Mayra Calvani's Blog, page 13
July 1, 2015
Talking Craft with Suspense Author Gabriel Valjan
Gabriel Valjan is the author of the Roma Series from Winter Goose Publishing. His fourth book, Turning To Stone, came out 15 June 2015. Gabriel writes short stories, which are available online and in print. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts. In this interview, he talks about the secrets of writing compelling suspense.
Connect with Gabriel Valjan on the web:
Blog: https://gabrielswharf.wordpress.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gabriel-Valjan/291400997547203
Twitter: @GValjan
Website: www.gabrielvaljan.com
Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, Turning To Stone. To begin with, can you give us a brief summary of what the story is about and what compelled you to write it?
A: Bianca is in Naples this time. Loki, her mysterious contact, is now giving her baffling anagrams. They seem to lead to a charismatic entrepreneur who has a plan to partner with organized crime to manipulate the euro and American dollar. Against a backdrop of gritty streets, financial speculation, and a group of female assassins on motorcycles, Bianca and her friends discover that Naples might just be the most dangerous city in Italy.
Roberto Saviano’s Gomorrah, his journalistic exposé on the Neapolitan Camorra, which sent him into exile with a price on his head, inspired Turning To Stone. The Fiscal Crisis of 2008 provides an undercurrent to the novel. I followed the fallout in the media as it related to Italy. Italy, in my opinion, became the first scapegoat, followed by Spain. Italy and Spain are the third and fourth biggest Eurozone economies, respectively. The American media pundits had insisted that the European welfare state is what caused the debt crisis in Europe; that it was European public debt that caused the fiasco, when in reality it was Wall Street’s speculation of American private debt on the international market that had been the true culprit. Italians are very prudent when it comes to their money; they have one of the highest savings rates among European nations and the household net wealth is more than five times their GDP, the highest rate among western European countries. Not once anywhere in the media here in the U.S. had those facts been discussed. Traditionally, Italians invest in government bonds and real estate, very rarely in stocks. Turning To Stone ventures the what-if scenario: what if someone tried to destabilize the world’s reference currency, the U.S. dollar. The thing to fear is fear itself and a stable Euro.
Italy may have its problems, but its welfare state is not one of them. Some glaring facts contradict the pundits’ portrait of a ‘weak Italy’, but I’ll mention only two of them, for the sake of space and time: 1) Italy is the least indebted of the EU economies (‘aggregate debt’ is public and private debt combined) and 2) Italian citizens own that public debt: the U.S. can’t say that about its debt, which the Chinese own. If there is a ‘message’, I would say that all my novels deal with relationships and trust, how friends navigate and negotiate a morally compromised world, uncertain of what is the truth or the lie and whether either of those two could get them killed.
Q: What do you think makes a good mystery-suspense novel? Could you narrow it down to the three most important elements? Is it even possible to narrow it down?
A: Item 1: Present a reason WHY a reader should care about your main character. This is the personal connection. My Bianca is intelligent but flawed. She is something of an adrenaline addict who can’t resist a challenge. She ran away from her employer, Rendition, yet she remains intrigued when they seem to present challenges to her through Loki. As in life when you know your WHY, you acquire an attractive energy. The rest of the story is a matter of HOW. Bianca has specific talents, but she learns time and again that teamwork is how one overcomes obstacles.
Item 2: Present a WHAT: a situation in which the main character has to resolve some conflict, or there are consequences. This is the mystery part of your story. I summarized the plot in an earlier question. Throughout the Roma Series I want readers to wonder why Rendition, which is powerful, apparently international, and lethal has not silenced Bianca.Item 3: Present a ticking TIME BOMB. This is the suspense part. Every decision has to have a consequence. Arriving at the wrong conclusion is misdirection. In Turning, I invite the reader to solve the anagrams. People, in my experience, can learn to deal with the consequences of their actions, but they think twice, reconsider the situation, when they know that their actions will affect someone close to them. The Time Bomb is also a metaphor to go beyond your own ego. Bianca has dear friends who have put themselves at risk for her; she can’t let them down.
Q: How did you go about plotting your story? Or did you discover it as you worked on the book?
A: Turning To Stone is unique in the Roma Series in that it is my most complex plot. Economics is an abstract subject and about as interesting to most people as clipping their toenails. It is 2015, yet the consequences of the Fiscal Crises of 2007 and 2008 are still playing themselves out here and abroad. I noticed a curious phenomenon within the news media: American news packaged the crises into neat sound bytes with very little analysis. The finger pointing was such that the pundits pointed at the moon, but had us staring at the finger. When Wall Street received some of the blame, the knee-jerk reaction was to blame it all on greed rather than explain how the bankers did it.
