic fantasy series, The Banned Underground. The first volume is already out, with the second released 15th April. I’m just moving towards the end of the third manuscript now. In fact, I’ve had to stop being silly for a bit to do this interview, and am struggling to be serious for you. Actually, I have enough trouble remembering my own name most days, so I daren’t use a pseudonym. Unless it was “Oi, You! Baldy!”
Morgen: A new book out this week, how exciting. “Oi, You! Baldy!” would certainly be an easy pen name to remember. Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?
Will: Any writer who has finally got a contract will have had a lot of rejections. I’ve been under contract for a year now, and have just received a rejection for a submission I sent out 16 months ago. I could afford to laugh at that one. But, they always hurt a little. Most of us writers are just big babies who want to be loved by everyone. But that’s not going to happen. So actually, getting used to the rejections is great practice for when you launch your book, and then discover, inevitably, that there are some people who don’t like it.
Morgen: If you’re determined enough rejections do make you stronger and it’s clearly done you no harm. Have you won or been shortlisted in any competitions?
Will: I used to participate regularly in a weekly Flash Fiction competition on the Authonomy website. The only prize for winning was to know that you had won, that week. It was great practice, and taught me a lot, and yes, occasionally, I did win. When the really good authors didn’t bother. Or the judging panel was drunk, or successfully bribed. Allegedly.
Morgen: Or both? It’s catching the right thing with the right person and they clearly liked what they saw. You’re published with Safkhet Publishing, do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?
Will: No, I don’t have an agent. The only rejection that truly threw me was one well-respected literary agency who told me that there was no market for comic fantasy in the UK. I’m going to prove them wrong… An agent is really good if the author has no trust in his / her business relationship with the publisher, or the author isn’t confident enough to get out into the market place to sell their own book to a publisher.
Morgen: But many now are going their own way, with eBooks for example. Are your books available as eBooks? Were you involved in that process at all? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Will: Yes, everything will come out as an eBook. It’s a big and growing part of the market. But, they are not to my taste, and I don’t own a Kindle. Probably never will. I’m in love with books, you see. The touch, the aroma, the visual impact. Like lovely women, they are all different, all special. A Kindle is a flat piece of plastic. Where’s the romance in that? Even the covers are just fleeting electronic images on a screen.
Morgen: I love books but recently bought a Kindle and it’s great having it out and about with me and knowing I have so much choice. I tend still to read paper at home so that’s not changed, just added actually. How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?
Will: I do a lot. It’s part of the job now. Fifty years ago, a book was a rare event. Now it’s very easy to self-publish a book, so even authors with traditional contracts have to get out there and let people know about their book. Help to make it stand out a little in the crowd.
Morgen: Which is hard going. Do you have a favourite of your books or characters? If any of your books were made into films, who would you have as the leading actor/s?
Will: Sssshh!! They’ll be listening in, you know. They do that. Can’t trust the beggars an inch. I don’t really play favourites. As the author I’m supposed to stand above the fray, and let them get on with it. If you were to press me though, (you didn’t have to be that hard!) I’d love to see Grizelda the witch played by Dame Helena Bonham-Carter. I’ve admired her skills for years, ever since I saw her in a TV play with Martin Clunes about a stag do that went wrong. And maybe David Tennant as the junior Dark Lord. That would be fun.
Morgen: He would be great! I love the fact that you see your characters as real people. I’m very fond of mine too. Did you have any say in the title / covers of your book(s)? How important do you think they are?
Will: The titles are all mine, although naturally Safkhet and I discussed them. The covers are their work, and whilst I love the cover on The Amulet Of Kings, the cover Kim has designed for The Mystic Accountants simply blew me away. Covers are so important. They are the first thing an interested reader sees. The cover can make or break a book.
Morgen: That’s funny because I prefer The Amulet of Kings cover (sorry, Kim). I love cartoons and he’s cute (and probably very cheeky). What are you working on at the moment / next?
Will: I’ve got The Vampire Mechanic, the third book in The Banned Underground series in the final stages at the moment. I’m having fun with it, but at the same time I’m determined to make it the best one yet. I’ve also got three other projects bubbling away.
Morgen: There must be pressure (even if just on yourself) to make each book better, and I guess some readers will want (expect?) that. Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
Will: I do write something most days. If it isn’t on my series, I’ll try something on one of the other works, just as a change. Yes, I sometimes get a block. Then I’ll go and do a bit more Flash Fiction, or even try something totally different. For me, the trick is to write through the block. If what I write is total rubbish, I can always throw it away.
Morgen: Flash fiction does it for me. I hope you don’t throw it away because you never know… I’ve gone back to early work and thought it’s not actually that bad (although I’ve gone back to ‘good’ stuff and despaired ). Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Will: I’m a plotter. I don’t like to start writing a book properly until I have a strong idea of where it’s going to go, who will be in it, and what they are going to do, and when. I even draw out timelines. I usually play with a big cast of characters, so I need to keep track of who is where and when. Unfortunately, my bunch of characters like to wait until I’ve got everything tidy, and throw a spanner in the works by doing something odd.
Morgen: I love that. Do you have a method for creating your characters, what do you think makes them believable?
Will: Most of my characters are people I’ve met down the years. Changed a bit of course! But they are believable, because they are, somewhere, real people. Even the trolls.
Morgen: You’ve mentioned your novels and flash fiction, do you write any other format?
Will: I also have an album of song lyrics around, that might just get finished someday. Although what I could do with it, I’ve no idea.
Morgen: I’d love to write song lyrics. I have a book but never get round to reading it. Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Will: I write a lot when I’m just in the right mood. And sometimes, I’m writing very fast. So, yes, I have to edit a lot. Because I’m a plotter I don’t usually have to worry too much about plot holes when I’m editing, so I’m normally looking for typing mistakes or poor grammar. I like to think that when I do deliver the text to the publisher, it’s pretty clean.
Morgen: Maybe Kim could tell me that… no, she wouldn’t, she’s too much of a lady. Do you have to do much research?
Will: No. Most of my rubbish is purely a work of my imagination, and I write about locations that I know quite well – or that I’ve invented.
Morgen: Me too. I’m not a fan of research (although the internet is wonderful) but all my (yet-to-be-edited) novels are located in or around Northampton, where I live. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person?
Will: Usually, it’s third person. Writing in the first person wouldn’t really fit the series. But I have used the first person quite a bit in the short stories.
Morgen: Third person does tend to be the most popular with readers (and therefore agents ). Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?
Will: I thought that The Amulet of Kings was one of those! It lay dormant on a shelf, or under the bed, for thirty years before a few ideas just sparked, and it took on a new life.
Morgen: Wow. I interviewed crime novelist Sheila Quigley last November and it took her 30 years for her first book to be published although I think it was actually out in the world that long. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?
Will: I adore sitting at my desk, writing the jokes, and imagining readers falling about laughing at them. I will admit to being surprised to find out that actually happens. The day someone tells me I’ve made them fall off a chair laughing, at my rubbish, I’ll be a happy man.
Morgen: They probably do but you don’t know about it. I love having reader feedback and had an email from one today saying how much they liked my second-person short story (The Dark Side), which was such a thrill. I put all my reviews and feedback on the relevant blog page, including the 1*s – it makes me feel good if no-one else. What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Will: Don’t give up. You will be knocked back, rejected, ignored and dismissed. And that’s only by you bank manager if you tell him what’s going on. Keep going. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but all the knock backs are part of the dues you have to pay. Starve in your garret, and you’ll… at least not have a weight problem.
Morgen: I have that to look forward to. If you could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what would you cook (or hide the takeaway containers)?
Will: Ah, it would have to be the musicians: oh, Roy Orbison, Gary Moore, maybe Bird? And what else are you going to give them but curry and some beers?
Morgen: Sounds like a good plan. I’d come for the curry but bring my own drink (Southern Comfort being my favourite). Is there a word, phrase or quote you like?
Will: I’m sure Safkhet think that there’s one or two that I over-use. Better ask them.
Morgen: Kim, that’s your cue. Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?
Will: Not really, to be honest. I haven’t the spare time.
Morgen: I know that feeling – I used to wake up every morning working out how many hours I had before I had to go somewhere. I’m not so bad now I don’t have a proper day job. I get up just as early (6.30ish) but keep on top of my emails better (54 at the moment which is good for me). What do you do when you’re not writing? Any hobbies or party tricks?
Will: Well, I have a treasured Les Paul that I play (badly) and I love walking on the high fells. When my daughter goes to university in a couple of years, I’m going to get another hang glider. That’s a risky sport, yes, but such a rush…
Morgen: My brother has a Les Paul – I think it’s his favourite (and probably went into mourning when Les died). I’d watch you hang glide and wave from terra firma. Are there any writing-related websites and / or books that you find useful?
Will: I’ve never really bought any books on how to write. I’ve got a couple of useful qualifications from when I was at school, that’s all. But I was unbelievably lucky. I found my way by accident to authonomy.com, and there I joined a writers group called The Alliance of Worldbuilders. What a fantastic bunch they are. Find us on Facebook, or even our own webpage now. Without the help and friendship I’ve had there, The Banned Underground would probably never have seen the light of day.
Morgen: I used to be on Authonomy but couldn’t give as good as I got time-wise so had to come off, likewise You Write On. Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?
Will: Obviously, there’s the Alliance on Authonomy. And I use Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, all the usual suspects for marketing. But if I am stuck on anything and need help or advice, I’ll head for the Alliance and the friends I’ve made there.
Morgen: It sounds like a great resource. What do you think the future holds for a writer?
Will: Excitement! Fulfilment! Writing is just such fun, that I feel privileged to be able to do it.
Morgen: Oh me too. I love it when I create a line I like and sit there clapping – my dog thought I was mad but really he’s just as nuts as me so after 10 years together we’re like an old married couple (if only it were legal ). Where can we find out about you and your work?
Will: Well, the publisher has a website: www.safkhetpublishing.com, and I have an irregular blog, www.willmacmillanjones.wordpress.com where I ramble incoherently about writing.
Morgen: Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Will: I’d just like to say how grateful I am to have found Safkhet Publishing, who manage to put up with my foibles, and occasionally laugh at my jokes. Seriously for a moment, we get on very well, and that is so important.
