Tag Archive for 'authors'

What is Writing Like For You?

My friend Darcia Helle invited me to continue a blog meme on the topic Writing is like…

Darcia was tagged by author Jason McIntyre to share her thoughts on this subject, and then Darcia asked me to continue the meme. For me, writing is like meditation.

When I’m working on my computer, writing a story or a novel, three hours feels like 20 minutes. I look at the clock and can’t believe how much time has passed. Writing fiction for me is sort of like those first few seconds after waking up in the morning, when you don’t remember any of your worries or problems, and you’re just away from your thoughts. When I’m writing fiction, it’s like one part of my brain takes a break and another part flicks on.

In fact, if I need to be somewhere, I have to set a timer so that it snaps me out of my trance. I’m kind of flaky when I’m deep in the middle of a book, and need to be sure to exercise and take walks to ground myself. (that’s the holistic, energy healer side of my personality talking.)

I used to be a newspaper reporter and still write articles from time to time on a freelance basis, for this blog, or once in awhile for another blog or web site. Although I’d much prefer writing articles to, say, doing math, that kind of writing is work for me. I don’t get that same meditative feeling of time slowing down.

Thanks to Darcia for posing the question. What is writing like for you?

My 7-Part Novelspot Series on the Writing Journey

Novelspot, a neat web site for writers and readers, invited me to participate in one of their special features – Behind the Scenes, in which authors share their writing journeys in seven short installments. They publish one post each day for an entire week. I was really thrilled with how it turned out and invite you to check out this serialization that relates the ups and downs of my fiction-writing career. Intense shyness, my bout with hypothyroidism, rejection, teenage success, agents, hitting rock bottom with my novel career, winning the William F. Deeck Malice Domestic Grant, and finally breaking into the publishing game for keeps – I shared it all and I hope readers and writers will find my story inspiring.

You can start with Part 1 and then click Forward to read the rest of the posts.

Part 1: Childhood Roots – The focus is on my childhood and high school writing days – the role my painful shyness/selective mutism played and how I was very uncomfortable with the writer label in high school.

Part 2: Face-Off- An Early Success – I talk about getting my young adult novel Face-Off – written in high school study halls – published by Avon Books at age 18.

Part 3: The Long Drought – Unfortunately, getting Face-Off published didn’t help me in the least as far as selling a second book. I write about living (and writing) in the dorm and dealing with rejection as I struggled to find my niche.

Part 4: Finding Hope Then Hitting Rock Bottom – I became a journalist, started writing mystery novels and found an agent for my fiction, but three years later, the agency contract ran out and I was exhausted from undiagnosed hypothyroidism.

Part 5: The Malice Domestic Grant – I felt as if I’d hit rock-bottom with my novel-writing career, until I won the William F. Deeck Malice Domestic Grant presented at the Agatha Award ceremony.

Part 6: Back in the Game – Finally, three publishing contracts from Mainly Murder Press, a web site, and taking control of my career!

Part 7: Here to Stay – In conclusion, why did I choose to write as a child and why do I still write today as an adult?

Win Free Books During Indie Books Holiday Giveaway Event!

If you love to read books, then have I got a contest for you! My friend Darcia Helle at QuietFury Books has organized a huge Indie Books Holiday Giveaway Event, showcasing the books of small press and indie authors. Forty-seven authors are giving away HUNDREDS of print books and e-books in December. Filling out the entry form just takes a moment, but if you’d like to browse, you’ll discover exciting new authors across many genres.

Stop by the giveaway page and have some fun, and please spread the word on your blogs and social networking pages. Since the event is international, you’ll have a chance to win a book no matter where you live. Entries will be accepted between 12:01 AM EST, December 1 and midnight EST on December 31.

On another contest note, thanks to everyone who entered my recent Gratitude Giveaway and I’m thrilled to have so many new followers. The winner of the Sink or Swim early readers copy was Cindy L., and Jessi E. was the winner of the Twenty-Five Years Ago Today e-book. Jacque S. won the copy of Deanna Jewel’s book Never Surrender. I wish all the entrants could have won a book, but if you didn’t, head on over to the Indie Books Holiday Giveaway Event where you have much better odds!

