Blog interview no.360 with writer Gail Harkins

Welcome to the three hundred and sixtieth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with romance author Gail Harkins. 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, Gail. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.

Gail: I have recently begun writing fiction as a counterpoint to my career as a science and business journalism career. The fiction aspects of my work came about during a rainy spring that followed a rainy winter, which kept me indoors more than I liked. As an antidote to the dreary weather, I wrote myself a vacation, although it was set here in the rainforest of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. I’m married and live on a tree farm with my husband and college student sons, as well as three cats and two dogs — a Great Pyrenees and a black Labrador.

Morgen: We’re having a rainy spring here in the UK at the moment, I wonder if its spawning any new writers. What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?

Gail: I like to write light, sweet romances – nothing steamy. Considering that, as a writer, I have to live with my creations for some time, I prefer to create characters and environments I actually like being around.

Morgen: I found that for NaNoWriMo 2008 and 2009. Having to write 1667 words a day for a month I wanted something fun so write a lad lit then a chick lit but then went dark for 2010. What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?

Gail: I do write under a pseudonym, to keep my scientific career separate from the romance work. My first fictional work is “The Winds of Glenhoolie,” an 18,400 word novella set in Scotland against the backdrop of debates about building a wind farm near a national heritage site.

Morgen: Ah great. Scotland’s always a popular location; very picturesque and often eerie. Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?

Gail: Rejections? Of course. They’re part of the writer’s life. The trick to discern why a work was rejected and make it — or the next piece — better.

Morgen: Absolutely. Live and learn as the saying goes (whilst remembering that it may just have been the right thing for the wrong person). Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?

Gail: I’ve not had an agent. The publishing industry is in the midst of a transformation as e-publishing and self-publishing becomes more popular. At this point in my career, the value proposition an agent would bring seems of minimal value.

Morgen: I think so too but you never know what the future holds. You mentioned e-publishing, are your books available as eBooks? How involved were you in that process? Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?

Gail: Yes. I love e-books and read them on my Nook. Preparing a manuscript for an e-book format is actually quite simple. Smashwords.com has a wonderful, free “how-to” that cuts through the jargon for even the most technophobic among us.

Morgen: It does but at 70-something pages was daunting. Once I realised how comprehensive it was I ploughed through it and quickly built a template for use thereafter. Amazon was even easier. How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?

Gail: I do virtually all the marketing, which seems to be true for all but the top handful of writers.

Morgen: It does. I’ve only had one or two say they don’t do anything but invariably they have an online presence (Twitter and Facebook) so it’s not nothing. Did you have any say in the title / covers of your books? How important do you think they are?

Gail: Funny, my RWA chapter just had this discussion. A cover is what causes me to pick up a book or click to learn more. I want a graphic that pulls me into the story.  Personally, I favour outdoor scenes with a “wow!” factor.

Morgen: There’s little doubt that a cover will draw you in and although I’m a big fan of titles, they don’t put me off if the story sounds good (James Patterson’s ‘The Quickie’ for example… what a terrible title!). What are you working on at the moment / next?

Gail: Currently, I’m writing a second Glenhoolie novella and anticipate a summer 2013 release. My novel, “Almost Scotland,” in the polishing phase.

Morgen: I’m buffering some too. Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Gail: I try to write daily, but sometimes life intervenes.  Writer’s block hasn’t been an issue for many, many years. Early in my career, I learned to write the middle if I didn’t have the beginning. Stellar writing is less about being initially brilliant than about being a ruthless editor.

Morgen: Absolutely, you can’t edit a blank page. Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?

Gail: I’m a bit like a tourist in a new town who sees something wonderful and runs to it, and then checks the map to see where to go next. So, I write “by the seat of my pants” and then plot out the next few turns.

Morgen: Most do but those who plot appreciate that things change as the story is written so are adaptable. Do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?

Gail: To create names, I consider geography and age. The U.S. Census Bureau has lists of the most popular names in given years, but honestly, I tend to follow my instinct and the trends I’ve observed in my personal and professional life.

Morgen: Do you write any non-fiction, poetry or short stories?

Gail:  I have a career as a non-fiction magazine writer, but not as Gail Harkins.

Morgen: Do you have to do much research?

Gail: Much of what I write was already researched as part of my non-fiction career, but I still check details. For example, The Winds of Glenhoolie is set in a fictional castle and town in Scotland, but I needed to determine the amount of snow, species of trees, and the understanding of certain phrases – like “rain check” an American phrase that I needed to define for my hero.

Morgen: We say it over here too but only in recent years (from US TV programmes here, I think). And of course you have check for payments but we say cheque (well, saying is the same sound but you know what I mean). Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?

Gail:  Very possibly, although I toy with the notion of resurrecting one in particular.

Morgen: Me too. I have over 100 short stories (possibly nearer 200) and part of the master plan is to go through them all at some stage. I’m older and wiser now. What advice would you give aspiring writers?

Gail: The best advice I could give is to read widely – fiction and non-fiction, trade journals, reports, biographies, histories, everything. Additionally, have experiences yourself. Meet people, travel, try new sports, learn new ways of seeing the world. It all is reflected in your writing.

Morgen: Writer what you know, or what you experience then fill in the gaps. 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)?

Gail: For dinner, I would serve roast turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, an orange and spinach salad, and apple-raisin pie. (I love cooking) for guests, I would consider Benjamin Franklin (a Renaissance man), Winston Churchill (erudite wit) and Jane Austen (who, I daresay, could keep them in check).

Morgen: Oh yum, that sounds lovely (sorry, I will read the guest list in a minute but still ogling over your choice of food). That’s an interesting combination. What do you do when you’re not writing?

Gail: I love hiking through the forest, camera in hand. I also play classical piano, and have a fondness for the romantic composers – Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and Chopin.

Morgen: I’m a Satie (Erik) girl myself although I love anything classical while I’m writing. Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?

Gail: Romance Writers of America has been a wealth of information for me. I also am exploring Definitive Serious Writers Group on LinkedIn, which led me to your insightful Web page.

Morgen: Ah, thank you. Where can we find out about you and your work?

Gail: “The Winds of Glenhoolie” is published by Rainforest Press and is available at Smashwords.com, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.

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

Gail: Thank you so much for having me!

Morgen: You’re very welcome. Thank you for taking part. Do come back and do something else if you’d like to.

I then invited Gail to include an extract of her writing…

Claire dipped her head and widened her eyes, and sighed. “You must think I have no manners! My parents taught me never to discuss religion or politics, so this is entirely my own fault. I can hardly have a conversation without straying into forbidden territory!” She raised her head and looked him square in the eyes. “Now, tell me about yourself. Are you from here? What was it like growing up? “

He gave her an amused glance. She’s not sorry one bit, but she has the grace to pretend. Alec nodded. “No apology needed. It’s actually rather refreshing. I like a good discussion with a knowledgeable companion. Too often, people are perfectly polite and never actually say a thing worth hearing!”

Claire laughed, and Alec continued. “As to your question, I was born just outside the village in my family home. We’ve loved here for some 600 years.”

Claire laughed again, more quietly.

“What’s so funny?”

“You said, ‘we’ve loved here.’ You meant ‘lived here’.”

Alec reached across the table, took her ringless left hand and brushed his lips against her knuckles. “Are you sure of that, lass?”

Her breath caught. Looking into his twinkling brown eyes, Claire knew that if she hadn’t been seated, her knees would have buckled then and there.

If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the questions. You complete them, I tweak them where appropriate (if necessary to reflect the blog ‘clean and light’ rating) and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know.

You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything… and follow me on Twitter where each new posting is automatically announced. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords, 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.  I also now have a new blog creation service especially for 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.

 

Author interview no.358 with writer Cindy Heufner Cromer

Welcome to the three hundred and fifty-eighth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with mystery/suspense author Cindy Huefner Cromer. 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, Cindy. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.

Cindy: I am originally from Freehold Township, New Jersey and currently reside in Stuart, Florida with my husband, son, and daughter.  I am a scientist and earned B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Biology. I then rose in my career to the executive level and became the president of a laboratory network. In this role I have written numerous laboratory procedures and research documents.

Now I have embarked on a new endeavor, into the publishing world, with the release of my debut mystery novel, Desperate Measures.
Morgen: Writing what you know, always a good plan for your first novel (she says having written her first from the point of view of a hitman!). What genre do you generally write?

Cindy: I write mystery / suspense because that is the genre I love to read. I have a children’s book that I have in mind but haven’t gotten very far with the story and I’m not sure of the illustrating process.

Morgen: I guess you can either find an illustrator first or write your story and worry about that afterwards. The forums on LinkedIn would help you with that. What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?

Cindy: My debut mystery fiction novel, Desperate Measures, was released in May 2011 in e-book format. The print version became available in November of 2011. I am finalizing my second book, Desperate Deceptions. I write using my maiden and married name, Cindy Huefner Cromer.

Morgen: This is your first book, have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?

Cindy: I have had so many I can’t even give a ball-park figure. Every author must be prepared for rejection and criticism. Some agents and publishers are brutal, some don’t respond at all, and some provide some constructive criticism. I embraced those rejections and utilized them to polish my novel. After numerous query letters when I finally saw those magic words, contract offer, I couldn’t believe my eyes and thought my manuscript had been confused with someone else’s.

Morgen: <laughs> If you keep trying long enough you’ll get there… and you did. As far as rejections go you just have to think that they know best but that it’s the right thing for the wrong person. Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?

Cindy: I don’t have an agent and I’ve heard conflicting comments from other authors about how much the agent really does for them.

Morgen: Me too – I’d say about half the authors I’ve spoken to are positive, half negative. 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?

Cindy: Yes my book is available in e-book formats. My contract states that after 100 e-books sell it goes to print. Desperate Measures became available on print November 2011. I prefer paper and print when I read.

Morgen: I’m a new (February) convert to eBooks but I wouldn’t give up paper books… and again most of the people I’ve spoken to feel the same. How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?

Cindy: I do quite a bit of the marketing and am struggling a bit to effectively get my book out there. I am trying to obtain a publicist.

Morgen: It’s hard isn’t it. I must admit that other than this blog (which is a lot of work as you can imagine), I do very little to promote my own books so they’re going out at a trickle but generally feedback has been very positive (apart from on Goodreads unfortunately… not sure why). 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?

Cindy: Barry Solerno is my favorite character.  When I’m asked this question, most expect me to respond with Caitlin the main character.  I’ll explain why I am partial to Barry.  I reached an impasse while writing Desperate Measures at around 12,000 words, all of you writers know how important that work count ticker is.  I had the plot and ending set but realized I needed something or someone to add and bring it all together and thus Barry was born.  I’m particularly proud of how I introduced him then peeled away the layers and revealed to the readers what makes him tick.  One of my favorite scenes is when that first layer is pulled away.  I read it over and over sometimes when the dreaded writers block sets in.  Those who have read Desperate Measures, any guess to which scene I am referring to?