Morgen: I went to Sheryl Browne’s book signing a few weeks ago and she was full of praise for them (and I’m not just saying that because I’m interviewing Kim and Will Sutton, it’s obviously a happy (and very supportive) team. Thank you, Will.
I then invited Will to include an extract of his writing…
Much photographed and adored by the professional photographers, and hated in equal measure by those who had to carry the equipment, the mighty Lakeland Fell of Helvelyn stood tall against the storm, the delicate tracery of the attached Striding Edge laughing at the rain, whilst using the lashing water to make sure that the tracks became a nightmare for the next to assay the passage whilst burdened down with responsibility. (And four camera, two tripods, assorted lenses, and lunch.)
Down the slopes into the next valley of Borrowdale lay the ancient Bowder Stone, rumoured to be the trysting ground for various supernatural, mystic or uncanny beings, and in fact the Front Door to the Helvyndelve, the Ancient Dwarf Halls which lie beneath the frowning fells of Helvelyn. And quite a few other fells too, of course, the Mansion of the Dwarfs being frankly enormous (and difficult to heat). On a night such as this, who would have been surprised at the sight of a large group of eldritch beings, dwarfs, trolls, half-elves and so on swathed and huddled against the rain, gathered together there? Their conversation could have been, should have been, mystical, magical, occult or paranormal, or indeed all of them at once.
“I don’t care who you are, if you ain’t got a ticket, yer can’t come in,” said Security.
“But I’m with the Band!” said the first in the queue.
“They all say that,” replied Security, in the form of two dwarfs clad in full body armour and bad attitudes.
“I’ve got a T shirt on.”
“All it says is ‘Let me in ‘cos I’m with the Band’,” pointed out Security.
“See?” insisted the would be concert-goer.
“£9.99 at the supermarket. Everyone’s got one.” The dwarf opened his cloak and revealed a badly fitting t-shirt stretched over his armour.
“Come on. Some of us behind you are getting soaked, waiting out here!” came a complaint from further down the queue.
“Not my fault they didn’t put up any awnings,” replied the ticket-less one.
“Show us yer ticket, or go away,” insisted Security.
“Alright, I haven’t got a ticket.”
“Should have said so. Then you could just have bribed me straight off, instead of standing out there getting wet.”
There was a chink, as several coins passed hands. A derisive snort and several more joined the first set vanishing into Security’s secure pockets. The queue moved on.
Will is a fifty something lover of blues, rock and jazz. He presently lives in South Wales, and has just fulfilled a lifetime ambition by extending his bookcases to fill one entire wall of his home office. Working as a professional tax consultant, he writes to escape the stultifying boredom of his job.
***
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Welcome to Flash Fiction Friday and the thirty-first piece of flash fiction in this series. This week’s is a 614-worder by children’s author and illustrator Carrie King.
The Ticket
Minnie stumbled nervously, fumbling in her cloth purse, desperately trying to locate it.
“It’s here…I know it is,” she apologized, delving deeper and peering into the darkness of the tapestry bag.
The man behind the desk grunted impatiently, looking past Minnie and down the long line of people queuing restlessly behind her.
She hadn’t wanted to emigrate; it was all James’ idea.
“Canada is the place to be, Min,” he had enthused “I can’t believe I’ve landed such a topping position. Head of English in Vancouver’s most prestigious school? What more could we want?”
‘To stay in England,’ Minnie had thought to herself, ‘to be near Mama. Every girl needs her mother at this time.’
Filled with optimism, James had sailed to Canada ahead of Minnie and keenly awaited her arrival.
The man behind the desk tapped his thin fingers thunderously against the polished wood and cleared his throat, ready to speak, when another official looking man marched up to Minnie.
“Would you step this way please, Madam?” he asked, guiding Minnie’s arm and escorting her into his office. Minnie stood shaking, bemused and anxious.
“I… I… do… have… a… ticket,” she stammered, trying yet again, to extricate it.
“I’m quite sure you do, otherwise you most certainly wouldn’t have stood, waiting for hours to board, in that infernal queue!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Er… there’s a problem… with your condition,” said the man, casting his eye, very briefly, down Minnie’s rounded front.
Minnie had hardly dared tell James. It’s not that they hadn’t wanted children but a baby within ten months of being married was not something they had planned. However, James embraced this new circumstance with all the gusto and excitement that Minnie had come to expect of him.
“We just don’t have the facilities onboard, it’s as simple as that,” said the man. “If something went wrong, there would be nowhere to take you and no-one to take care of you. We are refusing your right of passage.”
Minnie stood silently. What was there to say? She would not be joining James in Canada: as the man said, it was a simple as that. Amidst the mixture of emotions, however: the relief of not having to cross the massive Ocean alone and the joy of returning back to Mama, Minnie detected a disappointment lurking. Did the thought of a new, exciting life, beckon? No matter: her pregnant state had forced the issue and so, after the man had directed Minnie to the Telegraph Office, she had hastily sent James a brief message and then found herself in a Hackney Carriage, searching for some cheap lodgings in Southampton, to wait.
James couldn’t believe it when he opened his newspaper! How could this be? Suddenly, all of his hopes and dreams, his plans for his beloved Minnie and their child, his delight in this newfound life in Canada, went surging from him. He wept and groaned piteously.
The next day the dreaded telegram arrived. James put it on the mantelpiece, unopened.
A colleague arrived to visit. Poor, hapless James had not eaten, shaved nor changed his clothes for three days.
“James, why haven’t you opened your telegram?”
“Why… to read of my wife’s and baby’s cruel demise?”
His friend opened the telegram and chortled, thrusting the small piece of white paper under James’ nose.
“You Priceless Twerp!”
James read the words, ‘Refused passage on Titanic STOP Waiting in Southampton STOP Hurry little money STOP Minnie STOP’
James returned to England and taught in a little country school. Josephine Rachel, their daughter, my mother, was born in August 1912…
… and the Ticket?
It is still a treasured item in my family, to this very day.
Copyright © 2012 Carrie King All rights reserved.
I asked Carrie what prompted this piece and she said…
It will be 100 years since the sinking of RMS Titanic this April 2012. Sadly, since I was a late baby, I never knew any of my four grandparents, including Minnie. My Mother, Minnie’s baby, always used to say to me that if Minnie had boarded The Titanic, then she undoubtedly would have died and so would my, then unborn, mother, as Minnie’s ticket was in Steerage and most of these passengers were trapped behind locked gates on that fateful night and went down with the ship. Obviously this is something that is very, very significant in my family, as none of us would have been born had Minnie been allowed to board. Thank you, White Star Officials!
What a lovely story. Thank you, Carrie.
Carrie King was born in the tiny Hamlet of Sharpenhoe in Bedfordshire, England, which sits beneath a small hill, smothered in trees, known as The Clappers, nestled on the edge of the Chilterns. To any Reader of The Life in the Wood with Joni-Pip, that might sound a tad familiar!
She was the seventh of eight children, placed between her youngest brother, David and her youngest but older sister, Sylvia. When she was eight, her family moved to another tiny Hamlet in Bedfordshire called Bidwell. She so missed the woods and the hills.
Carrie was educated in Dunstable, Bedfordshire and loved school. English, Art and French were her favourite subjects but she decided to become a doctor! However, this didn’t happen, as she fell in love and was married at nineteen. Being a wife and the mother of three daughters, became her full-time career.
She began to write for television, encouraged by Christopher Walker, Head of Drama for Central Television and Pam Francis, Journalist for the Independent.
The Writing of The Life in the Wood with Joni-Pip for her Great Niece, Joni Philipa, began in November 1997 while staying in a villa at Center Parcs, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. Joni Philipa was three years old at the time and she was called Joni-Pip, by her parents Philip and Sarah.
Carrie started to draw her illustrations for The Life in the Wood with Joni-Pip, whilst staying at Center Parcs. She stayed there many times with her family, and each villa she stayed in provided her with yet another picturesque woodland scene.
Sadly in April 2000, writing was interrupted for a few years by the tragic death of Carrie’s husband in an accident.
The novel began as a story for little children but books take a long time to be written, printed and bound and Joni-Pip grew much quicker than the story. What began as a simple Child’s Tale evolved into an adventure for much older children, which adults have enjoyed too.
The Life in the Wood with Joni-Pip was finally finished in December 2007, over ten years after it was started!
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 comic fantasy (“and a little horror”) author Will Macmillan-Jones – the three hundred and forty-sixth 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo. My eBooks are now on Amazon, with more to follow, and I also have a quirky second-person viewpoint story in charity anthology Telling Tales.
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Tags: Carrie King, children's, flash fiction, picture book, Titanic, writing
Welcome to the three hundred and forty-fifth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with non-fiction writer, editor and publisher Jill Muehrcke. 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, Jill. Please tell us something about yourself and how you came to be a writer.
Jill: I remember writing my first poem at age five and my first story at age six. My mom would give me a sheet of paper and I would fold it into quarters, crease it really well, then tear along the creases to make a little book. I would put a cover on the front, a table of contents inside, and number each page. I don’t think I thought I would be a writer. I thought of myself as a “book maker”. I wanted to be in charge of everything – not just the writing! I suppose that’s one reason I started my own publishing company and self-published several of my books.
Morgen: I love that. I remember oddments but nothing as structured. What genre do you generally write?
Jill: Till now, most of my published books have been in the educational and nonprofit sectors. Most are nonfiction. I have written fiction, including a number of mysteries, but these are unpublished. Someday I may get back to that, as I adore mysteries, and I found writing them to be great fun. But my new book, Waking Up Happy: A Handbook of Change with Memoirs of Recovery and Hope, is my most personal book to-date, as it includes my own memoir plus the memoirs of my daughter and granddaughter. I doubt that it’s possible to write anything more personal!
Morgen: Three generations, that’s great. You mentioned that you’ve set up your own publishing company, what have you had published to-date?
Jill: In 1978, my husband and I co-authored the book Map Use and published it ourselves. Since then, it has been through seven editions and 14 printings. I loved the cover of the first edition, which was all in shades of gold and orange (my favorite colors!) I remember going to the printers as the book was just coming off the presses, and the whole giant room was aflood with orange and gold. I almost swooned I was so happy.