25 Years Ago Today: Archaeology Mystery Author Mary Anna Evans

I’d like to welcome Mary Anna Evans, author of the Faye Longchamp archaeological mysteries. The latest installment, Strangers, came out this month. Mary Anna has degrees in physics and engineering, but her heart is in the past.

Her novels have received recognitions including a spot on Voice of Young America’s (VOYA) list of “Adult Mysteries with Young Adult Appeal.” They have been on the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association’s bestseller list and have been designated Notable Books by Booksense and Indiebound. Mary Anna has won the Florida Historical Society’s Patrick D. Smith Florida Literature Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, and a Florida Book Awards Bronze Medal. Her books have been nominated for ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year and for the SIBA Book Award. Mary Anna is also the author of the thriller Wounded Earth and several short stories.

Mary Anna, you sound very busy and successful in the present. Tell us about 25 years ago?

MARY ANNA: Twenty-five years ago today, I was very, very pregnant with my first child, who was born on Halloween 1985. I had spent the first 7.5 months of this pregnancy going about my business as if nothing was happening. I’d taught a full load of community college math and science in the spring semester. In the summer semester, I’d taught Calculus I at night…which meant that I taught two four-hour classes a week.

Let me count the ways that this made me miserable. I was on my feet for four hours at a stretch, quite some feat for someone who started the pregnancy weighing a cool 108 and who eventually delivered an 8.5 pound baby. I’d never taught calculus before, so I had to prepare those four-hour classes. I wasn’t the best student when I took calculus myself, so I only really understood the subject later, when I used it in classes like thermodynamics and chemical kinetics. This meant that I had to work all the homework problems before I assigned them, in case I didn’t remember how. And I had to work all the example problems and record them in my notes in detail, so I wouldn’t fall on my face in class. And then I had to grade those tests and homework assignments. I think I probably made about two bucks an hour that summer.

As icing on the cake, summer night Calculus I classes are generally populated by people who don’t want to be there, largely business majors. I heard a lot of questions like, “How will we use this in real life?” I should have just said, “This is real life,” and pushed on, but I was 23 and earnest, so I answered them honestly. Amazingly enough, this didn’t make them want to be there any more.

As my due date approached, I started feeling strange, so I went to the doctor and learned that I was in danger of delivering the baby five weeks early. This prompted an order for bedrest and I dropped out of a world where I was expected to pretend I wasn’t pregnant and into a world where being pregnant was all there was. This is the world where I was living 25 years ago today.

In my novel Strangers, newly published this month by Poisoned Pen Press, my heroine Faye Longchamp is very, very pregnant. Coincidence? Well, I’m certain that I didn’t do this on purpose. Karma? Maybe.

I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book written from the point-of-view of a woman who is entering her ninth month of pregnancy. As a mother of three, it was an interesting exercise to imagine how advanced pregnancy would affect the things that Faye must do for her archaeological work and, in the end, to save her own life. Her efforts to keep working as if nothing is happening aren’t so different from my own long, hard slog through that summer school class. Except I wasn’t outside in the Florida heat, digging up old stuff.

For a time, I intended for Faye to be in the earliest stages of pregnancy in Strangers. She might have even been unaware of it until the final scene, when she realized why she’d been feeling so weird and redoubled her efforts to save herself from the bad guy, because now she had to protect herself and her baby.

But it just didn’t work. I tried to write it that way, but realized that the reader would be in on the secret as soon as I mentioned that Faye was feeling queasy or tired. Then Faye would be looking like an idiot for about 300 pages, while my readers were yelling, “Take a home pregnancy test, dummy!” I was rather proud of myself for making one of those home tests an important clue.

As I launched into a story about a woman on the verge of becoming a mother, I learned something very quickly. Being extremely pregnant is like having an elephant in the living room. You can’t ignore it, and neither can anybody else. It affects your ability to do your job. It affects your ability to even move through a crowded room or up a flight of stairs. And even when I wrote scenes from other characters’ points-of-view, well, they couldn’t ignore it, either, and it affected their behavior toward Faye. Joe, in particular, is on the brink of a nervous breakdown, because he’s so worried about her, and because she’s so unwilling to cooperate with his efforts to protect her.