I also had a lot fun writing about Tomas Medina, FBI Senior Special Agent in Charge.  He has some light comedy scenes and at times found myself laughing hysterically when writing about him.

Quite a few readers have asked me who Chris Dobbs is and want to meet him.  Well, so do I! He’s a complete figment of my imagination. I needed a character to spice up a few scenes and created Chris, tall at six foot-five, and gorgeous.  He plays a bigger role in Desperate Deceptions.

I love answering the question of who would play in the movie! Someone even posted in their review that Desperate Measures should be made into a movie. As a new author, I am so far thrilled with the fantastic reviews and not sure a move will ever happen. Below are some of the actors who I think would be perfect to play the roles of the characters I created: Cailtin Martel – Sandra Bullock, Tomas Medina – Josh Duhamel would be perfect for this role. Tomas has some very serious scenes but also a few comedy ones as well. Scott Martel – Nicholas Cage, Lukas Bucklin – Clint Eastwood, Drew Porter – Martin Lawrence, Barry Solerno – Tom Hanks. As you can see, the producer would have to have a huge budget, LOL!

Morgen: He wood but if he got all those he’d surely make his money back. Maybe Clint could produce / act. Did you have any say in the title / covers of your books? How important do you think they are?

Cindy: I chose the title. I know Desperate Measures seems common but the other novels are a different genre. While writing Desperate Measures, the plot of my second book began to unfold and I thought Desperate Deceptions would be perfect. As far as the cover is concerned, I had some input but Suzannah Safi designed it. The black rocks on the cover are from an actual picture taken in St. Kitts that I sent to my publisher. I receive so many compliments about the cover of my book, I force the saying, “Can’t judge a book by its cover”, from my mind. As a new author, I’ll take any publicity I can get. Hopefully the cover draws the reader in and they are dazzled with my creative and suspenseful writing.

Morgen: It’s great that you’re getting feedback on your cover (the eyes do it for me ). It must be easy to forget it once it’s hooked you (the reader) in and then you concentrate on the story which, as you say, they are dazzled with. What are you working on at the moment / next?

Cindy: I am currently finishing my second book, Desperate Deceptions. I have a rough outline of a medical thriller and a sports related mystery that I am anxious to dive into the plot development.

Morgen: You sound pretty busy with it, do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Cindy: I try to write every day, even if it is one scene. I suffered some writer’s block when I wrote Desperate Measures and what helped me to get over it is to re-read the last scene I wrote over and over again. When that doesn’t work, I sometimes read a book that I have read before but didn’t particularly enjoy. This method boosts my confidence that I can write something better. In writing Desperate Deceptions, there were many times I froze and no matter what I did, those magic words and scenes would just not come. There were many reasons why this happened to me. The five star reviews Desperate Measures received scared me to death and I was afraid I couldn’t do it again. The next issue was I over analyzed and edited each and every word too much. I’ve finally gotten past this mental block and let the creative side of my brain take over and create suspenseful scenes then go back and edit.

Morgen: I’ve been toying with the idea of a follow-up to one of my novels (a big chick lit, although I’m currently still editing the first) and having written all stand alones so far (three and a bit) it is more daunting although I do feel I know the main characters well which must help. Maybe for NaNoWriMo this year (the first one was for NaNo 2009). Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?

Cindy: I start with the beginning, write the ending from my draft of the plot, then fill in chunks in the middle.  When I reach this juncture I freeze and panic because I know I have to create a scene, character, and link that ties the whole plot together.  Once this happens, I soar with confidence and the book quickly comes to completion.  When this happened while I wrote Desperate Measures, I created Barry Solerno, who I mentioned earlier, became my favorite character.  Just the other day, I reached the same point in Desperate Deceptions.  Will this character follow in Barry’s footsteps?  I’m still not sure myself but I don’t think so.  So far this character is a bit shady.  Once Desperate Deceptions is released, I just might have a contest to see if anyone can figure out the character that I am referring to.

Morgen: Can two characters follow in each others’ footsteps? I’d say you’d need to make them different enough, otherwise if would be like having a scene of dialogue where you can distinguish between one and the other. You’ve listed a few but do you have a method for creating your characters, their names and what do you think makes them believable?

Cindy: I utilized my scientific and executive experience to create Caitlin as a start, came up with a fiction plot revolving around family secrets, then created an eclectic cast of characters, each one holding bits and pieces of information pertinent to Caitlin’s survival. Essentially, I thought of a book I’d like to read. I think what makes a character believable is when an author gradually peels away a layer of the character without giving their whole background and story at once, giving the reader a chance to form a bond or opinion. The names of my characters aren’t as important as the secrets they are hiding.

Morgen: I like the sound of that. Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?

Cindy: With my second book I started to edit and over analyze it before the book was finished, but I am very happy with the book and in my opinion is much better and suspenseful than Desperate Measures.

Morgen: You are more practiced. Do you have to do much research?

Cindy: No, not much for the first two books. The third and fourth I will have to do quite a bit research.

Morgen: But we have the joy of the internet to hand. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?

Cindy: Third person and I am most comfortable writing in this point of view. I haven’t tried first or second person.

Morgen: Second’s pretty hard and most people are sensible and avoid it. I’m not that sensible. First person has been overdone in recently years so you’re possibly wise sticking to third. Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?

Cindy: No yet, knock on wood. HA HA

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

Cindy: My favourite part of writing is creating characters and tying in their past and secrets into a suspenseful conclusion. I also love doing publicity. As far as least favourite aspect, I suppose writers block, patience, and solitude. While writing I get so wrapped up in a scene, I forget the outside world exists sometimes.

Morgen: I love the solitude (although I have a dog so that doesn’t totally count). What advice would you give aspiring writers?

Cindy: Be prepared for rejection and don’t give up. Embrace each criticism as an opportunity to polish your work. It takes time and dedication.

Morgen: Absolutely. 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)?

Morgen: I’d invite King Tut, Thomas Jefferson, and Margaret Thatcher. The second part is easy since I don’t cook, those takeaway containers would be from a gourmet restaurant and hidden far from sight!

Morgen: Me too. I do imagine Margaret to be fussy. Is there a word, phrase or quote you like?

Cindy: “Everything always equals out.” Another favourite quote my mother always says, “If you have to brag you don’t have it because others will brag for you.”

Morgen: Like touting each others’ books on Twitter. What do you do when you’re not writing? Any hobbies or party tricks?

Cindy: I have a twelve-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter. Their homework, extra-curricular, and social activities keep me busy. When time permits we like to go boating.

Morgen: Oh, how lovely. I love water. I hadn’t realised until a colleague came to stay and pointed it out but all my pictures (some prints, some originals) have water in them somewhere. Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?

Cindy: I’m on the typical sites, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin. I’m also a member of NAWR (National Association of Women on the Rise), Sisters in Crime, and Mystery Writers of America.

Morgen: I’ve not heard of NAWR, how intriguing. Where can we find out about you and your work?

Cindy: My website is www.cindyhuefnercromer.com.

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

Cindy: I attended some exciting events recently: March 1-4 I attended Mystery Writers of America’s 2012 annual Sleuthfest Conference. I was chosen as a panellist and was thrilled! Murder on the Beach Bookstore purchases the books of the authors chosen for a panel and schedules a book signing. This year’s guest of honour was Jeffrey Deaver. During the month of March, I participated in The Romance Reviews anniversary party with a Q&A session and the chance to win a signed copy of Desperate Measures. On April 13th I was the featured author on Just Romantic Suspense with another giveaway.

Morgen: Wow, how thrilling, congratulations. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

Cindy: Morgen, I’d like to thank you for this opportunity and interview.

Morgen: Oh, you’re so welcome. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for taking part.

I then invited Cindy to include an extract of her writing and this is a shortened synopsis of the back cover…

What should have been the perfect vacation on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, soon becomes a nightmare. Caitlin Martel has no idea that a forgotten secret is about to explode and put her life in jeopardy. The suspense escalates through twists, turns, and family secrets yet to be revealed. A powerful climax unveils an unlikely alliance between two deadly and dangerous enemies.

For a preview of the first five chapters click the link on my website labeled Contests and Events. If you enter The Romance Reviews contest, clues are provided in the chapters.

Cindy Huefner Cromer, formally a New Jersey resident, now resides in Stuart, Florida, with her husband, son, and daughter. Cindy works as a laboratory scientist and executive.  As the president of a laboratory network, she has written numerous laboratory procedures and research documents. Driven by a passion for suspense and mystery novels, she dreamed of becoming a writer. Her dream turned into reality with the release of her debut suspense novel, Desperate Measures.  She is currently working on her second novel, Desperate Deceptions.  Plots are in place for her third and fourth books.

If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the questions. You complete them, I tweak them where appropriate (if necessary to reflect the blog ‘clean and light’ rating) and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know.

You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything… and follow me on Twitter where each new posting is automatically announced. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords, 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.  I also now have a new blog creation service especially for 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.

 

Author interview no.354 with writer Christopher Starr

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

 

Author interview no.338 with poet Phillip Ellis

Welcome to the three hundred and thirty-eighth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with poet Phillip Ellis. 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, Phillip. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.

Phillip: I am an Australian poet, critic and blogger, and have been a netizen for over fifteen years. During that time I have been writing and getting published, both online and offline, and I’ve seen my world expand beyond the borders of my native Australia. As it happens, since I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and have been writing in one genre or another since childhood, this efflorescence has a natural and almost inevitable feeling about it.

Morgen: Netizen is a new word on me. Do you write poetry to form or as it comes? If to form, what are your favourites? Are some easier than others?

Phillip: I usually approach most poems as they come, since they dictate any form that comes. I occasionally write to form, and this year I have been writing metrical poems that lack rhyme, for the most part, especially for NaPoWriMo. In this case, I expect the most prevalent form is any variation on the sonnet, with blank verse sonnets high among them.

Morgen: I only found out about National Poetry Writing Month last year. I rarely write poetry but have done NaNoWriMo four times, Script Frenzy once and Story a Day (which is coming round again next month) once and love the discipline of a deadline. You mentioned your current work lacking rhyme, do you generally write rhyming or free verse?

Phillip: I write both free verse and rhyming verse, and I also write non-rhyming metrical verse (for example, blank verse, dactylic hexameters, et al.). I see the distinction less between free verse and rhyming verse; rather I see it as a complimentary set of options, including syllabic, accentual, syllabic-accentual, free verse, and all the extras that also occur.

Morgen: What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?

Phillip: I have had over five hundred poems, and around two hundred prose pieces published in a variety of venues. The number keeps expanding: just today I have had two more poems accepted and published online in Bluepepper, a poetry blog that publishes a variety of poems by a variety of poets. As it happens, a small amount of the poems are published under a pseudonym.