Morgen: “swooned” now there’s a word I’ve not heard in a while. How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?
Jill: I’m doing all the marketing for Waking Up Happy. It was the part of the publishing process I dreaded! But it has turned out to be the most fun of all. I am really enjoying connecting to people and talking about my book.
Morgen: Me too. Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?
Jill: No, I don’t have an agent. I am very glad that I self-published so that I didn’t have to go through the process of finding an agent – although my husband and friends have been my acting agents and have been extremely helpful.
Morgen: I submitted to a dozen or so but self-publishing (albeit eBooks) has been great. Are your books available as eBooks? If so what was your experience of that process? And do you read eBooks?
Jill: Waking Up Happy is available as an eBook in all the popular formats. I made sure of that. I hired someone to help me through the process, and I’m glad I did. She did a wonderful job. Personally, I feel as though something is lost when reading an eBook. And Waking Up Happy is a handbook, so I do feel it is best held in the hand! It’s the kind of book you need to underline and write in the margins. It’s full of exercises that cry out for a pencil. But I know some people have both the eBook and the hard copy, and that makes sense to me. They can carry it around in eBook form to read whenever they have a spare moment and then go home and get out a pencil and do the exercises.
Morgen: It’s funny you should say that but I’ve never been one to write in a book… a magazine, no problem but not in a book. That’s why I love the bookmarking facility of the Kindle. What was your first acceptance and is being accepted still a thrill?
Jill: My first acceptance was getting a poem published at age eight. It was and is still a thrill.
Morgen: What a wonderful way to start. What are you working on at the moment / next?
Jill: I’m putting together a workshop that may turn into a full day of doing exercises from Waking Up Happy, discussing people’s results and insights, and sharing life stories. I’m very excited about how transformative such a workshop may be for people who are ready to embark on their journey of personal change.
Morgen: Do you manage to write every day? What’s the most you’ve written in a day?
Jill: Yes, I write every day. I don’t keep track of how many pages I write, so I can’t say what the most is that I’ve written in a day. I don’t think the quantity of pages written means much of anything. What’s important is to write something meaningful, even if it’s just one sentence.
Morgen: Absolutely. I only worked out recently that 300 words a day is 100,000 words in a year and that’s feasible for anyone (says she who doesn’t write every day). Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
Jill: Of course there are times when the words don’t flow, but I simply keep writing. Or I go back and edit what I’ve already written, and that usually warms me up enough to write again. That is the cure. Just keep writing and editing, writing and editing, until something worthwhile takes shape. Reading an inspirational book like Waking Up Happy is also a good solution! That’s why I wrote it– to help people jog themselves out of a rut and move forward with energy and purpose.
Morgen: I have the purpose (this blog, writing generally) but I do lack the energy sometimes. A question some authors dread, where do you get your inspiration from?
Jill: I am a voracious reader, which fills my head with ideas. I also get a lot of my inspiration from my dreams. I wake up at night or in the morning and fill sheets of paper with ideas that have come to me. The most amazing breakthroughs of my life have come from my dreams. I talk a lot about this in Waking Up Happy and include exercises others can do to remember, interpret, and shape their dream lives.
Morgen: I love exercises. I set three every other Monday for my writing group and we come up with some amazing things (albeit fiction). Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?
Jill: I’m in several writing groups, which I find invaluable. The members of these groups are my closest friends and supporters.
Morgen: I belong to four and they’re all great (I get different things out of each one). Who is your first reader – who do you first show your work to?
Jill: My husband Phillip.
Morgen: You’re lucky, I only have my dog and he loves everything I write which really isn’t helpful. Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Jill: I do a lot of editing! It’s the key to good writing. I find myself editing in my mind even when reading books. Not all books, of course, but it seems like so many modern ones lack the excellent editors who used to turn books into true masterpieces.
Morgen: Which is one of the hot topics surrounding eBooks at the moment (some have had no editors at all!). How much research do you have to do for your writing? Have you ever received feedback from your readers?
Jill: My research for Waking Up Happy included reading hundreds of books on related topics, such as change theory, which I used to create the motivational exercises in the book. I also interviewed dozens of people to create the 30+ memoirs that form the backbone of the book. I’ve been receiving the most amazing feedback from readers of Waking Up Happy. They tell me that the combination of memoirs of people who have changed their lives, paired with exercises that show readers how they can make the same changes for themselves, has helped them create new lives when nothing else has worked.
Morgen: Wow, that’s high praise indeed. Do you write on paper or do you prefer a computer?
Jill: I do most of my writing on my computer. But constantly throughout the day (and even the night, as mentioned earlier!) I am jotting down notes on scraps of paper.
Morgen: I used to send out morse code messages to my neighbours because I kept switching the light on and off as I came up with ideas. Now I go to bed so late and get up so early that I sleep right through. 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?
Jill: Being a freelance writer and working at home while my daughter was growing up pretty much guaranteed that I would be able to write no matter what the distraction. However, I crave silence and seek it out whenever I am able. Many of the exercises in Waking Up Happy come back to the wisdom of finding pools of silence throughout your day.
Morgen: I share my house with a dog so I have plenty of that. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?
Jill: In writing Waking Up Happy, I found that I loved writing in first person. All the stories in the book are true and told in first person. I also used a lot of second person in the book, since the exercises speak directly to the reader (e.g., here is what you can do to effect these same transformations in your own life). Writing in the third person can also be very useful and is the basis for a number of exercises in the book. One of the memoirists in Waking Up Happy describes how healing it was for her to write her autobiography in the third person. She was able to feel kinder toward the innocent child of her story than she ever felt for herself as an adult. Feeling empathy for herself as a little girl helped her forgive herself for her flaws and foibles. It’s a powerful exercise for anyone, and you don’t need to write your whole life story. Just think of a time you felt angry with yourself or ashamed of yourself or disappointed in yourself. Write about that experience in the third person, using he or she rather than I. Consider yourself a character in the story. Imagine it happened to someone else. Viewing yourself with a more objective eye is a good way to see yourself with more clarity and compassion. And reading your story to someone else is even more powerful. When you say out loud the things that are hardest to say, and find yourself totally accepted, it makes anything possible. That’s why doing exercises like these can lead to leaps forward in your growth.
Morgen: It’s interesting what you say about writing an autobiography in third person but then I guess some of the fiction we write has pieces of ourselves in it. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life?
Jill: I’ve been amazed at how much I am enjoying the marketing part. Doing readings of Waking Up Happy, talking to readers about their responses to the book, and comparing answers to the exercises in the book with readers – these have been my favorite aspects of the whole process. I suppose what I like least is dealing with the constant computer crises. That’s the problem with working at home; my computer guru is my husband, and though he is a wonderful help to me and has the patience of a saint, I hate to interrupt him with the never-ending problems with my computer.
Morgen: I had a series of PC laptops that drove me nuts then, after many months of badgering by my IT guru (my Swiss-based brother) I finally bought an Apple Mac and love it. I get a spinning rainbow wheel occasionally but everything talks to everything else. If anything, what has been your biggest surprise about writing?
Jill: One thing I learned when I was very young was that if I lost something I wrote, I could rewrite it and it would be even better than the first version. That is very useful knowledge because I seem to be always losing my work, especially in these days of computer viruses. I don’t need to panic when my precious computer files are wiped out. Of course I may use a few bad words and pound my head against my desk, but then I just start rewriting, and it comes more fluidly, eloquently, and gracefully than the first time. That is the magic of writing, which is a never-ending surprise and delight.
Morgen: You have a better memory than me then as I’ve so often gone to write something down and forgotten what it was (especially annoying if I thought it was brilliant, at the time) but then I suppose if it’s come out once it’s been in your brain twice (if that makes sense). What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Jill: Take time to read and write for yourself. It’s the most important thing you can do as a writer, editor, and person. Read the great writers. Pay attention to how they use words and how they get their points across. Keep a journal. Allow your writing to be a living, daily part of who you are. Have patience; it will happen in its own time. Hold on to the knowledge that you’re in the right place, doing the right thing. Doing what you love.
Morgen: That’s me. Is there a quote you like?
Jill: There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. – Anais Nin
Morgen: Where can we find out about you and your work?
Jill: Visit my Website, www.WakingUpHappyBook.com
Morgen: If you could have your life over again, is there anything you’d have done differently (writing-related or otherwise)?
Jill: Although my life has been checkered with painful parts, and I have made some stupendous mistakes along the way, I wouldn’t do it any differently, because all that pain and error have made me who I am today – a woman who knows the joy of waking up happy! This is a theme in the memoirs in Waking Up Happy and the basis of many of the exercises in the book: Regret serves no purpose. All of us need to forgive ourselves for being flawed, imperfect human beings and move forward. We must learn to take the pain and re-integrate it into a story of triumph. No matter what we have endured, we can re-write our pasts so that we become the heroes of our own lives.
Morgen: Whenever an interviewee says they’ve always known they wanted to be a writer I’ve wished it hadn’t taken 30+ years for me too but then I remember I have 30+ years experience and I don’t mind. There are many who start this journey once they’ve retired… I’ve just taken that step 20 years early. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Jill: First of all, I wrote my book Waking Up Happy: A Handbook of Change with Memoirs of Recovery and Hope to provide readers with the tools of change. As one reader told me, “The people in Waking Up Happy don’t just tell what happened to them. They tell what they did about it and how you can do the same thing to change your own life.” The memoirs tell the true stories of change, and the exercises throughout the book provide the tools to create those same transformations. Although the storytellers in Waking Up Happy have all recovered from agonizing pasts, you needn’t have suffered to benefit from the book. We all need to keep changing. Constant evolution is what leads to a fulfilling life.
Second, I am donating half the proceeds of Waking Up Happy to the Recovery Foundation, which helps build new lives every day by providing scholarships to those who can’t afford to pay for treatment. So if you buy a copy, you will be helping to transform someone’s life!
Morgen: Please do, folks. Thank you, Jill.