In plotting Turning I wanted to show that the criminal’s plan would affect national economies. We are all connected. Think about the farmer or trucker when you buy produce at the store? You are dependent on him for sustenance and his farm is dependent on your consumer loyalty. Turning is about considering those connections. The currency in your pocket means something because we all assign a value to it, so what if someone came along and redefined that value for you? That is exactly what happened in 2007 and 2008. In stark terms, one casualty of the Crises was home ownership, the symbol of the American Dream. Someone came along and said that your home is relatively worthless, but you still have to pay the mortgage and property taxes based on the original appraisal that no longer exists. In terms of consequences today, the news will talk about austerity measures, but won’t tell you about the suicides as a result of unemployment in Greece. Just this morning I was reading about a doctor in Greece who had worked a 12-hour shift, dealing with such suicides, only to end his shift seeing a body bag that contained the body of his son who had killed himself.
Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist and how you developed him or her. Did you do any character interviews or sketches prior to the actual writing?
A: I didn’t do interviews, but Bianca is inside my head, figuratively speaking. As with all my characters in the Roma Series, they live and breathe, have their own personalities and quirks. Bianca began as a challenge from a work colleague. She jokingly teased me that a man couldn’t write a female character. She wanted to see what I could do. She was tired of reading about detectives, male or female, who cursed all the time, had a drinking problem and dysfunctional relationships with their family and peers. I think she was reading a lot of British and Icelandic noir at the time. I’m old enough to remember the primitive days of computing so that helped in bringing Bianca into existence. As a kid, I knew one of the world’s premiere hackers. Bianca is an amalgam of personalities I have met and known. She is no Lisabeth Salander but she has her own issues. The short story I had written for a friend morphed into the first book in the Roma Series: Roma, Underground.
Q: In the same light, how did you create your antagonist or villain? What steps did you take to make him or her realistic?
A: Each Roma Series book has its own villain. Each novel has organized crime and Rendition as monolithic bad guys. I tried to avoid stereotypes. In my experience, the people who are very experienced at the not-so-nice things in this world are very quiet and unassuming; they don’t draw attention to themselves. Men who have seen and participated in combat, for example, don’t talk about it. Likewise, the individuals who are powerful in organized crime are not flashy, don’t have their names on a chart, or drive fancy cars and act like Tony Soprano; they are often milquetoast. John le Carré demonstrated countless times in his fiction that spy-work is hardly James Bond adventures; it is mind-numbing routine, analysis, and endless waiting until the opportunity presents itself. My bad guys are intelligent and well educated. What makes them deadly is they don’t make mistakes, which is why Bianca and her friends are heroic – they have to stop the baddies. In Turning, it so happens that the bad guy has allies, the Neapolitan mafia, the Camorra, along with the Calabrian and Sicilian mafias, the ’Ndrangheta and La Cosa Nostra.
Q: How did you keep your narrative exciting throughout the novel? Could you offer some practical, specific tips?
A: Writing a mystery-suspense novel is like camera-work in filmmaking. A writer has to know when to cut the scene and guide the reader’s eyes to another scene. In shoptalk, I’m referring to pacing and subplot. The story arcs are zoom-in and tracking shots. If we were to dissect Turning, we’d start with an assassination and learn about a criminal conspiracy to commit forgery; our characters, particularly Bianca, struggle to put a stop to the violence while they field interference: bureaucratic and criminal. The subplots are always about the relationships in my books. Farrugia is undercover and at risk. He also has a love interest, Noelle. I introduce a new character who has a question mark over his head. Good or bad guy? In Turning, the ticking bomb is solving the anagrams that Loki gives Bianca.
Q: Setting is also quite important and in many cases it becomes like a character itself. What tools of the trade did you use in your writing to bring the setting to life?
A: Research and personal experience. I’ve been to Naples; it isn’t my favorite Italian city. Naples is very gritty and reminds me of New York’s Little Italy on the hottest, most humid day in the summer. Saviano’s Gomorrah, which I mentioned earlier, provided me with a sociological and psychological profile of Naples and the region, Campania. I read through blog posts done by ordinary citizens who are trying to fight the Camorra. What I found fascinating and disturbing is that organized crime is like a biological creature in that it has organ systems and a nervous system. The Sicilian mafia is hierarchical, patriarchal, and closed off. The Calabrian mafia is impenetrable to law enforcement, with an almost non-existent rate of penitents, those who ‘flip.’ The Camorra is the most flexible organization in that it will work with any ethnic group and it can ‘set up shop’ anywhere in the world. Readers will quickly discover in Turning To Stone that, like real life, women play a vital role in the Camorra. After reading Saviano, I concluded that Camorra would make the perfect corporation.
Q: Did you know the theme(s) of your novel from the start or is this something you discovered after completing the first draft? Is this theme(s) recurrent in your other work?