Morgen: Wow, that’s some going. Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?

Phillip: I have had thousands upon thousands of rejections, and even more silences. How do I deal with them? I accept them as par for the course; just because one poem gets rejected at a number of markets it doesn’t mean that the next won’t accept it.

Morgen: You’ve had so many accepted, it must make the rejections feel easier and as you say it just wasn’t write for that person. Do you enter competitions? Are there any you could recommend?

Phillip: I generally avoid competitions, though, generally because I find they tend to favour poems written expressly for the competition, whereas I concentrate on selecting from my range of writings what may suit (and sometimes challenge) a certain market. My nonfiction prose, however, is usually written with a specific market in mind, especially when it concerns book reviews.

Morgen: Do you go to poetry slams?

Phillip: I have yet to attend a poetry slam, but most often I attend a regular poetry reading, one that contains a lot of performance-based poetry.

Morgen: I’ve been to some (readings not slams) and always admire those who can recite their writing from memory. Even if I’ve written something myself, I can’t remember how it goes. With all you’ve had published, do you deal with publishers directly or do you have an editor / agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?

Phillip: I usually deal directly with publishers because I have yet to encounter an agent dealing with a poet not of international stature. Editors, however, are essential: when I gather a collection together I try to afford several rounds of editing, and am choosy about which editors to approach, given that they need to be able to be in synch with my range of poetic forms.

Morgen: That’s the thing about poetry, I find it deeper than short stories and it takes a poet to really understand another’s work (in my humble opinion). Are your books available as eBooks?

Phillip: I have had ebooks, and plan on releasing more when I can get time, but there’s nothing available in those formats at the moment.

Morgen: Do you think eBooks will change poetry?

Phillip: Regarding ebooks, however, like any publishing development the poetry will adapt, survive and thrive. Just as the scene has developed in tandem with technology and society.

Morgen: What / who do you read? And is it via eBooks or is it paper all the way?

Phillip: I read both ebooks and paper-based poetry; I also watch videos, read online, and listen to recordings: there are a large number of ways to enjoy poetry beyond just the paper page, and each has a range of benefits and drawbacks. And each has its own range of poetries best adapted to that medium.

Morgen: I love listening to audiobooks as it means I can be doing something else at the same time but for me it only works with prose – with poetry I need to see it written down, and read it at least twice in most cases. How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?

Phillip: I do almost all of my marketing, but that doesn’t mean I am the best at it. There’s still so much to learn, and so much more I could and should be doing right, and there’s only so much time, and energy, and ability.

Morgen: I think every writer reading this interview will agree with you there (I certainly do). Do you have a favourite of your poems or topic to write about?

Phillip: I don’t have a favourite topic to write about. I do have a favourite technique, though, and that’s to mine my life for circumstantial details, the ones that help make the poem ring true. Where I wrote, recently, using an image of a “gravel rash” of clouds, I had done so remembering what that is like and having seen a photo of clouds at dusk that reminded me of such a rash.

Morgen: I love the sound of that. Presumably you choose the titles of your poems – do you get to keep them or are you ever overridden?

Phillip: Usually I manage to keep the poems’ titles, but when I was pursuing a policy of titling every “Opus Number such-and-such” I was often overridden.

Morgen: You mentioned rounds of editors earlier, do you always show / read your poems to anyone before you submit?

Phillip: Sometimes. It depends upon the poems, and who is interested enough in that particular form.

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

Phillip: I am currently working on a number of poetry-related projects, such as a number of bibliographies, concordances and editions of poets. At the same time I am drafting a minimum of a poem a day, with an extra poem a day over April for NaPoWriMo.

Morgen: I met English poet Wendy Cope a few years ago and she said she writes a poem a day but has Christmas Day off. Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Phillip: I have been writing every day for NaPoWriMo without any sign of writer’s block. I find the more I write the less likely I get the block, and haven’t had to deal with it in over a decade. What I find helps most is being able to get into the frame of mind where I can let the first lines and images rise up easily, when I sit down to write.

Morgen: I’m the same really (although I don’t write every day, slap wrist). I have more ideas than I can cope with (she says looking at a dozen 80-sided display books filled with newspaper cuttings). Even a one-word prompt can trigger something (one of the exercises I set in my Monday night workshops which then end up on my Exercises page). Why do you think poetry is such a difficult market to break into?

Phillip: Poetry can be difficult to break into because it can be difficult to work out where to start. There are so many smaller markets, and competition for publishers of books and chapbooks can be fierce. However, with places like Duotrope‘s Digest, and other market listings, it is possible to develop a sizable body of poetry in preparation for larger and more ambitious publications.

Morgen: I subscribe to Duotrope, it’s great. Are there any tips you could give to someone wishing to write poetry?

Phillip: The only tip I want to give to anyone wishing to write poetry is that a strong grounding in technique is the difference between a good poet and a great poet. By knowing the craft, that is, it is easier to worry less about the form and structure of a poem, allowing the thesis, the poem’s argument, a clearer and easier development. Plus it can also mean the difference between a poem that hangs together and a poem that is technically raw and ill-formed.

Morgen: That’s where I fall down; I’ve never been taught poetry, not even the fundamentals… ooh maybe you could do another guest post for me. Do you write any fiction, non-fiction or short stories?

Phillip: All my fiction is now in the form of narrative verse, and I am slowly exploring verse novels, verse novellas, and similar forms of narrative poetry.

Morgen: I can often tell when a story or book I’m reading is written by a poet, it’s so tightly formed and… for want of a better word, poetic. Do you do a lot of editing of your poems or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?

Phillip: I’ve found that, as time goes on, I am able to edit more effectively as part of the composition process, with numerous, light edits thereafter. That is, I usually find the form as I go, then edit into that form as I clarify the language and thesis of the poem.

Morgen: I used to write a lot of 60-word stories and found the more I wrote the closer they came out to the word count. It’s obviously not a direct comparison but do you find your poems come out at similar lengths, or does they really vary.

Phillip: A lot depends on the poem. A lot of the time I have a strong feeling when the poem is done. Other times I write to that length, and, rereading, find it needs more or less material, and I proceed to add where needed.

Morgen: You say that you “mine” your life for your poetry, do you have to do much research?

Phillip: Usually no, I don’t do much research, unless it’s something ambitious and out of my areas of familiarity.

Morgen: You’re written so much, do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?

Phillip: I plan on having most of my work eventually see the light of day, however I do have a small number I only want published after my death. I always make notations to that effect on the relevant poems.

Morgen: I have a novel like that although it’s one of my strongest so I might change the names (to avoid being sued) and publish it anyway. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?

Phillip: My least favourite aspect is the degree to which I have to toil to make anything close to a living, and even then the money’s not great. Anyone who says people are paid what they’re worth is either lying or deluded.

Morgen: But that seems different for writers; a profession that’s notoriously underpaid in the main. What advice would you give aspiring poets?

Phillip: Again, the only advice I would give is master technique. Know the craft, the mechanical aspects of poetry, and practice them to the point they become second nature. That way you’ll find thinking about that aspect of writing is lessened, allowing you to concentrate on what you and / or the poem want to say.

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)?

Phillip: I would like to invite Shakespeare, Ernest Dowson, and maybe the Australian poet Christopher Brennan to dinner. The shop talk would be brilliant.

Morgen: Is there a word, phrase or quote you like?

Phillip: There isn’t a word, phrase or quote I specifically like enough to quote it here. That doesn’t mean I don’t have favourites; for a while there my most common “major” word was “drowning”.

Morgen: I used to say “actually” a lot but “cuddle” is my favourite, especially when my dog’s in earshot. Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?

Phillip: I am also involved in facilitating a writing group at a local drop-in centre, and I edit poetry as well as supporting others with their poetry writing. Even if it only means buying the books.

Morgen: Including Phil Eling’s forthcoming memoir, which we’ll be talking about when I interview him a little later in the year. What do you do when you’re not writing? Any hobbies or party tricks?

Phillip: Most of the time I read, though I also try and study where I can, and find time to watch maybe one or two television programmes.

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

Phillip: There are so many sites out there! It’s hard to know where to start, however I can give a few tips and tricks for finding sites. One is to thinking about the keywords you’ll use in a search engine, and to make them as suitable to the sort of site you want. Another is to follow links from any site that you like, as well as likely looking links from blogs and tweets and facebook posts. Another is to read widely as well: tips on fiction could be applied to narrative verse, for example, and many marketing tips can be adapted from prose to poetry with a bit of ingenuity.

Morgen: You retweet a lot of my Twitter feeds and I’m really grateful for that. It is all about supporting each other, isn’t it, and I know how grateful all my blog contributors are that I give them a platform… and I’m grateful to them for giving me the content. You mentioned Twitter and Facebook, are you on many forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?

Phillip: I am on a number of networking sites, and on social networking sites, and I find them of varying use when not connecting directly with people.

Morgen: What do you think the future holds for a writer?

Phillip: I have no idea what the future will hold; I can barely wait to find out though!

Morgen: Me too. As a self-published eBooker, I’m thrilled by how easy it is to get my work online (once they’ve gone through at least two editors – selling the eBooks is a whole different clichéd ballgame) and I’m excited for the future as, although I can’t see real books fading away, eBooks are definitely the way to go with authors having more ‘power’ and that can only be a good thing from this side of the table. Where can we find out about you and your work?

Phillip: A lot of my work is searchable under my byline, Phillip A. Ellis. If you’re using a search engine that likes terms in quotation marks, such as Google, put the name in quotation marks, as that way you get better results. You can also find out about me on a site under construction, but online: http://www.phillipaellis.com.

Morgen: I only found out about the quotation marks option a while ago, it certainly helps with non-unusual names. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

Phillip: There are so many different types of poetry out there, even to one and / or more per poet. If you don’t find your niche, in other words, create it. If you don’t find a magazine or website publishing the poetry you love, publish it yourself.

Morgen: Again the joy of eBooks – once you have a template it’s so easy to put up subsequent items. Is there anything you’d like to ask me?

Phillip: Actually, there is something I’d love to ask you: where do you find the energy, the enthusiasm, and the time to do so much for the writing community?

Morgen: <laughs> It’s my addiction. I say it’s passion but I constantly think about writing (and talk about it if people let me). It’s easy to be consumed when it’s something you love, and of course somewhere along the line I hope that it’ll convert to people buying my eBooks but I need to work harder (at all would be useful!) at that.

Thank you, Phillip.

I then invited Phillip to include one of his poems…

Nostalgia

Cool summers, plenty of clouds, balmy nights,
warm winters, dry as wine and twice as nice:
these days, the weather’s wilder, harder. Floods
are common, droughts are also common, vast
extremes of temperature common. Tell me
about it. Let me say, I know. I know it
too well, too well to say much more about it—
and there is much more worse that could be said.