I then invited Jill to include an extract of her writing and here’s a brief adaptation of the Introduction to ‘Waking Up Happy’:
There are many reasons why you may want to change your life. If you’re in a relationship that’s diminishing rather than enhancing your best self, or if you’re eating the wrong foods, hurting your body, or doing other self-destructive things, you know you can’t continue on that path. And as you pass through different phases in your life, adjustments are necessary.
Changing your life isn’t easy. It means creating yourself anew. Because you’re both the sculptor and the stone, it’s a wrenching task.
And yet every sculptor knows that the piece of art that’s meant to be already exists: It’s a matter of carving its essence from material that’s already there. When asked how the granite bear came to be, the sculptor says, “I just cut away everything that wasn’t a bear.”
Everyone’s life cries out for transformation. If you don’t change and grow, you die: Bit by bit, day by day, your innermost soul dwindles and perishes. The cost of not continuing to grow is ultimately feeling half-dead.
You’re the artist of your own life. All you need do is pick up the tools for change and begin to use them. Each false start is a carving crucial to the final piece of art, paving the way for you to sculpt your greatest creation: the beautiful self that lies within the stone.
Juliana (Jill) Muehrcke is the award-winning author of dozens of books, including her just-published Waking Up Happy: A Handbook of Change with Memoirs of Recovery and Hope. Founder and editor of the international magazine Nonprofit World (www.snpo.org), she has studied at the University of Colorado and the University of Michigan and has a BA degree, specializing in English literature, creative writing, and psychology, from the University of Washington. Jill is listed in Who’s Who. In her spare time, she enjoys teaching yoga and eating ethnic food. For many years, in several cities, including Seattle and Madison, she has written restaurant reviews. You can visit her website at www.WakingUpHappyBook.com and listen to Jill on the Joy Cardin Show.
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Tonight’s guest blog post, on the topic of memoir writing, is brought to you by non-fiction and thriller writer Jeff Rasley.
Memoir Writing with a Purpose
Most writers have kept a journal or diary during some period in their lives. I started a diary when I was sixteen. After two weeks I quit and burned the document out of fear my parents might find it. There was too much incriminating evidence, and my strict Midwestern, Presbyterian parents would not have allowed me to take the Fifth to avoid self-incrimination. I didn’t take up journal writing again until I became a serious adventure traveler. (Serious in the sense that it was a favorite avocation since age 18.)
Some of my travel experiences seemed worth recording in photographs and in writing. In some cases there was meaning to be interpreted from the experiences beyond the immediacy of the moment. So, I began to try to turn some of my travel journaling into publishable articles. Eventually I had enough material to write books, which were travel memoirs with a purpose. In the journal I would record the facts of the experience and my reaction to it. To turn the journal writing into a worthy article or book there had to be meaning beyond the experience. There had to be an insight, lesson or wisdom which I could interpret from the experience and offer to others. The next challenge was, of course, finding a publisher.
Creating an article worthy of publication meant going beyond mere biographical journaling. If one is a person of historical or cultural interest, then autobiographical writing may be worthy of publication. (No matter how poorly written the Paris Hiltons of our celebrity-obsessed culture will find a publisher.) But, fortunately or unfortunately that eliminates ninety nine percent of the rest of us. Journaling for one’s own pleasure, or to pass on to family and heirs, of course has value. And social media has created the opportunity to bore the hell out of friends by posting the quotidian details of one’s life. ["Here I am enjoying my first copy of coffee of the day looking out my window and a blue bird landed on the sill, blah, blah, etc."]
The personal essays, or memoirs with a purpose, I have been inspired to write are mostly about extreme experiences such as Himalayan mountain climbing or solo sea-kayaking. I have learned, or had reinforced, great lessons about life from these adventures. For example, I was inspired to write about the strength and beauty of the human spirit and the willingness to be self-sacrificial after witnessing a Nepalese guide and porter risk their lives to save and care for others who had been trapped by an avalanche.
Other writers have found meaning worthy of publication in more mundane experiences. My sister-in-law, Cherri Megasko, writes for the Yahoo Contributor Network. She uses personal experiences to write about topics of interest to homeowners, parents and a general readership. For example, her article entitled “Groundhog Wars” is a delightfully humorous essay about the different approaches her and a neighbor applied to dealing with a resident groundhog. Its wider application for animal lovers is how to deal with what some consider pests and others consider lovable critters.
Essential to making a memoir interesting and worthy of publication is to have a central theme that carries the narrative forward. Without a thematic narrative, we are back to mere observation or a random collection of insights without a guiding light. [And I know from hard won experience it is best to have a guide in uncharted territory and a light to see in the darkness.] In other words, the piece should make a point.
The narrative must include factual details to make it interesting. Without interesting, quirky or astonishing factual details, a personal essay gets placed in the folder labeled BORING. Even hard core academic writing must include the important facts on which an argument is based. A point made in the abstract is likely to be forgotten as soon as the magazine or book is closed or the reading device turned off.
The last point I cover when teaching a class about memoir writing is to consider carefully whether to identify or to change the identity of individuals, organizations or companies referred to in the piece. Friendships can be damaged and libel / defamation suits can be filed. It is easy enough to disguise an identity with a fake name and to attribute some intentionally misleading characteristics to protect the privacy or reputation of a person or organization. Consider the consequences and choose wisely.
As to publication, well, much has changed in the last decade or so. When I first began writing for publication in the 1980s, I would go to my neighborhood library and page through Writers’ Market looking for the magazines or journals interested in publishing the type of article I had written. Now, the neighborhood library has probably closed. Information about publishers is online, but many of the print publications have ceased to exist or been downsized. The advent of the digital age and online publishing has created vastly more opportunities for publication than ever before. And I don’t subscribe to the view that quantity has reduced quality. Great writing still happens and is more accessible. But there are fewer traditional publishers of successful magazines and books.
One significant consequence for writers of the traditional publishing industry’s decrepitude is that pay is harder to come by. For several decades a writer could expect to be paid from $100 to $2,500, depending on the newspaper’s / magazine’s / journal’s prestige and circulation, for a feature length article. And there were multiple publication possibilities for many different categories of articles. While the multiplicity of online publications (especially blogs) has vastly increased the possibility of publication, the possibilities for remuneration seem to be much reduced. Writing for “content farms” or guest blogging (thanks Morgen!) did not exist as opportunities in pre-digital history. Unfortunately, the writing is often done gratis (damn!).
You’re very welcome… thank you for offering, Jeff, and for gratis!
Jeff Rasley is author of Light in the Mountains — A Hoosier Quaker finds Communal Enlightenment in Nepal, Islands in My Dreams, Nepal Himalayas — in the Moment, False Prophet?, Bringing Progress to Paradise and Monsters Of The Midway: The Worst Team in College Football.
He practiced law for thirty years in Indianapolis, Indiana and was admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court Bar. He has an outstanding academic record: graduate of the University of Chicago, A.B. magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, All-Academic All-State Football Team and letter winner in swimming and football; Indiana University School of Law, J.D. cum laude, Moot Court and Indiana Law Review; Christian Theological Seminary, M.Div. magna cum laude, co-valedictorian and Faculty Award Scholar. Jeff is currently President of the Basa Village Foundation USA Inc. and U.S. liaison for the Nepal-based Himalayan expedition company, Adventure GeoTreks, Ltd. He teaches classes for IUPUI Continuing Ed. Program and Indiana Writers Center.
For chairing the Indiana-Tennessee Civic Memorial Commission, Jeff received Proclamations of Salutation from the Governors of Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania and he was made an honorary Lieutenant Colonel Aide-de-Camp of the Alabama State Militia, a Kentucky Colonel and honorary Citizen of Tennessee. He was given a Key to the City of Indianapolis for his report on the safety conditions of Indy Parks. Jeff received the Man of the Year award from the Arthur Jordan YMCA.
Jeff has published numerous articles and photos in academic and mainstream periodicals, including Newsweek, Chicago Magazine, ABA Journal, Family Law Review, Pacific Magazine, Indy’s Child, The Journal of Communal Societies, The Chrysalis Reader, Faith & Fitness Magazine, Friends Journal and Real Travel Adventures International Magazine. He gives programs about adventure travel and philanthropy to service clubs, community organizations and churches. He is an avid outdoorsman and recreational athlete. He leads trekking-mountaineering expeditions in Nepal and has solo-kayaked around several Pacific island groups. Jeff also loves to read and considers completing Marcel Proust’s 3600-page Remembrance of Things Past as one of his most enjoyable accomplishments.
Married to Alicia Rasley, Jeff is a multi-published author, RITA Award winner, and University professor. He has kindly provided the following from ‘Chapter 1: Home is a Resting Place’…
The first time I came home from Nepal I knew where my home was. It was in Indianapolis, Indiana where I lived with my wife Alicia and our two boys. I had not been sure of that before I left.
We were going through a rough patch in our marriage. I felt trapped with a wife, kids, mortgage, and law office to run. The American dream had come to feel like an Edgar Allen Poe nightmare. Financial pressures and family responsibilities felt like walls closing in on me.
Work and responsibilities beat and fashion the adult American into a tool of production and consumption. At the systemic level our society and economy value the acquisition of material wealth over all other values. In succumbing to this cultural imperative we are conditioned to believe that our meaning and purpose is determined by job and profession rather than by love, family and enjoyment of life. For example, after being introduced to a new acquaintance, the first question is, “What do you do?” Materialism reduces our identity and humanity to a name and a job. And our consumer culture determines our value by what we consume.
My high school history teacher in Goshen, Indiana, Mr. Slavens, liked to say, “The average American male, dead at thirty, buried at sixty.” I don’t remember who he was quoting, but it haunted me. At forty I was definitely feeling lost, if not dead. I did not want to lose my humanity, but I felt life being sucked out of me as I measured out my days in six minute billing units at the office.
Alicia wisely and firmly told me to go traveling, to do what I loved. Not just a weekend or week-long road trip; she told me I should go to the other side of the planet. I should go trekking in the Nepal Himalayas.
You can find more about Jeff and his writing via his website www.jeffreyrasley.com. His latest book is Monsters Of The Midway: The Worst Team in College Football and is available from Amazon.com.
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about.