I decided to just go with it. The key to writing realistic characters is having them behave like real people, and real people do notice when someone in her thirty-fifth week of pregnancy waddles by. When I was in that condition the third time, a stranger once said within my earshot, “She looks like she’s about to pop.” Gee, thanks.

As a part of Faye’s character arc, this pregnancy is very important. She admits as early as Artifacts, six years before the events in Strangers, that she wants a baby very much. In the meantime, we’ve watched her suffer some significant romantic travails, and her age is much on her mind. After writing six books about Faye, I found that I wanted her to have this baby almost as much as I would if she were a flesh-and-blood human woman who was suffering from the demands of her biological clock. I’m happy for her.

Last but not least, I think Joe is going to make a really cool father.

(And yes, I do know that they’re not real.)

Read more about Mary Anna’s books on her web site and blog.
Check out Strangers on Amazon!

25 Years Ago Today: Yesterday’s Body Author Norma Huss

It’s Fun With Food Week on my blog, and all week long, we’ll be meeting characters who enjoy cooking. Later in the week, we’ll also be sharing great recipes.

To kick things off, I’d like to welcome fellow Sister in Crime Norma Huss. Norma has been writing and publishing short pieces for years, but the mystery, Yesterday’s Body, is her first full-length novel. She’s a wife, mother, and grandmother who, like her protagonist, loves to cook meals from whatever is on hand. Sometimes they don’t turn out well, but one does need a little adventure now and then.

Norma collects cook books and reads mysteries. She and her husband like to travel, and before selling their latest boat, cruised the Chesapeake Bay and beyond.

Don’t miss Norma’s recipe tomorrow for Garlic Chicken with Peanut Sauce, Noodles and Vegetables, along with an excerpt from her book. For now, Jo Durbin, the main character from Yesterday’s Body, will do an interview with Norma to answer the question “What were you doing 25 years ago?”

Norma’s Interview: “I received my first check from something I’d written,” Jo said. “It came from ‘the trues,’ those magazines with stories like, ‘I married my own grandfather.’ A happy day, but eventually I ended up on the street where you first met me.”

“How so?” I asked.

“All too simple. I rewrote a gruesome news story about a woman who got away with murder. The story came out as, ‘How the White Widow Killed Her Husband.’ All in first person, of course, with a byline of The Widow, Mrs. White, writing from an undisclosed location. Then three years ago a former mail clerk published a ‘tell-all’ book, naming names. One of the chapters was, ‘Jo Durbin, the White Widow killer hiding in plain sight.’ The trial lasted eighteen months, all writers included were completely exonerated, but I still see the damn book in libraries.”

“So how, exactly, did you end up on the street?”

“Lord love a duck! Try telling a bunch of bankers that they could trust me with their financial secrets after they found out about my previous short-term career. I had the degrees – journalism and business. I had the experience – twenty years in their employ. Didn’t change one mind. Which is why I decided to write my own tell-all book, my life on the street as a bag lady. You should know the rest–you wrote it.”

Visit Norma’s web site for more information on her books. You can also check out Yesterday’s Body on Amazon. Jo Durbin knows one down-side of acting the homeless bag lady, no one will believe she just happened to find the very dead Francine.

Stop back tomorrow for Norma’s delicious recipe! On Wednesday, I’ll share an apple french toast recipe inspired by my novel Twenty-Five Years Ago Today. On Thursday, we’ll meet Avery Aames, author of A Cheese Shop Mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime, and on Friday, we’ll take a peek at the brand new book Killer Recipes, a collection of recipes by mystery authors with proceeds benefiting the American Cancer Society.

25 Years Ago Today: Mystery, Fantasy and Children’s Author Camille LaGuire

I’d like to welcome my guest Camille LaGuire. Camille writes mystery fiction, as well as fantasy and children’s stories, and has a fondness for writing anything with humor and adventure. Her stories have appeared in magazines from Cricket to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine to Futures Mysterious Anthology. Her thriller play, Slayer of Clocks, was performed to sold out audiences at the first Discovering New Mysteries Festival in 2007.

Camille, you sound as if you write about some really fun topics. What were you doing 25 years ago?