But, other years, I would not have my way:
the 1890s, say, I would be mad
and locked up. Not a hope for swift release,
and not a hope to live a productive life;
the 1920s? Same: I would be mad
and locked up still. O happy day! O joy!

I then invited Phillip to include a synopsis of his latest book…

Symptoms Positive and Negative, is a chapbook of sonnets of various forms written around my experiences with the symptoms of schizophrenia. While Symptoms Positive and Negative, is based upon my experiences, they are not raw and undigested but, rather, skilled meditations on the range of experiences that may be encountered. Symptoms Positive and Negative, is available from the poet for $5AU postpaid (in Australia), and $7 AU postpaid from elsewhere.

Phillip A. Ellis is a freelance critic, poet and scholar, and his poetry collection, The Flayed Manhas been published by Gothic Press; Gothic Press will also edit a collection of essays on Ramsey Campbell, that he is editing with Gary William Crawford. He is working on another collection, to appear through Diminuendo Press. Another collection has been accepted by Hippocampus Press, which has also published his concordance to the poetry of Donald Wandrei. He is the editor of Melaleuca. He has recently had Symptoms Positive and Negative, a chapbook of poetry about his experiences with schizophrenia, published by Picaro Press. He can be found at The Cruellest Month. You can also read some more of Phillip’s poetry and reviews on my Post-weekend Poetry page.

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

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.

 

Script Frenzy: 100+ pages every April

Do you write scripts but just don’t have the time? Have you ever wanted to write a script but just… if you have, then next month may just see you doing that.

Script Frenzy is the sister organisation of NaNoWriMo and rather than NaNo’s 50,000 words in a month, Script Frenzy’s aim is to write 100 pages of script every April. Sounds easy? If you’re anything like me, if you tell yourself you’re going to do something then you’ll do it. And I did. NaNoWriMo four times (2008-2011) and Script Frenzy once, in April 2010 (in my case notching up just over 15,000 words). Whilst I found it an interesting exercise, it’s not made me want to be a scriptwriter, although it has made me appreciate the work that goes into each film I watch, and sometimes I imagine it written as a script but then that’s the analyst in me. I liked the story I came out with so a little later I converted it into the beginning of a novel.

The rule is the same in both projects; you can plot as much as you like before the beginning of the month (November for NaNoWriMo and April for Script Frenzy) but you can’t start writing the actual story until the 1st then it’s pens down (or fingers off keyboard) as the month ends and while you’re doing it you can keep score online, chat to others doing the same thing and a lot of people meet up. I won’t be doing Script Frenzy this year but I may well use the time structure to do some serious editing word count to one of the four novels I have as yet unfinished (having forgotten about unrelated NaNoEdMo this month).

So, to Script Frenzy. The home page helpfully tells you that you (currently) have 19 days left before kick-off beneath which is a wonderful plot machine which can be used for any project, not just Script Frenzy. Below that are their latest two announcements then a short trailer promo video made by some of their Young Writers Programme participants. On the right is their donations monitor (it’s how the keep the whole thing running), a competition to win goodies including a playbill signed by the cast of the new Broadway comedy Seminar: Alan Rickman (Yes, the Alan Rickman!), Hamish Linklater, Lily Rabe, Hettienne Park, and Jerry O’Connell. Then there’s their latest two blog posts including one entitled ‘Robert McKee’s Sculpting the Shape of the Story’ then beneath that their Twitter feed which is almost constantly changing. At the bottom there is a link to What Is Script Frenzy which basically says what I’ve said here and includes the following rules:

1. To be crowned an official Script Frenzy winner, you must write a script (or multiple scripts) of at least 100 total pages and verify this tally on ScriptFrenzy.org.
2. You may write individually or with a partner. Writing teams will have a 100-page total goal for their co-written script or scripts.
3. Scriptwriting may begin no earlier than 12:00:01 AM on April 1 and must cease no later than 11:59:59 PM on April 30, local time*.
4. You may write screenplays, stage plays, web series, TV shows, short films, comic book and graphic novel scripts, adaptations of novels, or any other type of script your heart desires.
5. You must, at some point, have ridiculous amounts of fun.

* They’re based in San Francisco, USA.

It’s completely free to do. Just go to the Script Frenzy website, sign up and set up your profile. If you know what you’re planning on writing you can put that in too. If you set your Home Region (it may have to be the nearest city) you can then find other people who are doing the same thing (thousands around the globe will be), you might find them in the forums, chart your progress, and there’s a great Frequently Asked Questions section – just click the option at the top. If you want to practice your languages you can even see it all in Dutch, French, German and Spanish. Don’t worry if you’ve never written a script before (most participants haven’t) their Writers’ Resources page is packed with templates and other goodies. Speaking of goodies, they also have a store.

Douglas Adams was quoted as saying “I love deadlines; I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by” but I find them invaluable as it’s so easy to let my writing slide. So, even if you don’t plan to write a script this April you could use the deadline for another project; 100 pages of prose, 100 lines of poetry (three or more poems, I guess), 100 lines of prose, 100 blog posts… whatever it is, it’ll be more than you would have done if you’d not put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. And what do you when if you’ve written 100+ pages? The satisfaction of a job done (not necessarily ‘well done’; Script Frenzy and NaNoWriMo are all about quantity not quality, you can edit it later), and a participant’s virtual badge and certificate. Then the hard work begins.

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 poet and essayist Robbi Nester  – the two hundred and eighth 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. And I have a new forum at http://morgenbailey.freeforums.org.

 

Podcast: Bailey’s Writing Tips ep.49 – scriptwriting

Episode 49 of the Bailey’s Writing Tips podcast went live today, Sunday 11th March, and I talked about scriptwriting and the forthcoming ScriptFrenzy.

Script Frenzy is the sister organisation of NaNoWriMo and rather than the 50,000 words in a month, Script Frenzy’s aim is to write 100 pages of script every April – I had a go in April 2010 and while I found it an interesting exercise, it’s not made me want to be a scriptwriter, although it has made me appreciate the work that goes into each film I watch, and sometimes I imagine it written as a script but then that’s the analyst in me! I liked the story I came out with so a little later I converted it into the beginning of a novel. The rule is the same in both projects; you can plot as much as you like before the beginning of the month (November for NaNoWriMo and April for Script Frenzy) but you can’t start writing the actual story until the 1st then it’s pens down (or fingers off keyboard) as the month ends and while you’re doing it you can keep score online, chat to others doing the same thing and a lot of people meet up. I won’t be doing Script Frenzy this year but I may well use the time structure to do some serious word count to one of the four novels I have as yet unfinished. Douglas Adams was quoted as saying “I love deadlines; I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by” but I find them invaluable as it’s so easy to let my writing slide.

The episode mentioned the following links:

• www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/insight/first_ten_pages.shtml
• www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scriptsmart/index.shtml
• www.scriptfrenzy.org
• www.onthepage.tv
• www.scriptmag.com
• www.simplyscripts.com
• http://ukscriptwriters.podomatic.com
• www.screenwriterscorner.com
• http://writethatscript.com
• www.screenwritingmoviesandtv.com
• www.bookgrouponline.com
• www.online-literature.com
• www.writersweekly.com
• www.writeaplay.co.uk
• www.thewritefactor.co.uk
• www.dramatica.com/theory/essential_questions/twelve.html
• www.explorewriting.co.uk/ScriptWritingCategory.html
• www.scriptologist.com/Forum/Ask/treatment_and_synopsis.html
• www.bluecatscreenplay.com/screenwriting_help/advice.php
• www.bbc.co.uk/newtalent/writing/advice_gittins.shtml

Books on writing scripts include:

• Robert McKee’s book ‘story’ provides help on ‘substance, structure, style and principles of screenwriting’;
• Chris Curry’s ‘Writing for Soaps’ (a ‘writing handbooks’ book) – is packed with tips and sample scripts.
• I’ve mentioned Teach Yourself’s books before and they publish a screenwriting book.
• ‘The Screenwriting Workbook’ by Syd Field – exercises and step-by-step instructions.
• James Ryan’s ‘Screenwriting from the heart’ – the technique of the character-driven screenplay.
• Don Shiach’s ‘From Page to Performance’ – a study book for drama (Cambridge University Press).
• ‘How not to write a screenplay’ by Denny Martin Flinn – 101 common mistakes most screenwriters make.
• Penguins ‘Comedy Sketches’ includes Alan Bennett, Noel Coward, John Cleese, Stephen Fry/Hugh Laurie.
• Ben Thompson’s ‘Sunshine on putty’ is a behind the scenes look at modern British Comedy.
• Screenwriting for Dummies which like all the other Dummies books is very user friendly although if you want to write for TV you’ll be disappointed as it’s 95% designed for the big screen.
• William Froug’s ‘Zen and the art of screenwriting’ and the follow-up, ‘Zen and the art of screenwriting 2’.
• ‘Writing Dialogue’ by Tom Chiarella (published by Story Press).
• Rib Davis’ ‘Writing Dialogue for Scripts: Effective Dialogue for Film, TV, Radio and Stage’ which has a link further down the page for Rib’s ‘Developing Characters for Scriptwriting’ – both are published by AC Black.

If you have any feedback or areas you’d like covered in the hints & tips podcasts, do email me at morgen@morgenbailey.com. In the meantime, thank you for downloading or clicking on this podcast and I look forward to bringing you the next episode next week which will be three Flash Fiction Fridays short stories.

You can read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo. And I have a new forum at http://morgenbailey.freeforums.org.

 

Writing Groups – joining or running

Tonight’s ‘guest’ blog post, on the topic of writing groups, is brought to you by yours truly, Morgen Bailey.

As Lauren Bailey said in her guest blog on Tuesday, every author should have a second opinion. No-one should submit or self-publish their own writing without having someone else, ideally another writer, at the very least a reader, hear or read it. I prefer the latter, especially when equipped with a red pen (not sure why but red holds a certain power), and those who have listened to (or been the subjects of) my ‘red pen’ podcasts will know that I’m firm but fair.

Unless you live with someone who can give that kind of feedback, the chances are that you’ll have to go further afield. And where better to start, if you live in the UK, than the National Association of Writers’ Groups (NAWG). Click on ‘Writing Group Directory’, pick your area of the country and find the nearest meeting to you. Before you leave the site, you might like to read one or two of their bi-monthly ‘Link’ magazines (I’ve been in a few ). It’ll give you a feel for what goes on in the groups. If you live in the US there’s a great list here, for Canada there’s a page of allsorts and South Australia click here (Google wasn’t very helpful with Europe – I guess it’s too big).

So you’re ready for your first meeting. You have pens (always advisable to have more than one) and paper, and perhaps something to read out, if you’re feeling brave.