The blog interviews return as normal tomorrow morning with non-fiction author and editor Jill Meuhrcke – the three hundred and forty-fifth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, autobiographers 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo. My eBooks are also now on Amazon, with more to follow. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me.
Tags: ABA Journal, autobiography, biography, Chicago Magazine, Faith & Fitness Magazine, Family Law Review, Friends Journal, guest blog, Indy’s Child, Jeff Rasley, Jeffrey Rasley, memoir, memoir writing, Newsweek, non-fiction, Pacific Magazine, Real Travel Adventures International Magazine, The Chrysalis Reader, The Journal of Communal Societies, travel memoirs, writing
Welcome to the three hundred and forty-fourth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with literary mystery and non-fiction author John Brooke. 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, John. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
John: I grew up in Toronto. I moved to Montreal in my early 30’s, following an opportunity in the film business. I enjoyed film but realized I would be happier working on my own and so transformed myself into a freelance writer. I continue to pay the weekly bills writing public relations oriented material for corporate clients, and also doing some translation from French to English. (Montreal is a good place for an Anglo with good grammar and workable French to set up as a freelance writer / translator.) How did I become a writer of books? By writing screenplays I couldn’t sell. Rather than tossing them in a drawer I thought – John, you’ve created a complete storyline with good characters here, why not try to expand these unwanted scripts into books? So I taught myself to write books.
Morgen: I wrote the first 102 pages of a script for ScriptFrenzy in April 2010 and didn’t enjoy the process so converted it into the beginning of a novel… I’m just embarking on the editing of that and four completed works. What genre do you write?
John: My primary ongoing project is a series of ‘literary mysteries’ featuring a French cop named Inspector Aliette Nouvelle. I have just published my third. My other published book, Last Days of Montreal, is about life in Montreal during the time of the Quebec Referendum on Sovereignty.
Morgen: Have you had any rejections in between those books? If so, how do you deal with them?
John: Many, many, many rejections. It used to take a few months, sending out packages and waiting for the one-line form note. Now, with the internet, you can submit to and be rejected by dozens of publishers and agents every week. It wears on the soul. How did I deal with it? After being angry, after despairing, I rolled over and told myself, This is what you are meant to be doing. The market can reject but it can’t stop you from BEING a writer, so just get on with it. I learned to enjoy the writing for itself. I continued writing and seeking publication at a slower, less desperate pace and eventually luck came my way.
Morgen: That’s the thing, isn’t it – you just have to keep going. I’m rubbish at sending things out but having quit my job I’ll have to soon. Have you won or been shortlisted in any competitions?
John: I believe I was lucky to be living in Montreal at a time when the political situation was fraught. The first short story I ever published spoke to that situation. It was accepted by a small literary review in Ontario and went on to win the Journey Prize, which is Canada’s largest prize for a short story. You have probably heard of James Michener. His book Journey, about the Alaska gold rush, was published in Canada by a Toronto publishing house. Michener was hugely successfully and graciously returned his Canadian royalty cheque to the Toronto publisher, directing them to put it into a trust and initiate the annual Journey Prize competition. Winning that prize got me a call from a publisher and my career as a mystery writer began. I also won a CBC short fiction prize for another short story – about golf.
Morgen: Oh, wow. Yes I have heard of James Michener and what a generous gesture (well done, you ). You mentioned earlier that you’ve tried to get an agent (as have I), do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?
John: I have a sense they may not be as vital as they once were. If agents are the gatekeepers for the publishing industry, with the proliferation of social media it becomes increasingly harder to tell where the gate begins and ends, and the agent role becomes problematic. That said, it would be good to have an agent to act as a guide in securing foreign publication.
Morgen: I’m pretty sure that on the whole they earn their keep. Are your books available as eBooks? Were you involved in that process at all? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
John: My three Inspector Aliette Nouvelle mysteries books are available in e-version. Last Days of Montreal will be soon. I’m with a ‘small publisher’ – basically a one-woman operation. I think she understands that offering her catalogue in e-format is not just an opportunity, but maybe a necessity. She has the technical skill and the right people around her to make it work. My only involvement in the process has been proofing each e-manuscript. I could do that by downloading an Adobe Reader package (free) and then receiving her file to proof. So far, mine are the only eBooks I have read. I do not yet own a Kindle or the like. I had no problem reading my e-manuscripts – my eyes actually liked it. As long it could be easily seen on a beach, it would be much lighter than carrying six books in my suitcase.
Morgen: I think that’s why most people go for it… as do I – the portability. It’s great knowing I have 400+ books with me at any one time and sometimes my bag feels too light without it. Being with a ‘one-woman operation’, how much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?
John: I used to do as much as could be arranged around Montreal and in the Toronto area. It was never a lot – I did not have the knack of ‘selling myself’ and a small publisher in Winnipeg had limited resources. Some radio interviews. A TV interview, if I was lucky. Some readings. The sum of it all failed to give any sense of momentum. Now, with this latest book, I am dipping my marketing toe in this new world of social media. (It’s why and how you are reading this interview.) I find that I’m enjoying being a virtual person and making contact with interested literary people all over the world each day. Not sure what the result will be viz sales (if any), but there is a new energy there and I am enjoying riding it, exploring. As to myself as a ‘brand’? No. If anything, I’ll work to create a brand for Inspector Aliette Nouvelle. (Catchier than John Brooke, n’est-ce pas?)
Morgen: Un peu, peut etre. I heard the other day that readers remember characters names easier than authors which is why series do so well (not the only reason for sure). I have had sales (of the guests’ books) through these interviews so fingers crossed… Do you have a favourite of your books or characters? If any of your books were made into films, who would you have as the leading actor/s?
John: I love each book as I am doing it. Or try to. I can’t / won’t measure the quality of that love against the previous experience… I had some French actors in my mind for the roles in the Aliette Nouvelle series, but they’ve been replaced by a new generation. I thought Fanny Ardent would be perfect as Anne-Marie – a poodlish ‘street girl’ who runs like the wind but hardly talks. Emmanuelle Béart for Aliette? Yes, at a certain point. Not anymore… Your question has sent me Googling in search of straw blonde actresses of note, ideally with ice blue eyes. Strange to say, but Lindsay Lohan could be Aliette Nouvelle. She’s a good actress when she’s not in jail. See A Prairie Home Companion.
Morgen: I saw a film the other day where everyone’s eyes were crazily blue… ‘Flashbacks of a Fool’ with Daniel Craig. I can’t remember the women being blonde though. Reese Witherspoon and Cameron Diaz spring to mind. Did you have any say in the titles / covers of your books? How important do you think they are?
John: I have participated in the titles and covers of all my books. It is a vigorous debate-cum-brain-storming exercise with my publisher, and then the designer is brought into it for the cover. For this most recent book, Stifling Folds of Love, I lost the title I wanted, but won the cover on a two-to-one decision with the designer on my side. Unless highly sensationalist in the topical sense, I’m not sure how important a book title is in and of itself – i.e., if it were displayed on a plain cover; but the juxtaposition of title and cover image can create a very enticing power.
Morgen: I love titles but they don’t make or break books for me although ones with unusual titles will get looked at first. What are you working on at the moment / next?
John: I am currently struggling through the first try at a next Aliette Nouvelle.
Morgen: Oh dear. Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
John: I admit I do not write every day unless I am in finishing mode – then I can’t stay away from it. If I am in the ‘struggle’ stage (like now), I leave it for a day, sometimes both days of the weekend. Yes, I get blocked. I have never known the kind of writer’s block that goes on for months and years, touch wood. When I get stuck, I force myself to get something down on a page. It is worth the pain because when I return to it, I can usually mine a useful idea from very futile seeming material.
Morgen: That’s what people suggest: to go off and do something different, refreshes the brain I guess. Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
John: I wish I was the kind who can plot out a story from A to Z. I start with an idea. I fit my idea with a beginning scene and I have a notion of how it will end. But the only way I can find the complete story is to write it out. This can involve several false starts. With a crime series, you already have a voice and point of view; that helps to begin.
Morgen: It must help to know your regular characters better, so they become even more real to us. Do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?
John: No method. Inspector Aliette Nouvelle is who she is. The tensions that lead Aliette to a solution are routed through the other characters. Creating an interesting villain is a central challenge. But all characters have to offer something that helps the central character carry the story. It means all characters have to be both useful and colourful. Tossing out a character, or two, and blending their situation and / or observations with another character’s is often the answer to a big problem where it comes to keeping the story tight. It can take a draft or two before I understand who has to go. This can be painful – the coach loves all his guys.
Morgen: But maybe they could go into other stories – just be put on the sidelines for a season. Do you write any non-fiction, poetry or short stories?
John: I try the odd essay, but I am never pushed in that direction by the same level of energy that wants to write a fiction. I have some short stories that I keep working on. I send them out, they come back, I work on them again. That also applies to a couple of novels… There is an up-side to having these rejected projects. They’re more or less fully formed, and they’re there to work on when I don’t have the energy or courage to start something completely new. When I get back into them, I begin to love them again. It makes me believe their time will come.
Morgen: Being a fan of short stories I’ll keep my fingers crossed for those. Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
John: Lots of editing. I will never be a genius who can write the perfect sentence, let alone paragraph, first time through.
Morgen: Does anyone? Do you have to do much research?
John: I do what’s required to give validity to a character or a scene. Sometimes you have to create a credible expert character within the story to explain things. Other times, all you need is a sentence or two. Invariably, you throw away far more research than the reader will ultimately read.
Morgen: That’s exactly how it should be; too little and it’ll feel as if you haven’t tried (or couldn’t be bothered), too much and it’s showing off. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?
John: I like third person. The first section of my first novel is in the first person; that helped me give voice to the character of Aliette Nouvelle and get her going… But in general, I find that the writing can be just as artful using the third person to convey interiority of a character. I can’t think how you would write an entire book from second person vantage. I see second person as a helper – a device to get closer to the “voice” of a character, usually when he or she is musing or otherwise in a more interior philosophical mode. Whether I’m writing in first or third person, I shift to second person as a way of adding universality and (paradoxically) intimacy to the thoughts or sentiment emanating from a character at a given moment. In other words, ‘you’ can help to better express something ‘we all’ feel – and thus help the reader connect deeper to the character. ‘You’ is a good way to add meditative pith to the beginning of a chapter or section, for a sentence or paragraph, before shifting back into the active ‘he’ or ‘I’.