A: The recurrent theme to all the Roma novels is the evolving relationships between the main characters. These characters are team players with unique flaws and strengths. True friendship is worth fighting for in a troubled world. I hope that readers see an emotional arc in character development in each of my characters throughout the Series. The world is a scary place and governments are entities that will do what they have to do in order to survive. People are ultimately expendable. The only thing that any government needs from its citizens is their consent. I tend to know my plot before I start writing. Revision is for fine-tuning scenes and checking the logic of the plot.
Q: Where does craft end and art begin? Do you think editing can destroy the initial creative thrust of an author?
A: That is a challenging question. Craft to me is technique, those things that you learn by example from reading other authors, or from study in the classroom. What can’t be taught is the idea for a story. Take Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral” as an example. The idea is simple yet profound: How do you explain a cathedral to a blind man? Nobody can teach the idea for a story. Stories from writers with an MFA come to my mind: technique is there, evident, and I feel the nudge and the wink, but often the story has no life; it does not ‘speak’ and feels clinical. Art -- I make no claims to define it, but for me artistry exists in taking the mundane and making it extraordinary. I appreciate it when someone shows me a new way at looking at something, whether it is a flower or a garbage can.
Editing is complicated and the hardest part of writing. It amounts to murder – the ‘kill your darlings.’ I would say that editing dialog is tricky. In real life, people do not speak full sentences or display coherent thoughts, which the reader knows and for which he or she suspends belief, but if the writer holds steadfast to every grammar rule then the dialog wouldn’t sound realistic. People, for example, don’t subordinate in real life: ‘I think it’s unrealistic’ versus ‘I think that it is unrealistic.’ A writer needs an honest, caring editor who knows language and psychology.
Speaking for myself, I can’t proofread my own work because my eyes don’t see the missing words. I know the story too well, so I rely on others for structural editing. Ego has to be left outside the door. The writer is not there to say, “This is what I meant when I wrote this.” What is there on the page has to speak for itself without commentary. A structural edit should find gaps in logic and continuity. Bianca came into the room with red heels; she shouldn’t exit wearing sandals. As to whether editing can kill the creative – I don’t think so, but no amount of judicious editing will save bad writing or an ill-conceived story.
Q: What three things, in your opinion, make a successful novelist?
A: Humility. Curiosity. Discipline.
Humility: The story is what matters. A reader cares about what is on the page, and not about who you are or what you look like, or if you are traditionally or self-published.
Curiosity: Remain open and as curious as a child. Lessons come from unexpected sources. It is all material..
Discipline: Time spent talking about it is time you could be doing it.
Q: A famous writer once wrote that being an author is like having to do homework for the rest of your life. What do you think about that?
A: Homework sounds like a bad thing, as if it’s an unpleasant chore. Musicians appreciate good music regardless of their personal preference because they understand rhythm and melody. A cineaste will watch a film, know how it will end yet will find pleasure on the screen from start to finish. Writers are no different in that they appreciate a well-turned phrase, a clever image or a well-told story. Instead of homework I would say that when you enjoy what you do you don’t think of it as homework. You have to breathe and that isn’t homework. Writing is like breathing for some people.
Q: Are there any resources, books, workshops or sites about craft that you’ve found helpful during your writing career?
A: Rennie Browne and Dave King’s Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and Carolyn Wheat’s How to Write Killer Fiction are two excellent books that provide numerous examples to substantiate their teaching points. Kristen Lamb’s blog We Are Not Alone offers both writing advice and social media strategies. Writer Unboxed is another blog that has daily articles of encouragement and advice for writers. Other than that, the greatest resource that any writer has is their library card.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to share with my readers about the craft of writing?
A: Respect your reader, for their time is precious, and be grateful should they spend it with you. Respect yourself and write the best story that you can write today. Listen to the world around with all your senses, for it is all material. Learn from your mistakes and from others, and strive to be 1% better each day. You will not only be a better writer, but a better human being.
///////////////////////////////////////////////
Title: Turning To Stone
Genre: Mystery, Suspense
Author: Gabriel Valjan
Website: http://wintergoosepublishing.com
Publisher: Winter Goose Publishing
Purchase link: http://amzn.to/1N73WGy
Bianca is in Naples for Turning To Stone, the fourth book in the Roma Series from author Gabriel Valjan. Loki, her mysterious contact, is now giving Bianca baffling anagrams. They seem to lead to a charismatic entrepreneur who has a plan to partner with organized crime to manipulate the euro and American dollar. Against a backdrop of gritty streets, financial speculation, and a group of female assassins on motorcycles, Bianca and her friends discover that Naples might just be the most dangerous city in Italy.