You’re nervous. You’re bound to be. You’ve either never written anything before and you’re convinced that you’ll be no good, or you’re ready to go with your first ever creation and are convinced… you get the idea. Just remember that we were all learner drivers once (those of us who drive anyway).

The group will be kind to you, you can listen to others’ writing, and don’t be put off by that. If it’s good, the chances are they’ll have been writing for years and you’ll be just as good (if not better) with practice. And that’s what writing boils down to; learning as you go along and actually writing something. You can’t edit a blank page.

I run a group and belong to two others (one of which I chair), the other I (sort of) jointly lead. The latter, Northampton Literature Group’s Writing Circle (NLG), meets once a month (the first Tuesday night), the others fortnightly… strangely all 7.30pm to 9.30pm although we invariably overrun.

The ideal format

You naturally want a writing group to teach you something, you want to write and you want to hear others’ writing.

The fortnightly Thursday night group (Northampton Writers Group (NWG)) is predominantly critique only. We write on the spot occasionally but we usually take it in turns to read out our latest projects, with some of us making notes (some, me, more than others). The fortnights alternate between a specific topic (poetry, 10-minute play, flash fiction etc) and free manuscript, these usually being short stories, autobiography, novel extract and poetry. The monthly group is a mix of writing and reading homework, usually 500 words on a specific theme, with the Chair of the Group, Alan Bryan, leading the first half and me the second.

My writing group is split into two with a fortnightly critique-only and fortnightly writing workshop where I set three or four 10-15 minute exercises. Critique in the workshop session is minimal and the pieces, like the NLG, are meant to be starters to continue at home, then brought to the critique groups if desired.

Running your own group

If there’s no group near you (or you don’t like the ones that are!) and you know a few people who write or would like to write, you could always start your own. You don’t have to hire a hall – you could either run it at your house or take it in turns. I charge per person £1 for refreshments so I don’t make a profit (especially in winter when I have the heating turned up!) but it’s not about that, is it. It’s about sharing your work with others, helping them when you have something constructive to say, congratulating (and being congratulated) when something’s published, commiserated if you get nowhere in a writing competition, having a moan about an editor’s rejection of your characters and being there for each other. But most of all, it gets you in your seat and gets you writing!

Thank you… er, me!

When not at her day job (a sore point – she’s been trying to escape since October!), Morgen Bailey runs a (this) ticking-over nicely (about 200+ visitors a day) blog which, like her, is consumed by the topic of writing. She shares her house in Northampton, England with an 11-year-old Jack Russell / Cairn cross who is used to her waving her arms about (as she tests how her characters do something) or clapping when she’s written a particularly wonderful line. Best with deadlines, she loves projects like NaNoWriMo and StoryADay (producing three novels / four and a bit collections of short stories between them) because she’s like a dog with a clichéd bone… give her a challenge and she’ll do her damnedest to get it done… sometimes with just minutes to spare. She’s sold to Woman’s Weekly, rejected by them and others, accepted by NAWG for their ‘Link’ magazine and other online establishments, and has two $1.49 eBooks (a 31-story anthology and a writer’s block workbook) and free eShorts available via Smashwords, Sony Reader Store, Barnes & Noble, iTunes Bookstore and Kobo, but once the day job is dust she plans to edit her four and a bit novels, let her editor rip them apart, then head for Amazon KDP and a bread and water lifestyle that is (often) that of a writer… and she can think of nothing more thrilling. Oh, and she has a new forum at http://morgenbailey.freeforums.org.

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 poet and literary fiction author Serge Lecomte – the three hundred and 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.

 

Blog interview no.297 with writer Jane Reynolds

Welcome to the two hundred and ninety-seventh of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with novelist, soap blogger and article writer Jane Reynolds. 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 Jane. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.

Jane: I’m based in Swindon, Wiltshire in the UK and had wanted to be a writer my whole life, but only finally took the plunge and gave up work five years ago to write my first novel.

Morgen: Oh good. I’m not the only mad one then (the day job (finally) goes next Friday). What genre do you write?

kJane: I’d describe my writing as ‘Chicklit’ but with a little added surprise, and would like to think of it as something along the Jackie Collins line, but without the Hollywood glamour or the crazed stalker!

Morgen: What have you had published to-date?

Jane: I Self-Published my debut novel “Just Good Friends?” in 2010 and also write a big weekly Soap / TV blog / magazine.

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

Jane: Have I? Oh, yes. My life has been nothing BUT rejections (and not just literary ones)! Most of my days are spent wondering how I manage to cope, but the one thing that keeps me going is the blind hope / belief that maybe tomorrow will be the day when it all comes good.

Morgen: A successful writer is one who didn’t give up. Have you won or been shortlisted in any competitions?

Jane: I won £10 in a National Short Story competition when I was 11, and got third prize in the Daz ‘Soap Blogger of the Year’ Award 2011 (having been invited to apply and after having only been blogging for six months).

Morgen: Wow. They’re both to be very proud of, I’d say. Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?

Jane: I got an Agent almost as soon as I started submitting, but (story of my life), it didn’t work out and that’s how I came to end up Self-Publishing.

Morgen: (I’m debating here whether to mention that an agent told me last summer – when presented with my 105K chick lit – that chick lit is dead!) You’ve self-published, does this mean your book is available as an eBook?

Jane: Yes. My book is available on Amazon and Kindle, but making it happen almost drove me crazy (and often drove me to drink!). I wasted several hundred hours during the process and felt like giving up many, many times along the way.

Morgen: But you didn’t because it’s all you want to do (snap). Do you read eBooks or is it paper all the way?

Jane: I like a ‘proper’ book, but I’m sure that when I do try eBooks I’ll love them and wish I’d done it sooner!

Morgen: I’ve had my Kindle just over a month and I love it but it’s not changed my life. It just means that for the size and weight of a paperback I have 400+ books in my bag. Other than for my Short Story Saturday reviews and new books I’ve downloaded it’s still paper books all the way at home. How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?

Jane: I started the website / blog simply as a way of promoting my book, but it’s evolved dramatically, and the Soap-blogging part has sort-of ‘taken over’.

Morgen: Oh, I know all about blogs taking over.

Jane: The best part of my time is spent doing things connected with that at the moment, but I do all my own marketing for every aspect of my work and also have regular spots on several radio shows locally – where I talk ‘Soaps’, but usually manage to get a quick plug in for the book somewhere along the line too!

Morgen: Do you have a favourite of your books or characters? If your book was made into a film, who would you have as the leading actor/s?

Jane: I love the character of Ruth. The agony she goes through (in trying to deny her feelings for another woman), was just a joy to write. I don’t have any thoughts on who’d play the roles as I daren’t even dream about it being made into a film!

Morgen: Presumably you chose the title of your book, did you do the cover too? How important do you think they are?

Jane: It’s all my own work. If I’d had lots of money I’d have had a photo / cover done specially, but I’m very proud of having found a picture I liked online and then designing the whole thing myself. A cover is SO important. Of all the millions of books out there, you need that special something to catch someone’s eye and make them want to pick it up. It’s a bit like dating: ‘First Impressions’ and all that!

Morgen: The title of a story I’ve just submitted for a charity anthology (woop woop!). There’s been a debate on LinkedIn about how much covers matter and some saying they don’t at all but if you have a dull one and a beautiful one side-by-side, a reader’s going to go for the attractive one first aren’t they? If they like the rest of the ‘package’ they’ll buy it and probably ignore the dull one if that’s their money spent. What are you working on at the moment / next?

Jane: My blogging / marketing takes up most of my time. I’m desperate to start my sequel (it’s written in my head!), and am doing as much as I can to create awareness of my book, but unless I start earning money from it all I’ll be forced back to ‘work’ work before too long, so am trying to get some freelance jobs (and would love to do some paid Soap blogging / writing for a magazine etc).

Morgen: ‘work’ work? No! Stay away from the light. Do you manage to write every day? Do you ever suffer from writer’s block?

Jane: I can’t write unless I know I have nothing else to do. That was why I had to give up my job. I could never just spend an hour here and there like some people do; I just can’t work that way. I haven’t had writer’s block (yet!), but wonder if I’ll get it when I finally get down to it again, as everyone says it’s harder to write the second book than the first, and (although I’ve got the story written in my head), actually getting it down on paper might prove to be a challenge!

Morgen: I actually found my second one easier. Up to late 2008 (NaNoWriMo) I’d never written anything over 3,000 words (although I’d thought it was much more until I checked) and plotted novel no.1 quite heavily but then when I started writing the characters took over and it changed. For next one (Jan to October 2009) I had an idea (inspiration from a real event) and only jotted notes. For the third (2009 NaNo) I’d not a clue what to write until a couple of days before and was looking through a (large) Word document of notes when I came across all these characters (weird and wonderful men) then decided how they’d figure and got my main character (journalist Izzy) and 30 (actually I think it was 28) days later I had a 117,540-word first draft chick-lit. Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?

Jane: The climax of “Just Good Friends?” came to me in a dream, and I wrote the book ‘backwards’ from there, in effect. I wrote the first draft cover-to-cover in three months. It was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done!

Morgen: Isn’t it wonderful. There’s nothing quite like it. We’ve touched on characters, do you have a method for creating yours?

Jane: I’d like to think my characters are just people like you or me, and tried to imagine them as people I might know – or would like to know.

Morgen: They certainly think they’re real. Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?

Jane: I revised it twice before publication, but – like all writers – could probably work on it forever and still find things I feel I could do better!

Morgen: With hindsight everyone would change things but we just have to let it go, and hope no-one spots anything untoward (no-one’s told me yet but then my editor does a wonderful job ). Do you have to do much research?

Jane: Luckily, it wasn’t the sort of book that needed a lot, but it was such a blessing to have the Internet to be able to check facts along the way. We’re so lucky these days!

Morgen: Aren’t we! I adore being a writer now. With the internet and eBooking we’re so lucky. Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?

Jane: I’ve written a radio play. It’s on my ‘to do’ list to get it tweaked and sent off!

Morgen: Oh do! The BBC (Writers’ Room) is always looking for them. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?

Jane: My favourite bit is not having to go ‘to work’ every day. I love what I do. My least favourite bit is living hand-to-mouth and never being able to afford to take even one day off (both time and money-wise).

What’s surprised me is the sheer amount of work you have to put in (especially if you’re self-published). Writing the book was the easy part!

Morgen: Isn’t it. What advice would you give aspiring writers?

Jane: You have to keep going. Most days are disappointing, and rejections can soon make you lose heart, but if you really want it you have to believe in yourself and just keep at it.

Morgen: Absolutely. 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)?

Jane: After sitting mulling this one over for ten minutes I figured that I’d still be sat here after ten hours trying to decide, so don’t actually have an answer for you!