Morgen: Yay, an author who’s used second person. You mentioned going back to other pieces, do you have any that you think will never see light of day?
John: Yes. (I hope to be delighted by them when I look at them when I’m old and almost gone.)
Morgen: “almost gone” I love that (or is that me being morbid?). What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?
John: What I like most is the sense of creating something that is complete. And I cherish the freedom. My least favourite thing is supposedly smart literary people who presume without really delving – it is always so obvious they’ve been lazy readers. I’m surprised by instances of inspiration that seem to come in by the back door – unexpected, not part of the plan, but it works! Pure artistic luck that sometimes moves things along.
Morgen: What advice would you give aspiring writers?
John: Try to enjoy it for itself.
Morgen: If you could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what would you cook (or hide the takeaway containers)?
John: I’m not sure who those three who be, but I am certain they would be characters from books, not the real world. I would serve pasta.
Morgen: That does sound like fun. Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?
John: My business writing. Apart from earning a modest living doing this writing, it’s often a welcome break from the stress of trying to ‘find’ a story.
Morgen: What do you do when you’re not writing? Any hobbies or party tricks?
John: I play hockey at Jarry Park, ten minutes from my house, on ice skates in winter, on roller blades in summer. I’m sixty and I love it, but I know I am getting close to my body’s limit. I also enjoy golf when I visit my parents in Ontario. And riding my bike through the valleys of the St. Chinian wine district in the Midi region of France when we visit Annie’s family. I do my tai-chi, jog and otherwise try to stay fit – I believe it helps when you’re sitting in front of that empty page / screen. Our life in this part of Montreal is such that can we walk almost everywhere we need to go. Or ride our bikes. I read. I listen to music.
Morgen: I find having a dog is a great way of getting away – have a rainy day (he’s a wuss) and I’ll be here for hours (not good). Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?
John: I have been participating in some LinkedIn ‘writers and books’ forums. I am pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy it some days. How valuable? My presence here on this blog attests to the fact that a writer can build his profile. Taking a practical measure is probably impossible – but value is also a feeling.
Morgen: So many of my interviewees have come here because of LinkedIn – it’s a wonderful tool and I am of course very grateful that it sent you here. What do you think the future holds for a writer?
John: I think electronic book selling, self-publishing tools and social media will bring a new level of excitement and possibility to a writer’s life. I think the present is showing us a future with more and more writers offering attractive, self-produced books. Their ranks will far outnumber the writers who come to the public via the traditional publisher. But the percentage of self-published writers who will ‘make a living’ from their writing will be far less than the already small percentage of traditionally published writers who do. But that will not stop people from trying their hand – and I say good. Writing is the best way to learn. Writing does not make noise.
Morgen: And in my opinion, there’s nothing like the creation itself – I often sit at my desk and clap to the screen. Where can we find out about you and your work?
John: You can look at my website for basic info and links to my publisher and to Facebook fan page http://www.aliette.ca or go directly to my publisher’s site – Signature Editions.
Morgen: Brilliant, thank you, John.
I then invited John to include an extract of his writing and this is from the prologue to Stifling Folds of Love:
They were keeping a close eye on Inspector Nouvelle that spring. The way she’d been smiling lately. Had she finally found someone? Everyone in the third-floor Police Judiciaire detachment at rue des Bons Enfants was attentive to the investigator’s every move. PJ Commissaire Claude Néon nodded knowingly. Monique Sparr, Claude’s secretary, was positive she saw something. Which meant that everyone was catching snippets of surmising as they filtered down to Commissaire Duque’s busy City Police station occupying the second and first. Cops of all description beamed their curiosity when they encountered the inspector on the stairs. Pathologist Raphaele Petrucci observed her carefully whenever she came down to his basement morgue to view a body. Forensics specialists Charles Léger and Jean-Marc Pouliot of Identité Judiciaire were both sure they’d spotted traces of a blooming passion.
For her part, Aliette had to wonder, Does it really show when you’re in love? Because in fact she was. Or hoped so. Still early days, one moves cautiously. There’d been no talk of anyone moving in. My place? Your place? It depended on the night. But it had been a beautiful change in her life since New Year’s Eve and it was still going strong in April when the problem of Pearl Serein arose. A gentle, unseasonably warm spring was a perfect time for love and the inspector was enjoying it. She just didn’t broadcast it. It was private. Love had not affected her professional abilities—as her results showed clearly. Au contraire, she told herself, being in love helped her do her work. They could speculate till they dropped. Aliette Nouvelle stayed mum and carried on.
John Brooke lives in Montreal. He is the creator of the Inspector Aliette Nouvelle stories, a series of literary mysteries set in France. The most recent (2011) is Stifling Folds of Love.
Update November 2012: My new Aliette book went to the printer this week. It should be out in about 2 or 3 weeks. I hope the e-version will be available within the same time frame. And a re-do of my website to include the new book.
Update December 2012: The Unknown Masterpiece is now published. This is the fourth in the Inspector Aliette Nouvelle series… Murder, art fraud and difficult Swiss counterparts as Aliette goes back and forth across the border trying to determine the who and why of a slain Basel art gallery security guard found at a gay gathering spot on the French banks of the Rhine. Her own confused and breaking heart is a heavy distraction…
You can find out more here: http://www.aliette.ca and here: http://www.signature-editions.com/index.php/books/single_title/the_unknown_masterpiece.
Thank you for the support – and especially to Morgen. The best to all writers and readers in 2013!
You’re very welcome, John. Great to have you here, and thank you for the updates.
***
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 information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, 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.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
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As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome critique for the four new writing groups listed below and / or flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays. For other opportunities see (see Opportunities on this blog).
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Complementing my daily blog interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the seventy-seventh, is of Christopher Profeta.
Chris teaches writing at Macomb Community College and Davenport University. He has had various works published in the Foliate Oak online literary magazine, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He attended school at Wayne State University where he was awarded two Loughead-Eldridge Scholarships in Creative Writing, and at Michigan State University where he was a winner of the Jim Cash Creative Writing Award. He lives in Clawson, MI with his wife and two kids.
And now from the author himself:
My book “Life in Pieces” tells the story of an unemployed stay-at-home-dad who wakes up one morning and reads the paper only to find out he is running for congress. The unlikely candidate’s thoughts serve as a pointed satire of politics and the economy, as well as a moving love story about the strength and importance of family. While I have never run for congress myself, I am a stay at home dad who works part time. In this section of the book I was able to let out a lot of frustration both about the economy and about family in a quirky and humorous way.
In the second “piece” of the story, Michael Langley, a college freshman, struggles to find his place in a new setting that doesn’t make much sense to him. When he finally meets a group of friends that make him feel at home, he realizes that if he is to build a life with what might be the woman of his dreams, he’ll have to give up everything he thought he ever wanted.
And somewhere, a crazy old man couldn’t care less about either of these stories. This last “piece” follows two old lovers who have figured out a way to ignore the struggles of the world around them and be comforted only by their love as they reach the end of their earthly lives together, and resolve the conflicts of their past. There was a lot of wishful thinking going on on my part in this section of the book. This guy was so much fun to write, and I hope to care as little as he does about things someday.
In “Life in Pieces”, all these stories come gracefully together to show that we are never too old to come of age.
You can find more about Chris and his writing via… his website, Facebook, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Lulu and Twitter. Chris will be guest blogging for me mid-May and I shall be interviewing him late June.
The blog interviews will return as normal tomorrow with literary mystery and non-fiction author John Brooke – the three hundred and forty-fourth 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo, and Amazon. I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me. I also now have a new blog creation service especially for, but not limited to, writers.
Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively 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 and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: author spotlight, Christopher Profeta, college freshman, davenport university, interview, literary, literature, macomb community college, novel, novelist, stay at home dad, wayne state university, writing
Welcome to the three hundred and forty-third of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with non-fiction author and autobiographer Abbie Lipschutz. 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, Abbie. Please tell us something about yourself.
Abbie: 90 years old, handicapped, been writing for many years, published in four languages. Most recent memoirs, published August 2011, surprising success.
Morgen: You write non-fiction, how do you decide what to write about?
Abbie: I am a veteran of WW-2 and Israel’s Independence War 1948-’49, so I had a colourful life.
Morgen: Wow, hence the (surprising) success. You mentioned four languages?
Abbie: I have been published, both self published and published by publishers, in English, Dutch, Spanish and Hebrew.
Morgen: I speak two out of four. Are your books available as eBooks? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Abbie: Paper all the way.
Morgen: I love the title of your latest book, ‘Child of the 20th Century – growing up Jewish in Holland, Belgium, Palastine, Israel, America. And Texas’. How important do you titles they are?
Abbie: Definitely important.
Morgen: They grab me. What are you working on at the moment / next?
Abbie: Editing my Memoirs for a second printing. Collecting dozens of short stories.
Morgen: Ooh, I love short stories. Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?
Abbie: No, but I have to hurry. I am 90. Was stopped for speeding. Officer asked, “What’s your hurry?” I am 90 and don’t have much time.” He laughed and let me go.
Morgen: I would have done too. Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?
Abbie: Both.
Morgen: Do you have to do much research?
Abbie: A fair amount.
Morgen: Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?
Abbie: Sure.
Morgen: That’s a shame. Maybe they will at some stage. Do you pitch for submissions and / or are you commissioned to write?
Abbie: Both.
Morgen: Oh great. Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?
Abbie: Shrug my shoulders.
Morgen: The best way – it’s only the right thing for the wrong person. Agents are the way to go for many writers, do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?
Abbie: Yes. I think agents can be helpful. Too many are full of themselves.
Morgen: How much of the marketing do you do for your published works?
Abbie: My recent Memoirs have spread by word of mouth. Caused a sensation. Orders from all over the States and from Europe.
Morgen: I do think reviews are important. I received another for my short story collection on Smashwords (a very good review, which made my day) and I do think it’s how people are going to decide what to buy with so much on offer, although I can’t imagine many books like yours out there. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life?