CAMILLE: In 1984 I had just graduated from the Clarion Workshop in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing, and I had a problem. I was just a baby writer when I got into that advanced workshop, and I had learned much more about writing than I could handle. Furthermore, I’m not really a fantasy writer, I’m a mystery writer.

I was so frustrated as I tried to write my first great fantasy novel. I could see clearly just how bad my writing was, but I didn’t have the skills to fix it. And I could hear the voices of the other workshop members in my head, criticizing every sentence.

So, I decided that what I needed was experience. I needed to have written a book – even a bad book – in order to write as well as I wanted. And to do that, I had to write something that would shut up the imaginary critics. Something they would hate, and I loved, in a dead genre, so there would be no question of it being publishable.

I wrote a swashbuckler.

It was fun and adventurous and had mystery and horses, and it was good enough to get me into grad school and get me some great personal correspondence from editors. But it was a swashbuckler and therefore not publishable.

Twenty-five years later, I’ve gone on to other things, but my swashbuckler has now found its niche online with electronic publishing.

Read more about Camille’s work on her web site and blog.

Check out her YA swashbuckler, The Adventure of Anna the Great, on Amazon. Here is a description: A young noblewoman dresses as a boy and becomes a stableboy in the royal stables, where she gets involved in the mystery surrounding a kidnapping.

25 Years Ago Today: Novelist and Short Story Writer Maria Savva

I’d like to welcome my guest Maria Savva, who has written some truly fascinating works of literary and contemporary fiction. Maria lives in London and is a qualified solicitor, as well as a writer.

Her published novels are Coincidences and A Time to Tell, and she has also published the short story collections Pieces of a Rainbow, and Love and Loyalty (and Other Tales.)

A Time to Tell is a family saga spanning 50 years and three generations of one family. Pieces of a Rainbow is a collection of 7 short stories, each one based on a different color of the rainbow. Love and Loyalty (and Other Tales) is a collection of 15 short stories about life, love, loss, deceit and loneliness among other things. Maria is currently at work on her third and fourth novels and a third collection of short stories.

You can see Maria’s writing talent in her below memory of the absurdity of youth: The Red Man. Maria, tell us about your memory from 25 years ago.

MARIA: In the mid ‘80s, me and my friends would often congregate on a bench for lunch, outside our school. For a brief period of time, perhaps a few weeks, a young man used to walk past us every day. One of my friends pointed him out, and then we always looked out for him.

There was nothing particularly different about this man, as far as I remember, except that he always appeared a bit awkward as he walked past us unruly teens each day. He had red hair, and a flushed face (probably because we were always whispering or giggling when we saw him), so we quickly nicknamed him ‘The Red Man’.

I still laugh when I remember how silly we were, and I feel a bit sorry for the poor ‘Red Man’. I don’t think we ever actually spoke with him; maybe we said ‘hello’ when he walked past, or asked him inane questions that went unanswered. What I do remember was that one day, my friend decided to bring a camera so that we could play a prank on him, to make him think we thought he was famous and wanted a photo of him. We hid behind a car when we saw him approaching, then my friend jumped up and took a picture. He appeared startled.

My friend said she would pin it up on her bedroom wall, (I think she secretly fancied him.) I wonder whether my friend still has that photo, and I wonder what ever happened to The Red Man…

Please visit Maria’s web site for more information on her writing.

Also be sure to check out her books in my Amazon store.

Twenty-Five Years Ago Today Book Trailer Featured in May Contest

The book trailer for Twenty-Five Years Ago Today is entered in the May 2010 YGR Best Trailer contest over at YouGottaReadVideos.Blogspot.com. The contest is designed for fun and to help book trailers gain more exposure.

Readers, if you enjoy watching book trailers to find prospective titles for your to-read list, you’ll find a gold mine of videos for your viewing pleasure. If you’re an author, you might be interested to know that they sponsor monthly book trailer contests. Submissions are being accepted for June.

Voting for the May awards will close midnight May 26th. Head on over to the polls and cast your vote!

If you haven’t seen the Twenty-Five Years Ago Today book trailer, you can view it below.

25 Years Ago Today: Guest Blog Guidelines for Published Authors

This guest blog feature is going on hiatus due to time constraints. If you’ve already written a column for the previously advertised open submission period, please query. If we have already touched base about being a guest before this hiatus went into effect, then that agreement will still be honored.