Morgen: That’s OK. Fortunately I don’t have to ask myself and I’d probably be stuck too (although I’ve often said that Roald Dahl and Kate Atkinson are my favourite authors so I’d probably choose them and my father as third – which would be fun and he use to do some photography for Roald!). Is there a word, phrase or quote you like?

Jane: Never give up. Die trying.

Morgen: Are you involved in anything else writing-related other than actual writing or marketing of your writing?

Jane: I’ve recently done my first paid freelance work (writing a couple of articles for a website), and would love to do more.

Morgen: Let’s hope the right people are reading this (and have room for you and I ). What do you do when you’re not writing?

Jane: I rarely do anything else now. I barely have any income at present (I go cleaning one day a week), so cannot afford not to be working at it!

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

Jane: Yours has been a real help to me.

Morgen: :*) Thank you. I like to pack it with loads of information and have loads more to put up – again it’s a time thing.

Jane: I find most help via Twitter. It’s the most fantastic business tool if you use it well, and I’ve found a lot of great writing / marketing advice / sites. I’d highly recommend Nick Daws (@nickdaws on Twitter), and the Write This Moment site, (@WriteThisMoment on Twitter), for writing jobs / advice.

Wanna be a writer we’ve heard of? by Jane Wenham-Jones is very funny and gave me some really good advice.

Morgen: Yay! Jane will be chuffed. I met her at Winchester Writers Conference last July and had a wonderful chat. She’s my 249th interviewee. And we regularly chat on her Wednesday evening / Sunday morning forum. She’s running a course down in Kent on 20th May so it’ll be lovely to see her (and fellow chatroomers) again. Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?

Jane: I’ve tried, but they’re all different and it takes so long to try and navigate my way around a site (or I end up spending ages reading stuff when I should be working) that it’s simply too time-consuming for me!

Morgen: I have one (http://morgenbailey.freeforums.org/index.php) but it’s just getting going so maybe wouldn’t be too time-consuming for you at the moment. What do you think the future holds for a writer?

Jane: Hopefully I’ll actually have one! Self-publication is no longer seen as the vain, last resort of the ‘failed’ writer, but I can’t deny that it’s still my dream to see my book in bookshops and to be able to say those magic words: “My Agent” to people!

Morgen: As Harper Collins / Friday Project Scott Pack said to me early last year “you’re doing all the right things – just keep doing them”. Where can we find out about you and your work?

Jane: My website is www.janereynolds.co.uk

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

Jane: Only that – even now – there’s still a huge gap in the mainstream market for love stories / relationships between women. ‘Lipstick lesbianism’ is highly marketable and is BIG business in every aspect of the media except women’s fiction. My book is a romance between two women who we’d all recognise as not being lesbians as such, but simply two wives / mothers who just happened to fall in love with each other …

Morgen: I’ve interviewed a handful of authors writing male:male (including Tristram La Roche, Kiran Hunter, Erastes, John M Daniel and Bob Frey) but just two writing female:female before you (Catherine Lundoff and Ellen Dean) so it would be nice to have more of a balance out there. Maybe it just needs a kick up the posterior? Things are changing so let’s hope so. Thank you, Jane.

Every decision she ever made turned out to be the wrong one.

That pretty-much sums up the life of Jane Reynolds to date. Throwing away the last bit of security she had (and the roof over her head), by leaving her job to finally become ‘A Writer’ might yet prove to have been another one of those wrong decisions, but – five years ago – that’s exactly what she did.

She now lives like a hermit and spends most of her days working in her little rented office trying to market her book. Peeling herself out of her chair at night, she drives home to sit upstairs in her bedroom at her elderly father’s house where she watches Soaps for her weekly ‘Soapy Corner’ blogs, then gets up the next day and does it all again. Now, THAT’S what you call dedication!

The eldest child of two professional jazz musicians; Jane Reynolds lived most of her early life in Wiltshire.  She won a prize in a National Short Story competition when she was twelve and had been keen to pursue a journalistic career, but the missed opportunities and bad luck that have dogged Jane her whole life saw her going off instead to study music in Leeds, where she spent rather a lot of her time writing reviews for student magazines when she really should have been practising her flute!

After finally breaking it to her parents that the life of a musician wasn’t really for her, she embarked down a rather different career path: Retail Management. Jane’s work took her around the country, and over the years led to a move into Training: work she really enjoyed as it encompassed both her love of public speaking and writing (having had to develop and write many training manuals on a variety of subjects during that period).

Jane (and her partner at that time), bought and sold a lot of properties during the 80s housing boom, and she was just about to leave work to become Self-employed (as a way of being able to finally start writing), when a dramatic change of circumstances turned her life upside down.

It was the most challenging period of Jane’s life, but eventually (and unexpectedly), resulted in nine happy years spent in London as devoted Nanny / Housekeeper to a lovely couple and their three gorgeous little boys.

On Thursday 12thJanuary 2006 though, she went to bed and had a dream which jolted her awake. So vivid was the dream that she jumped up and scribbled it down, and when she looked at her notes again the next morning she quickly realised that it was the plot of a book!

Even though she loved her job (and lived-in), the urge to write became increasingly overpowering. It broke her heart to leave her ‘family’ (and the home that went with it), but four months later, Jane took a leap of faith and moved back to Wiltshire, where she wrote the first draft of “Just Good Friends?” cover-to-cover in only three months.

After getting an Agent almost immediately, it seemed as if – for the first time in her life – something was finally going right, but … it wasn’t to be, and when she then found herself un-Agented, needed all her reserves of strength to deal with yet-another round of bad luck.

Jane’s always been fighter though, and knew that there was (and still is), a big gap in the market for a love story like “Just Good Friends?” This all coincided with Self-publishing’s rise in popularity, and so – in 2010 – published her novel via one of the host of new Companies who were entering the market.

In an attempt to bring potential customers to her website, she began blogging. Eighteen months on: the blog (and marketing/publicity in general), has taken over, and currently seem to swallow most of Jane’s time, but she’s desperate to start on her second book (a sequel), as well as finish a radio play and several children’s stories which are also work in progress, and just awaiting a final tweak.

She’s currently living with her father (who’s just been diagnosed with terminal cancer), and works one day a week cleaning in order to keep herself in pasta and red wine. The other six days are spent pretty-much sitting in front of her computer screen (apart from escaping to do a couple of regular weekly ‘Soap’ spots on the radio)!

It’s not much of a existence, but lack of income tends to focus the mind extremely well (as does the dream of achieving success for her writing), and it’s that single-minded dedication which is what gets Jane up every morning.

Pushing yourself as hard as you can – and then even harder – often determines our success or failure, and Jane’s just about as determined as you can get!

And now a bit about ‘Just Good Friends’…

Beautiful, popular and with a husband at the very top of the corporate ladder, Eleanor Geddes has it all, but behind closed doors she’s a remote and deeply insecure woman with a secret fear which is about to be realised, as her husband is busy making plans which are set to blow her perfect life apart.

Eleanor’s friend Ruth Palmer doesn’t know it yet, but she’s got a problem too.  Her marriage feels stale and her husband’s working long hours at the office … or is he?

But Ruth’s got bigger problems.  A drunken kiss with her good friend Helen sets Ruth’s life on a downward spiral of sexual frustration, denial and guilt.  She turns to drink in a desperate attempt to fight her feelings, but a shocking declaration suddenly changes the course of three families’ lives forever.

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

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

 

Flash Fiction Friday 023: ‘You Are What You Don’t Eat’ by Joy V Smith

Welcome to Flash Fiction Friday and the twenty-third piece of flash fiction in this series. This week’s piece is a 981-worder entitled ‘You Are What You Don’t Eat’ by Joy V Smith.

“What a gustatory opportunity!”  Chef TexMex O’Brien unpacked his seasonings and cookware, stopping only to test the ship’s stoves and express his delight at being one of the Terran delegation.

Chef Gratinee Marengo, the French delegate, sniffed.  “Barbarians.  Worse than Americans, if you can believe what they say.”

Julienne Banbury from Yorkshire chided him.  “It’s our chance to show them what Terrans can do.  All those alien delegates here on Earth—well, above it actually.  They must think we have the potential to join the Galactic Alliance.”

Bradchen Kloesse looked up from his sauerbraten.  “I did a search for cooking and SF books on the web.   James White wrote about the challenges of cooking for other species.  Isaac Asimov wrote Good Taste; that’s about food based entirely on synthetics.  And of course, To Serve Man was a cookbook.

Marengo blanched.  “Synthetics!  Sacre bleu!”

“Blue cheese?  Do you have any to spare?  I need it for a dressing.”  Julienne had unpacked her equipment hours earlier.  She’d been the first of the five chefs to arrive.

Chow Fun Tso spread his selection of noodles on one of the counters.  “Is it true that they’re especially interested in our vegetarian dishes?  I understand that almost a quarter of the Galactic representatives are vegetarian.”

O’Brien picked up his clipboard.  “Out of twenty representatives (the crème de la crème, it says here), fourteen are omnivores, four are vegetarians, and two are carnivores.  We have one week to impress this mix with our food and creative ability.”

Marengo glared frostily at the list.   “I don’t think I brought enough truffles.”

***

Less than halfway through the week, the cooks had to order more supplies from Earth.  The Galactics had never uttered one word of praise, but they inhaled the food.  (Well, some did; most just ate it.)  When the shipment arrived, O’Brien and Kloesse went to the cargo hold of the space ship with a guide—a small vegetarian from Aebleskiver–to whip the new batch of ingredients to their kitchen.

The robots in the hold loaded the assorted boxes on a skimmer; the two men were to accompany it back to the kitchen.  Marengo had made them swear to stay with it.  He couldn’t leave his vichyssoise.

Just outside the hold, an alien accosted them.  He was the biggest of the visitors.  “Carnivore,” murmured O’Brien.  “T-bone Rex,” whispered Kloesse.  Their guide yipped and beat it.

“Hungry,” bellowed the alien.  His voice grated

“Then don’t delay us,” O’Brien told him.

The alien gave him a toothy smile.  “Eat now.”

Kloesse held his ground, but thought, He probably won’t even bother to shuck us.

O’Brien said, “We’re the cooks.  We’ve been preparing the food you eat (and I watched you guzzling it with gusto, you big meatball).  I’m sure you don’t mean you want to eat us.  We’re intelligent beings too.”

Kloesse hoped no one had ever mentioned dolphins and octopus to the aliens.

Then three other aliens arrived.  No one spoke, and the first carnivore snarled and moved away down the corridor.

***

“They didn’t even apologize,” said O’Brien back in the kitchen.  He was still mulling the incident over.

Julienne looked thoughtful.  “Sounds like a big bully.  Why would they let him run loose?  Something’s wrong.  Or they’re testing us.”  They resumed their cooking duties uneasily.