Abbie: Lack of time, mulling over details at night.
Morgen: Time is the devil to us all. What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Abbie: Persistence.
Morgen: Absolutely. They say a writer is one whom never gave up. If you could invite three people from any era to dinner, who would you choose and what would you cook (or hide the takeaway containers)?
Abbie: The late Isaac Babel, the late Saul Bellow, President Obama. I am talentless cook.
Morgen: Me too, although my mum says my flapjacks are better than hers. Is there a word, phrase or quote you like?
Abbie: Luck is a talent (my grandfather).
Morgen: I love that. If any of your books were made into films, who would you have as the leading actor/s?
Abbie: Nathan Englander, “What are we talking about when we talk about Anne Frank”
Morgen: You write some fiction as well, do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Abbie: My characters tell me where to go.
Morgen: So do mine, that’s got to be my favourite aspect of the ‘job’. Do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?
Abbie: Have certain persons in mind. Many are composites.
Morgen: What point of view do you find most to your liking?
Abbie: Both first and third person. Depends on distance from characters.
Morgen: Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?
Abbie: Sure. Personal interchange. Sniffing out other’s intimate feelings.
Morgen: What do you do when you’re not writing?
Abbie: Science; history; WW-2; Soviet history under Stalin.
Morgen: I was always more interested in arts at school. My physics teacher told my parents at my first secondary school’s parents evening that I should give up physics so I did at the first opportunity. Are there any books that you find useful?
Abbie: Contemporary Israeli fiction. French literature. Chekhov, Babel.
Morgen: Are you on any forums or networking sites?
Abbie: No.
Morgen: Very wise, they’re humongous time-suckers. What do you think the future holds for a writer?
Abbie: Go with the flow. Self-examination. My inner life is a museum exhibit.
Morgen: I love that. Where can we find out about you and your writing?
Abbie: My website is http://www.abbielipschutz.com and my book is available to buy there.
Morgen: It’s a very handsome looking book. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
Abbie: The secret of passionate love.
Morgen: My dog loves me passionate (especially when I have his bowl in my hand) does that count? Is there anything you’d like to ask me?
Abbie: Tell me where you come from.
Morgen: The short answer (because I’m very good at waffling): originally from south Buckinghamshire, at the end of one of London’s underground train routes then I moved to Northamptonshire 20 years ago (the grand sum off 55 miles north) and have lived in four different houses, the latest (my second house that I’ve owned) for 12 years. Thank you, Abbie.
I then invited Abbie to include an extract of his writing…
POLAND 1935
In 1935 my mother took me to Poland to visit the only one of her sisters still living there. We visited the city and then crossed the river into the little town where she was born.
I was too young to know it then, but we had arrived in a shtetl. The streets were crooked and dusty, women carried heavy loads from cramped shops, the men wore black caftans, the boys had long earlocks and wore yamulkes. Chickens ran in the streets. The sound of Yiddish around me was as strange as the sound of a gamelan orchestra. My aunt’s father, a dark and intense man with an absent look, measured and sold material in his small store, his mind on God.
On the second story of an old and leaning house lived my great-grandfather. The room was dark and smelled of gribbenes (rendered chicken fat). We stood on the balcony, Grandpa and I, his arm around my shoulder, looking down at the courtyard where yeshiva bokhrim in flowing frocks talked earnestly and boys from kheyder ran around, peyes flying, yarmulkes falling, as they shouted in high-pitched voices. Against the wall, old men sat and shook in prayer, reciting chapters from Proverbs. Chanting came from dark openings. A smile crossed the kind creases of Grandpa’s face as he turned his old and bent body to me, stroking his white beard. “See how we live here?” he said.
We left, my mother and I, and on the square we hired a droshky, a ramshackle horse-drawn carriage with a sleepy driver, who drove us to the cemetery. Over cobbled streets and then rutted country roads we went, a dull sky overhead, the horse breaking into a canter only when the balegole woke up long enough to give it a disinterested smack with his frayed whip.
We stood before the grave of the grandfather I’d never known. Old tombstones were alive with crowded Hebrew scribbling; small rocks on top left word they had recently been visited. My mother covered her face the way she did when lighting the shabbes candles. When she lifted her hands she was crying and dark memories flooded her eyes. I didn’t know I had glimpsed at the last flickers of an old tradition that day.
The rest of the summer we spent in the country at the foot of the forested Carpathians. The sun was warm and every glorious day I came to the swimming pool. Over the loudspeakers the latest hit played, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”
To reach the pool we took the train, then walked a mile from the railroad station. The station was Auschwitz.
I then invited Abbie to include a synopsis of his book…
I am a voyeur of Life. A Peeping Tom. I stand in the corner wondering with an open mouth about the strange and surprising things those adults around me are doing, recalling the astounding acts of the generations that have passed on, watching those of my own generation who are still around and those of their children and grandchildren in Israel who have moved eons away from the old roots in the shtetl.
For nine decades, Abbie Lipschutz has been a fighter, lover, writer, dilettante musician and classical music commentator. He is a clinically happy soul who possesses Offensive Charm and Unjustified Arrogance, qualities that have served him well over the years. He was a kibbutznik in Palestine in the early 40s, a veteran of the Dutch Prinses Irene Brigade in World War II, and a volunteer in Israel’s War of Independence, 1948-1949. By then he had long lost his beliefs in the Zionist-Socialist dreams. Nonetheless, he joined, feeling that 2000 years of persecution had been enough. Having made a living for 50 years as a wholesale diamond peddler throughout the American South, he discovered the vastness of our land, its Big Sky and its multi-colored characters. He ended his diamond career in 1999 after being held up at gunpoint. Seeing van Gogh’s painting, “The Potato Eaters,” at age 14 changed his life by turning him into a political radical, which he has still remained. Thoreau’s phrase,” Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them,” confirmed what van Gogh’s painting had conveyed to him years before. Husband, father, and grandfather, he has written a memoir filled with the sights, sounds, scents, songs and surprises of a soulful, vigorous life well-lived. His book connects the generations in one grand sweep of hope, love, and peace.
***
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 information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, 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.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome critique for the four new writing groups listed below and / or flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays. For other opportunities see (see Opportunities on this blog).
The full details of the new online writing groups, and their associated Facebook groups, are:
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: Abbie Lipschutz, agent, Amazon, America, Anne Frank, author, author spotlight, autobiography, Babel, Barnes & Noble, Belgium, biographers, biography, books, characters, Chekhov, children’s, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, flash fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, Holland, interview, Israel, Israel’s Independence War, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoir, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mystery, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novels, Palastine, paranormal, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, publisher, rejection letters, rejections, romance, science fiction, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, Stalin, story author, story authors, story writer, submissions, Texas, Twitter, vampire, western, Wordpress, world war 2, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing group, writing magazines, ww 2, WW2, YA, youtube
Tonight’s guest blog post, on the topic of editing is brought to you by thriller novelist, short story and non-fiction author, spotlightee and interviewee Alana Woods.
Editing from an editor’s viewpoint
I’ve been a professional editor for over 30 years. For most of that time I worked in various Australian public service departments, latterly as Director of Publishing at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
I’m no longer in full-time employment—haven’t been for about six years. Most of my time now is taken up with my own writing but I continue to contract edit, again for government departments because that’s where my clientele is. But I also occasionally edit manuscripts for authors.
I imagine what editors actually do may be a bit of a mystery to some. I know you’re familiar with the general idea: picking up errors and making or suggesting changes to improve a document, but do you know the nitty gritty? For those who don’t here’s a rundown.
There are three levels of editing.
1. Substantive edit. A substantive edit is the full box and dice. You scrutinise and fix everything: structure, content, language, style, readability, clarity and logic, spelling, punctuation and grammar. It includes applying styles to all text and generating automated tables of content.
Once in a while a full restructure or rewrite is necessary, but usually it entails a thorough edit and, if necessary, pointing out overall weaknesses the author should address and making suggestions about how to fix them.
2. Copy edit. This involves looking at consistency of language, spelling, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation. It includes checking capitals and hyphenation consistency (hyphens, ems and en rules). For government and corporate jobs it also includes checking in-house style, references and glossaries, tables and graphs, heading levels and applying styles to all text and generating tables of content.
3. Proofread. This is exactly what it sounds like. A proofread is usually done after the document has been typeset and is ready to be printed. It’s the final check to make sure everything is okay. You make sure the formatting is correct and also check for overlooked typos.
However, with a copy edit and even proofreads, if I find something I think should be addressed I will make a note of it for the client without attempting to fix it.
I use tracked changes so the client can see exactly what I’ve done. It’s up to them to accept or reject my changes.
And now for the editor’s secret.
What is it?
It’s a one-on-one proofread.
This is instead of the single editor proofread.
It consists of one editor reading out loud from the final copy before it was typeset. The text obviously mirrors the text in the typeset document.
This read includes everything: capitals, paragraph breaks, widows/orphans, etc. It also includes formatting—by that I mean bold and italics, indents, justification, inter and intra paragraph spacing etc.
The second editor checks the typeset document against what is being read.
They both use rulers to focus on one line at a time.
It’s not usual with private jobs because only one editor is involved, but it is commonplace in departmental editing where there are several editors on the team, at least in the departments I worked in.
Try it. In my experience you find all sorts of discrepancies including spelling, punctuation and grammar typos.
That was great, thank you, Alana. My editor not only finds errors (fortunately not that many) but also comes up with some wonderful suggestions and it sounds like you love your ‘job’ too.
Alana’s family immigrated to Australia from the UK when she was four and bought land an hour south of Adelaide. For the next 15 years she explored her way through school, the beach, roaming as far as her bike would take her in a day, and books. In 1966 she met John, married him the next year, and the year after had twins, Simone and Simon— Alana and John still get ribbed about that. Three years later Nicole joined the team—for a moment they thought she was twins too, and joke now that it would have been Nicole and Nicholas. You can imagine the derision!
In 1980 they moved to Canberra to further their careers until 2004 when they moved to Queensland, spending five years there before moving back to Canberra because they missed their family. They also now spend time in the UK with Simone, her husband and two sons. Alana’s website is http://alanawoods.com and you can read our interview and Alana’s spotlight.