Over the coming months, I will be featuring guest authors of mystery, suspense, thriller, literary fiction, romance, non-fiction and other genres on this blog. Published authors who are interested in writing a 25 Years Ago Today column, please e-mail me through my web site.

Please note that this is a family-friendly blog and I need to keep the post content and book covers PG-13.  I ask that you follow this blog via Google Friend Connect or Networked Blogs if you plan on submitting a post. I will not be scheduling anyone until I have their materials in hand. If we touch base about penciling in a tentative date for a blog tour stop, your post must be submitted at least 30 days before that date.

Here are the guidelines below:

1. Use this question as a springboard to write a short article, about 200-250 words: What were you doing 25 Years Ago? This is a tie-in for my book Twenty-Five Years Ago Today. You can respond either for yourself, spinning a memory into a short article, or in the voice of one of your fictional characters – subtract 25 years from his/her age and make up a fictional moment from his/her past.

If responding as your character, please make this clear to me with a line such as: My character Cassidy Novak from the book Sink or Swim is answering this question. Try to keep it under 250 words. Have fun and feel free to be creative!

2. Include a short third person bio in paragraph form (try to keep around 100 words)

3. Low resolution jpeg of the book cover you wish to highlight

4. Low resolution jpeg of your headshot if you wish

5. link to your web site and/or blog

6. a one or two line teaser or description of the book or series that you are most actively promoting.

7. What category does your book (or books) fit into?

8. Optional – Would you like to do an e-book giveaway? Giveaways are posted on sites that list book-related contests. My blog is also connected to Giveaway Scout.com, which automatically scans thousands of blogs to bring their readers the latest blog giveaways, coupons, sweepstakes and contests.

9. Optional – If you have a blog, would you like to exchange reciprocal blog roll links? This blog is: http://stacyjuba.com/blog/blog/ If you would like to exchange links, please note that in your submission and include your blog link. Thank you for your interest and I hope to see your column!

25 Years Ago Today: Debut Romance/Mystery Author P.Q. Glisson

I’d like to extend a warm welcome to P.Q. Glisson. I first became acquainted with P.Q. on Goodreads, a social networking site for book lovers.

In addition to being my cyber-friend, P.Q. is also the author of the modern day romance/mystery novel Her Sanctuary. The book is set in the fictional town of Sanctuary, Arizona, and shows how true love in all its passion and glory can heal even the most damaged heart.

P.Q. lives in a small town outside Savannah, GA with her husband and 22-year-old daughter. P.Q. worked in banking for 17 years and started writing after a job layoff in 2008. She loves to paint, spend time with her family and cuddle with her three Shih Tzu pups.

No pressure or anything, P.Q., but you’re the first guest author to share a 25 Years Ago Today memory. Tell us, what were you doing 25 years ago?

P.Q.: I was 25 years old, working as a teller and had just told my husband of three years that I was ready to have a baby, which ended up taking two years to get pregnant. I was married in 1981, just two weeks after starting my job at the bank. Needless to say, we didn’t get much of a honeymoon. I worked for the bank for eight years and got robbed twice. I left that bank after it had changed hands several times and went to work at another bank for about five years. I changed banks, deciding I needed to be closer to my home so I could be there for my daughter.

I stayed with a neighborhood bank for another three years or so and left the banking industry. I was burned out. I jumped from one job to another for a couple of years until I became a receptionist/legal assistant for a local law firm. I believe that’s where I honed my letter writing skills. After a couple of years, I left there and went to work for a contractor/developer as office manager where I stayed until I was laid off in 2008 because of the softening in the housing market. That’s when I took up painting. I painted commissioned work and made a moderate living until one day I started writing. I got this idea and I just sat down at my laptop and the words just flowed from my mind to the keyboard. Eight months later, I had written my first novel.

I’m not done. I am currently working on two more novels and have outlines for two more after that, ranging from young adult fantasy to period romances and back to modern romance.

Find out more about P.Q. Glisson and her debut book Her Sanctuary on the following pages:

Facebook

P.Q.’s Blog

Check it out on Amazon

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