“Talk about feeling like a bowlful of jelly,” O’Brien said.  “It was the first time I thought about what al dente really means.”

Marengo scowled and simmered.

“Keith Laumer wrote about aliens making humans ride in garbage trucks and eat garbage,” added Kloesse.

***

At last the Galactic conference was almost over, and the chefs stood at the head of the long table in the dining hall.  They’d been invited here by a Glogg, one of the vegetarians, and then ignored.  At last O’Brien pounded on the table with his potato masher.  When he had their attention, he didn’t mince words.  “You asked us here; you haven’t complained about the food.  We didn’t expect to be coddled, but we wonder if you are ignorant or heedless of good manners.  If you don’t like our food, say so.  Or is it true that you cannot appreciate good food and that we might as well be slopping the hogs?”

“Pearls before swine!” Marengo snapped.  The disdain of a Frenchman needed no translation.  A few aliens stiffened.  One stood up.

“Forgive us,” the Pitter said.  “Only the importance of the conference could reduce the importance of your culinary gifts.  We have a gift for Earth, which your efforts have earned you.”

***

Two hours later the five chefs disembarked from the ship’s shuttle loaded with an assortment of presents from the cultures of the Galactic Alliance.  Marengo folded his fines herbs tightly to his chest.  “Such an aroma,” he breathed.

Julienne’s gifts included cookware made from an alien alloy.  “What flambees I can make with this,” she said, eying the steaming skillet, which she held tightly in the oven potholder.

Tso had a knife selection that would make Gingsu jealous.

Kloesse had a selection of vinegars that he planned to use to make sweet and sour dishes that would make people’s eyes glaze and saliva curdle.

O’Brien had a collection of condiments.  With the hot sauce, he could create a chili that’d burn a beard off.

“But what is the gift for earth?”  Tso spoke for them all.

***

Anadama, the Pitter and head cheese of the Galactic Alliance delegation, turned away from the closing door.  “To business,” he commanded.  The other delegates lined the corridor to let him pass and followed him to the kitchen.

The carnivore looked up at them and snarled.  A curt command from Pitter, and he turned back to his scrub pail.  “So, we are agreed.  Earth is on probation as a member.  The Foedselsdagskringle will return to their entry status until they learn how to serve their fellow creatures.  No sauce.”

Adjourned.

That was hilarious, thank you Joy. This story will be one of three in this Monday’s episode of Bailey’s Writing Tips podcast – read by yours truly. Then Joy will return here on Friday 30th March with her delightful story ‘Refugees in the cave’.

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. Joy’s writing blog is http://pagadan.wordpress.com.

Big cheer for NaNoWriMo (done it / won it four times).

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 sci-fi satire novelist and screenwriter Joe Velikovsky – the two hundred and ninetieth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, biographers, agents, publishers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me. You can also read / download my eBooks and free eShorts at Smashwords.

 

Blog interview no.272 with writer Kevin Broden

Welcome to the two hundred and seventy-second of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with comic book writer and illustrator, TV animation scriptwriter, and novelist Kevin Broden. 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 Kevin. Please tell us something about yourself.

Kevin: Thank you for talking with me. I’ve been looking to introduce my writing further into the United Kingdom, as I have family in Northern Ireland. Being over five thousand miles away here in Southern California I don’t visit as often as I would like.

Morgen: I’ve never been to the US (actually, or Ireland) so your ahead of me in that respect. How did you become a writer?

Kevin: I’ve been writing in one form or another for many years. My first science fiction story appeared in my college newspaper. My lifetime goal has always been to work in comic books, first as an artist, and than as a writer. And on to writing for television animation, and now novels.

I remember writing my first story based on a dream that I had. Started with the scene from the dream and expanded it into a full story. It was terrible, but it was fun to do. That’s what’s important, that you enjoy doing it. Enjoy writing.

Morgen: It’s funny, I’ve had a few people say then became a writer because of a dream. What genre do you generally write?

Kevin: I began writing with comic books; super hero stories. Super heroes are a genre unto themselves, mixing science fiction and fantasy. Like my webcomic book FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY. I write more about the teenagers and the everyday struggles they have than about fighting villains in big battles. It’s the characters that are important to me.

As to the genre of my prose, it can vary. My next novel REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST is a murder mystery action story in the form of the old Pulp stories of the 1930s.

Over two years ago I began to write a science fiction novel as part of NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month), it was a big alien invasion drama. Then about a third of the way into the story, a complete new story formed in my head.  I quickly wrote down notes about it and went back to the sf story.

When NANOWRIMO ended I pulled out my new idea and dove head first into a complete different type of story. CLOCKWORK GENIE is a fantasy, but is also a murder mystery.

So I guess the answer (rather long) is a little bit of everything.

Morgen: That’s OK. I can talk for England so it’s only fair you talk for California. And I’ve done NaNoWriMo four times and would urge anyone with an idea for a novel (or collection of stories – I semi-cheated last year!) to have a go. A novel in a month – everyone can spare a month. What have you had published to-date? Do you have a favourite of your books or characters?

Kevin: My first professional writing came in the form of television animation scripts for a Japanese series called MIDNIGHT HORROR SCHOOL. So far the series has never aired in the United States, but I would love to hear if anyone in the United Kingdom has seen it.

Morgen: I haven’t.

Kevin: In 2001 we began to publish our online comic book FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY and have been doing so for over ten years now. My fiancée Shannon Muir co-writes with me, and I do the illustrations for a new comic page that goes up every week.

This past November I released my novel CLOCKWORK GENIE that began as those notes two years earlier.

I have love for both my comic book as well as the novel, both are unique yet very close to me.

I suppose my favorite character may be Cecilia Orchard who is the lead in CLOCKWORK GENIE. She writes fantasy, science fiction, and mystery stories like myself. So when something strange happens, like being accused of her grandfather’s murder or when a genie appears out of nowhere, she takes it in stride and uses her writer’s imagination to figure out what’s really going on. I’d like to think I could handle strange things the same way.

Morgen: I love books about writing, authors, books. My passion… or my mum would say my obsession. If applicable, can you remember where you first saw one of your books in a bookshop or being read by a member of the public??

Kevin: Since CLOCKWORK GENIE is currently only available as an eBook, I haven’t seen it in the stores. But I did get a thrill watching the numbers on Smashwords and Amazon. Then when the first sale appeared it was great to know that someone out there had bought, and was reading my story.

So this might not be applicable.

Morgen: That’s OK. Me neither but I love getting the review (and of course purchase) notifications from Smashwords (more of the former as more of my eBooks are free), although receiving my first (very enthusiastic) direct email (for April’s Fool – thank you, Ashleigh!) has been the highlight so far – I write because I want to be read. What was your first acceptance and is being accepted still a thrill?

Kevin: Acceptance happens differently now with indie authors releasing their eBooks, but ya, it still is a thrill. The first acceptance thrill I got was selling my first animation script, and that thrill continues now as people like what I write.

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

Kevin: Like all writers, I get rejections all the time. The problem with eBooks, is it lets people skip that part of the process. Just write something and throw it up. CLOCKWORK GENIE had been rejected by a publisher, and so I went back and totally rewrote it, and the result is so much better. You need the rejects, just like you need poor reviews from time to time, it’s part of the learning process.

A similar tale that makes this point is that a few years ago I developed a television series, and had the opportunity to pitch it to a couple of the television networks. It was a Young Adult comedy similar to HANNAH MONTANA. One of the networks clearly had no interest in my show, I was wasting their time, but the other one was an absolutely great experience with executives who understood what I was trying to tell and liked the concept. Eventually they did pass on it, which is a rejection but they’ll never say that.

All in all, being rejected was a great learning experience all around. I’ve gained a lot and using it in what I do next.

I am currently turning that show pitch into a YA novel; we’ll see how that goes.

Morgen: I found the first rejection (especially coming after an acceptance!) hard but it gets easier. You just have to remember that it’s just one person’s opinion. There will be others out there who like what you do. Do you have an agent? Do you think they’re vital to an author’s success?

Kevin: I probably need to get an agent again, but haven’t had one since the show pitch I mentioned above.

Morgen: You mentioned eBooks, and that ‘Clockwork Genie’ is in that format – were you involved in creating yours? Do you have any plan to write any eBook-only stories? And do you read eBooks?

Kevin: Yes, CLOCKWORK GENIE is available as an eBook in most formats, as will be my next books. Shannon Muir helps with the formatting; she’s great with that.

I do read eBooks, which makes me feel guilty for not reading the printed books I have around here. The eReaders certainly do make things easier to carry around an entire library.

Morgen: I’ve always said that paper for home and electronic for away and despite only having a Kindle for less than a month, that’s still how I feel. How much of the marketing do you do for your published works or indeed for yourself as a ‘brand’?

Kevin: Marketing is certainly one the hardest parts of being an independent author. I’m learning something new everyday. I suppose my brand is the title of my blog: FOUR NAMES OF PROFESSIONAL CREATIVITY. I try to impart that professional creativity in my blogs, comic books, scripts, and novels.

Morgen: It certainly comes across, I love your covers. Do you write under a pseudonym? Do you think they make a difference to an author’s profile?

Kevin: No pseudonym for me. My name really is Kevin Paul Shaw Broden, and that’s the credit and byline I go by.

Morgen: If any of your books were made into films, who would you have as the leading actor/s?

Kevin: You know, having worked and have connections in Hollywood; I have never “casted” any of my stories. I have thought about producing CLOCKWORK GENIE as a television show. I know where certain scenes would be shot throughout Los Angeles, and how to create the special effects for the fantasy elements of the story. Yet never once thought of who would star in it, I don’t know. Tune in to the first episode and be surprised along with me.

Morgen: Wouldn’t that be great? How important do you think titles and covers are?

Kevin: Well, yes both can be very important. The cover art is the very first thing they see, even before reading the title. If it doesn’t grab the reader there, they won’t pick it up to see what is inside.

Morgen: That’s really interesting. There’s a debate going on LinkedIn at the moment about how much sway a cover has and the general consensus is that it doesn’t (10% I think they quoted) but it sways me, as do titles, although if the content is rubbish I put it back down. It’s like a burglar alarm on a house; if you have two covers / titles and one grabs you more than the other then you pick that one up first. OK, not quite like a burglar alarm but if one house has one and the other doesn’t you can pretty much guarantee which house the burglar would go for. OK, swiftly moving on. You mentioned covers, what about the title.

Kevin: I came up with the title CLOCKWORK GENIE. I wouldn’t change it for anything, but have had some concerns people might think it is a Steampunk story. Which it is not.

The cover art is also my creation. Using Corel Painter on my computer and a Wacom tablet I first drew the image, and then on different layers, painted the background and the foreground character. Then in Photoshop I dropped in the title text. I believe you have a copy of the cover here.