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. If it’s writing-related then it’s highly likely I’d email back and say “yes please”.
The blog interviews return as normal tomorrow morning with Jessica Chambers – the three hundred and forty-third of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, autobiographers 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, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo. My eBooks are now on Amazon, with more to follow, and I also have a quirky second-person viewpoint story in charity anthology Telling Tales.
I have a new forum and you can follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, like me on Facebook, connect with me on LinkedIn, find me on Tumblr, complete my website’s Contact me page or plain and simple, email me.
Tags: Alana Woods, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, copy editor, editing, editor, grammar and punctuation, non-fiction, proof-read, proofread, short stories, short story, substantive edit, thriller, writing
Welcome to the three hundred and forty-second of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with multi-genre author and spotlightee Richard Godwin. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Welcome back, Richard. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Richard: I write crime and horror fiction, Bizarro and sci fi, poetry and literary fiction. I lectured in English and American literature at London University. I always wanted to write and my first break came with the production of my play ‘The Cure All’ on the London stage. It is a satire about a group of confidence tricksters using the New Age to rip off venal customers. I am best known for my crime fiction.
Morgen: My favourite genre. What have you had published to-date?
Richard: The list is exhaustive. Please go to my magazines page for a list of over 60 stories published.
In terms of novels I have two published, Apostle Rising and Mr Glamour, both with Black Jackal Books, both out in paperback now. Apostle Rising is about a serial killer crucifying politicians. It received excellent reviews and has sold foreign rights in Europe.
Morgen: Wow, congratulations. Mr Glamour sounds interesting…
Richard: Mr. Glamour is about a glamorous world of wealthy men and beautiful women with a predator in its midst. It is a novel with many twists and turns, and two cops who are most certainly not what you expect. DI Jackson Flare has a dark side and his partner DI Steele leads a double life. The killer seems to know a lot about his victims. And he seems to be watching everyone. Mr. Glamour is already receiving excellent reviews.
Morgen: That’s wonderful. With so much published you’ve obviously had plenty of practice. Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?
Richard: Everyone gets rejections. You have to accept it.
Morgen: You do, just the right thing for the wrong person. Have you won or been shortlisted in any competitions?
Richard: I’ve been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and Apostle Rising was shortlisted for the Waverton Good Read Award.
Morgen: Wow, the Pushcart Prize especially is a real achievement. I’m not up on my prizes I’ve heard that being revered. Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?
Richard: Of course. If they’re good, they are.
Morgen: Like any business, I guess. I have a simple theory – if you go into a shop and get good service it’s likely that they enjoy their job, and are therefore good at it. Are your books available as eBooks? Were you involved in that process at all? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?
Richard: I have stories in E book anthologies. I haven’t been involved in the process. I was approached by magazines. Apostle Rising will be out as an E Book in a few months. I read both E Books and paperbacks.
Morgen: How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?
Richard: I do a lot. Unless you are a major name you have to.
Morgen: That is true. From memory only one author has said they leave it to the publisher although she’s active on Twitter so I’d say that counts as marketing. What are you working on at the moment / next?
Richard: The sequel to Apostle Rising. Many questions will be answered.
Morgen: I like the sound of that. Do you manage to write every day?
Richard: I write every day. I see it like practising my tennis serve.
Morgen: It is, isn’t it. If you don’t play the piano you won’t get better (ditto painting). Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?
Richard: It depends on the length. I let my stories occur, while I plan most of my novels.
Morgen: We’ve had this discussion in my forum and the replies have said pretty much the same as you. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?
Richard: I’ve tried them all. I like first but the publishers want third, which I also like.
Morgen: It does seem to be the most popular with readers. Where can we find out about you and your work?
Richard: At my website, richardgodwin.net, where you will find a full list of my works and online. Or simply Google me. I also conduct popular interviews with authors at my blog here.
Morgen: Ooh great – I love interviews. Well, thank you, Richard for taking time out today, all the best with Mr Glamour.
I then invited Richard to tell us more about his latest novel…
Designer goods, beautiful women, wealthy men, a lifestyle preyed on by a serial killer.
A killer who is watching everyone, including the police.
Latest headlines?
No, an outline of my second novel, Mr. Glamour. My debut novel Apostle Rising was published in paperback by Black Jackal Books last year. It was about a serial killer crucifying politicians, and sold extremely well, received excellent reviews, and sold foreign rights to the largest publisher in Hungary.
Settings are exotic, and the pages drip with wealth. The story’s told in my usual style, and my readers will know what that means. I have been told I write with a blend of lyricism and graphic description. I like to explore what motivates people and I certainly do so with the leading characters in Mr. Glamour.
The two central cops, DCI Jackson Flare and Inspector Steele, are unusual and strong in their own ways, as reviewers are already picking up. At the beginning of the novel Steele hates working with Flare for personal reasons. She doesn’t by the end, and the investigation takes them both on a journey which changes them and their opinions of one another.
Let me give you the setting if you are tempted to read Mr. Glamour…
Something dark is preying on the glitz of the glamour set. There is a lot about designer goods and lifestyles in Mr. Glamour. The killer knows all about design, he knows what brands mean to his victims. He is branding their skins. And he has the police stumped.
As Flare and Steele investigate the killings they enter an exclusive world with its own rules and quickly realise the man they are looking for is playing a game with them, a game they cannot interpret. The killer is targeting an exclusive group of people he seems to know a lot about.
The police investigation isn’t helped by the fact that Flare and Steele have troubled lives. Harlan White, a pimp who got on the wrong side of Flare, is planning to have him killed. And Steele has secrets. She leads a double life. She is an interesting woman who pushes her sexual boundaries in private. She travels a journey into her own past and rescues herself. And in a strange way she is helped by the killer she is looking for. And Flare has some revelations in store.
As they try to catch a predator who has climbed inside their heads, they find themselves up
against a wall of secrecy. The investigation drives Flare and Steele to acts of darkness. And the killer is watching everyone.
Then there is the sub plot.
Contrasting this lifestyle is the suburban existence of Gertrude Miller, who acts out strange rituals, trapped in a sterile marriage to husband Ben. She cleans compulsively and seems to be hiding something from him, obsessed that she is being followed. As she slips into a psychosis, characters from the glamorous set stray into Gertrude’s world, so the two plots dovetail neatly with one another.
And when Flare and Steele make an arrest they discover there is far more to this glamorous world than they realised. There is a series of shocks at the end of the novel as a set of fireworks go off. Watch out for the highly dramatic ending. It is already picking up some great reviews.
Advance praise for Mr. Glamour:
“Richard Godwin knows how his characters dress, what they drink and what they drive. He knows how they live –and how they die. Here’s hoping no one recognized themselves in Godwin’s cold canvas. Combines the fun of a good story with the joy of witty, vivid writing.” Heywood Gould, author of The Serial Killer’s Daughter.
“Smart, scary, suspenseful enough for me to keep the light on until 3AM on a Sunday night, Richard Godwin once more proves to fans of crime fiction the world over with Mr. Glamour, that he is not only one of the best contemporary writers of the procedural cop thriller around today, he is a master storyteller.” Vincent Zandri, author of Scream Catcher.
“Richard Godwin’s top-of-the-line psychological police procedural driven by its heady pace, steely dialogue, and unsparing vision transfixes the reader from page one.” Ed Lynskey, author of Skin In The Game.
“Mr. Glamour is a striking effort from one of the most daring crime writers in the business. It is the noirest of noir…and hellishly addictive.” Mike Stafford, BookGeeks Magazine.
“This first rate detective thriller will have you gripped from the start. Richard Godwin is an author not to be missed.” Sheila Quigley Author of Thorn In My Side.
“Mr Glamour is, in every sense of the word, the real McCoy: genuine hard boiled detective fiction. Lean, gritty, and tough, it’s a journey into the heart of darkness … you won’t soon forget. Connoisseurs of Nouveau Noir will have to add Richard Godwin to the list of writers to watch!” C E Lawrence, author of Silent Kills.
“Involving and compellingly sinister, Richard Godwin’s Mr. Glamour portrays cops and criminals, the mad and the driven in a novel of psychological noir. Read it while snuggling with your stuffed teddy bear for comfort.” Gary Phillips, author of Treacherous: Grifters, Ruffians and Killers
“Read this outstanding dark novel and learn more about what happens when you enter the hall of mirrors and find a reflection that just might do more than frighten you. Outstanding, spell binding and keeps the reader guessing until the very end. This is one outstanding novel written by one amazing author.” Fran Lewis, Reviewer.
I think Mr. Glamour will appeal to mystery and crime aficionados, to readers interested in psychological profiling and designer lifestyles, to thriller and noir fans, and to anyone who enjoys a fast paced narrative with strong characters. Mr. Glamour can be bought now at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and at all good retailers online and in stores in April. If you Google it you should see a range of options come up. And you can find out more about me at my website and my stories here.
Richard Godwin is the author of Apostle Rising which has just sold foreign rights to the largest publisher in Hungary and has received excellent reviews worldwide. A widely-published crime and horror writer, his second novel Mr. Glamouris out now and is available online and at all good retailers. It is about a glamorous world with a predator in its midst and is already attracting great reviews.
An author with 14 distinct works to his name, his writing has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, not least recently the Tarrantino-based series of sketches Pulp Ink, and The Big Book of Bizarro.
His ‘Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse’ are interviews he has conducted with writers and can be found at his blog on his website here where you can also find a full list of his works.
***
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 information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, 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.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. I welcome critique for the four new writing groups listed below and / or flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays. For other opportunities see (see Opportunities on this blog).
The full details of the new online writing groups, and their associated Facebook groups, are:
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, biographers, biography, books, characters, children’s, Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse, creative writing, crime, critique, ebooks, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, flash fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, horror, interview, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mystery, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novels, paranormal, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, publisher, Pulp Ink, Pushcart Prize, rejection letters, rejections, Richard Godwin, romance, science fiction, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story author, story authors, story writer, submissions, The Big Book of Bizarro, Twitter, vampire, Waverton Good Read Award, western, Wordpress, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing group, writing magazines, YA, youtube