Morgen: I do (it’s great!).

Kevin: I do the same for the covers of FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY, and use the same programs to create the interior art.

Morgen: What are you working on at the moment / next? Do you manage to write every day?

Kevin: I certainly try to write every day. Don’t always succeed but am pushing to do more every day.

I’ve made an extensive list of writing projects to accomplish in 2012.

REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST will be released this month (February) after I complete some interior illustrations. The cover art is already finished and is shown here.

The next writing project I’m jumping into is a Young Adult Fantasy based on the television series I mentioned earlier. Am also constantly making notes on other novels including a sequel to CLOCKWORK GENIE.

Morgen: What is your opinion of writer’s block? Do you ever suffer from it?

Kevin: I suppose I do suffer from ‘writer’s block’ from time to time, but to me it’s usually just being easily distracted. Too easy to find something else to do than the writing I know should be done. When I do have those times I just can’t think of what the next scene or the next line should be, I open up a new file and start writing notes about something else. Sometimes it’s a different scene with in the same story, but sometimes it’s completely different idea that I write about for a while. Then come back to the main writing assignment feeling refreshed and creative once more.

Morgen: That seems to be the key (and what most people say); variety. Do you plot your stories or do you just get an idea and run with it?

Kevin: A little of both. Plotting out a book, or outlining in advance can be very hard for me. Because a lot of my creative energy gets drained while laying things out like bricks.

I usually have a rough outline of no more than a page or so, because the rest of it is growing in my head. Then I just dump it on the keyboard. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t.

That said, in planning the sequel to CLOCKWORK GENIE, I need to plot out the story very carefully as there are several characters involved and it takes place in multiple time periods from the 1940s to the present, so I have to get historical facts right as they would relate to these characters.

Morgen: Absolutely, because if you don’t someone will pick you up on it. Characters are obviously so important in the writing (and illustrating) you do. Do you have a method for creating them, their names and what do you think makes them believable?

Kevin: Not really. As with plotting, if I work too hard building all the information and background for a character she ends up very dry once I start writing the story. So I learn about them as I go along.

For Cecilia, the lead character of CLOCKWORK GENIE, I knew who she had to be and that I wanted he to be a struggling writer like myself. Everything else about her grew out of the story, because discovering hidden truths was what it was all about for her.

As to other characters. I’ve noticed that they grow into themselves once they begin to have dialog and interacting with one another.

I wasn’t intending the story be a romance when I began, but as soon as Cecilia was being questioned by police detective Marcus Lambert; their dialog just began to flow like a well played tennis game. They were flirting even when I wasn’t intending them too. That was great. All the characters grew out of their interactions, and I learned more about them there than any plotting I could plan.

Morgen: That has to be my favourite bit about writing, it all just flooding out. My dog is used to me clapping to myself. Do you write any non-fiction or poetry?

Kevin: Haven’t written any poetry in years. Currently I write a weekly blog about creativity, writing, and employment. FOUR NAMES OF PROFESSIONAL CREATIVITY.

Morgen: An intriguing title (I’m a big titles fan). Do you do a lot of editing or do you find that as time goes on your writing is more fully-formed?

Kevin: Lots of times a story, or at least large sections can come to me ‘fully-formed’, but later I will go through it looking for anything that doesn’t work. After the first draft of CLOCKWORK GENIE was finished I read through it and found the climax just wasn’t working for me. Events moved far too fast, and the villain had no real purpose for what he was doing, so I ripped it apart and began to rewrite. A whole lot more got changed than I expected, and huge new scenes and new characters arrived to become part of the tale.

Sometimes editing yourself just doesn’t work anymore, and you need to be able to see through someone else’s eyes. Not just to help find errors, but also ask questions that you haven’t even thought of while writing. It’s too easy to get trapped with in what you know too well.

Shannon has always been a great help to me in reading and editing. Wish I could say I have been that good for her.

Morgen: I’m sure you have. Just having someone round who also writes must be a great help. You mentioned earlier about having to get your facts right, do you have to do much research?

Kevin: Depends on the story, and what you need. A lot of thing you can make up out of whole cloth in fantasy, but lots of times its good to have a ‘reality’ to begin with. In CLOCKWORK GENIE it became important to know where certain events happened with in the city of Los Angeles. So I did research to know where those locations were, and how best a person could get from one to another. I researched bus routes and more. These little details influences how the story progressed, even altered it some when I had to move a location.

My next novel REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST started off as a serial I wrote online last year. As I was pulling it together in book and adding small illustrations to each chapter, I discovered that I had a few bits of information wrong. The most glaring was that in 1934 taxi cabs didn’t have a trunk (a boot), so that extra little bit of research improved things incredibly.

Know there will be a lot of research in store for when I write the sequel to CLOCKWORK GENIE. I actually enjoy doing research.

Morgen: Eek! Do you? It’s probably my least favourite thing although I’m so glad now we have the internet. I love my library but not having to spend my day looking through books to find out a tiny detail is such a relief. 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?

Kevin: I think there’s more noise in my head than around me.

Morgen: Your characters chatting with each other… planning, plotting…

Kevin: It actually depends on the moment and mood I think. Sometimes I absolutely need silence to be able to get all the story out of my head and into the keyboard. Other times music can help me with creating an emotion needed for a story. Radio is okay (I tune in to the BBC and Ulster Radio online), but TV is more often a distraction though.

Morgen: Oh, absolutely. If I have the TV on I find I’m sitting, mouth agape, staring at it. What point of view do you find most to your liking: first person or third person? Have you ever tried second person?

Kevin: Don’t think I’ve tried second person. I tend to write in a third person. Though that can get out of hand. Learning to focus on what the reader needs to know, and enjoy, is usually what keeps me going. I am considering writing my Young Adult novel in the first person, but can I think like a teenage girl?

Morgen: Oh do try second, I love it! I’ve just recently joined TuesdayTales where we write a short story from a prompt word each week and my latest (second) story is in second person. Do you have pieces of work that you think will never see light of day?

Kevin: Tons. Yet, every so often, an old idea comes back to me with a whole new perspective, so I take a look at it again. Maybe it’ll be worth publishing this time. Maybe not, lets try the next idea. I go through my folders of ideas every so often looking for something to revitalize.

Morgen: I have that to look forward to. What’s your favourite / least favourite aspect of your writing life? Has anything surprised you?

Kevin: That’s it, the surprise. The discovery, and thrill when your characters do something completely different from what was intended when you began the story. It happens all the time, but only if the story is working from the start. It really is exciting when you start writing and end up many words, and even pages, past where you expected.

The least favorite part? Probably the rewriting, but most likely what I said before, plotting an outline.

Morgen: I’m with you on the rewriting but I don’t plot much (easier for a short story author) so I don’t have that chore. What advice would you give aspiring writers?

Kevin: Write. Write as much junk as you possibly can, because soon you’ll be writing the best work, and it’ll live on the page. Keep writing, it’s not going to be easy when people tell you they don’t like it but learn from that. When a bad review shows up, pay attention to what they are saying. If you think the review is garbage, before you throw it out, read it again. Sometimes there may be a gem of wisdom in there that can help you become a better writer. Keep writing.

Morgen: Absolutely. 300 words a day = 100,000 word novel a year. Amazing, hey? What do you like to read?

Kevin: I read a whole lot of things. Starting with comic books. I’ll read science fiction, fantasy, detective. Whatever strikes me. Recently I wrote a guest blog for ParaYourNormal in which I stated that in the end, all stories no matter the genre, are Romance stories. I look for good character stories, whether it be in space, 1930′s New York, or in Middle Earth.

Morgen: ParaYourNormal – I love that.   What do you do when you’re not writing?

Kevin: Spending too much time on the internet.

My hobbies have always been around comic books and animation. So my times of not writing are pretty close to my times of writing.

Morgen: I live and breathe writing so even if I’m not doing it (too often) I’m thinking about it. Are you on any forums or networking sites? If so, how valuable do you find them?

Kevin: I probably should be in more, but I’m not. That’s my failing, I could learn a lot more from my fellow authors.

Morgen: Ah but it gives you more time to do what you want to do. It’s all too easy to let social networking engulfe you. What do you think the future holds for a writer?

Kevin: The future for a writer? That’s rather broad. A writer will be able to make his or her future whatever way they do; books, television, movies, comics. What the future is for books? Books are transforming, the future may not be eBooks alone, but it will certain keep books alive. It certainly provides away for more writers to become published.

Morgen: It does, and it’s so exciting. Where can we find out about you and your work?

Kevin: CLOCKWORK GENIE is an eBook available in most formats, such as the Kindle, Nook, and Apple’s iBook. FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY, FOUR NAMES OF PROFESSIONAL CREATIVITY BLOG and REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST should be released as an ebook in February, look for it then.

Morgen: Yes, folks, please do. Is there anything else you’d like to mention?

Kevin: Have I left anything out?

Morgen: Possibly not, you’ve been wonderfully thorough.

Kevin: I greatly appreciate the opportunity to talk with you about my writing and my novels.

Thank you for the added promotion, and if you’re ever in Northern Ireland say hello to my relatives, tell them about my books. Thank you again.

Morgen: You’re so welcome. Although I’ve not been to Ireland I do have a friend from Belfast (who’s married an American and lives in Washington) – I wonder if she knows them. Thank you, Kevin. It’s been really interesting getting to know more about comics and animation – as a professional artist’s niece, it’s I world I’m in awe of, I have to say.

Seeking a career in comic books, Kevin Paul Shaw Broden took art courses throughout his education – only to eventually that no matter what the media, he was a storyteller at heart.

Kevin has been telling stories ever since. His first published story was a science fiction tale that appeared in his college newspaper. Since then he has written for television animation, including the Japanese series MIDNIGHT HORROR SCHOOL. Kevin is a member of the Animation Writers Caucus of the Writers Guild of America.

For over the last ten years Kevin has been illustrating and co-writing the online comic book FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY which can be found at http://www.flying-glory.com. The granddaughter of the world war two super heroine Flying Glory, Debra Clay discovers she has inherited super powers and convince her high school friends to become heroes to help support their rock band.

THE CLOCKWORK GENIE is Kevin’s first full-length novel and a description is below.

He will soon be releasing a novel version of his online serial REVENGE OF THE MASKED GHOST.

Cecilia Orchard lives alone. She writes fantasy and mystery stories to escape a humdrum data entry job that barely pays for her apartment, food, and bus fare. Then a handsome police detective arrives with news that she is the prime suspect in the murder of her grandfather whom she never knew existed. If inheriting a fortune from a man she doesn’t know isn’t madness enough, Cecilia finds herself the owner of a powerful genie that could make all her dreams come true, but what are her dreams and is she willing to make the wish. Can magic make a family?

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

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