Pinterest boards for the Roma Series books
Book 4: Turning To Stone | https://www.pinterest.com/gvaljan/turning-to-stone/
Book 3: Threading the Needle | https://www.pinterest.com/gvaljan/threading-the-needle/
Books 2: Wasp’s Nest | https://www.pinterest.com/gvaljan/wasp-s-nest/
Book 1: Roma, Underground | https://www.pinterest.com/gvaljan/roma
June 28, 2015
Profile: Author Barry Hornig
Were you on line at Studio 54? Did you ever swap drugs for gold in Tangiers? Or try on a dog collar at the Botany Club? Ever marry a countess or a Playboy playmate? Meet Barry. He did all of that and a lot more. He’s had many ups and downs and has probably forgotten more than you’ve fantasized, but this book is what he can recall…
Thus goes the pitch of Barry Hornig’s candid, compelling, revealing, and ultimately inspiring memoir, Without a Net: a True Tales of Prison, Penthouses, and Playmates (Köehler Books, 2015), which, from idea to polished manuscript, took him eight years to complete.
“Without a Net is the story of a young man from a middle class background who shoots for the stars and goes after things that aren’t attainable, and when he thinks he has them, they get taken away,” states Hornig. “In the process, he winds up incarcerated, threatened with guns, and succumbs to addictions, but through a powerful series of visualizations he manages to manifest somebody who helps him change his whole life around through love and compassion. And through that, he is able to help other people.” Hornig’s over-the-top life is told with honesty, self-mockery, hope, and more than a little Jewish humor.
The decision to write this memoir came about from Hornig’s anger about his great ups and downs in life and the question, “Why do they continue to happen to me?” He needed to get it out of his system. Through writing, he hoped to see life more clearly and get rid of some of the anger and pain. He decided he wouldn’t misdirect his energy by looking back, but instead concentrate on looking forward and benefit from lessons learned, and it worked. “I hope I left a roadmap and some signposts to show other people that when they get lost, there is a way out,” says Hornig. “I believe that with determination, visualization, and the right partner, you can emerge from any darkness, live an interesting and fruitful life, and recover your sanity and your spiritual balance.”
In addition to his personal journey, the book offers a kaleidoscope of America from its triumphant and proud years in the 50s to a more recent time when – from Hornig’s perspective – “A great power has been shamefully falling apart. We’ve killed all our heroes, and there’s nobody to look up to. Violence never wins. And Gordon Gekko was wrong; greed is not good. (Sorry, Oliver.)”
Writing Without a Net had its challenges. From telling the truth, to stirring the hot coals, to old temptations re-awakening, to unsupportive peers telling him he was wasting his time and would never finish the book, Hornig admirably stuck to his vision through it all and came through the other side with a completed manuscript and a renewed sense of reality.
Besides the obvious painful, emotional journey of having to access his troubled past, Hornig’s challenge included the fact that he’s dyslexic. Because of this, he decided to work with Michael Claibourne, who helped him organize his thoughts and
pen his words. Claibourne loved his life story and had been urging him for quite a while to write it all down. It seemed just as exciting as any of the screenplays they were working on. “My creative process was a form of channeling with Michael, who acted as interviewer, scribe and psychiatrist,” adds Hornig. “We wrote this memoir from Topanga Canyon to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Montana, and New York City. Sometimes lying down and sometimes sitting up. In person, over the phone, and over the net. It was complex but clear. I tried to be truthful and honest with all the subjects.”
In spite of help from his writing partner, as well as support from his spouse and family, becoming an author has been overwhelming for Hornig, to say the least. “I can’t quite wrap my head around it,” he says. “All I did was tell a story. We’ll see what happens from there, and I’ll leave it up to my audience.” He’s looking forward to sharing some of his experiences in this journey with younger people, and hopes that this book puts him in a venue where he can talk to them. “I want to spread the news: it’s never too late.” He hopes readers will learn from his story and even find themselves in it, and realize that even the most destructive impulses can be overcome. “I have been able to forgive the people who wronged me, and forgive myself for wronging the people that I wronged – both the ones who are dead and the ones who are still alive. And looking back now through the other end of the telescope, it’s all very clear.”
Barry Hornig currently divides his time between Santa Monica, California, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he owns a gallery of fine art rugs. He is a professional sports fisherman, an expert on the paranormal, has talked with beings from space, had visions in Masar-i-Sharif, has been blessed by Muktananda, and hugged by Ammachi. “I have so many more stories to tell… and they’re not all autobiographical” states the author on what lurks on the horizon. “Screenplays, movies, all with messages. I am hoping that with this book my other story work will be taken seriously. And that in turn the other work will get out and more lessons will be learned.”
Connect with Barry Hornig on the web:
Website / Facebook / Twitter
Without a Net is available from Köehler Books, Amazon, B&N, and other online retailers.
My article originally appeared in Blogcritics.
Thus goes the pitch of Barry Hornig’s candid, compelling, revealing, and ultimately inspiring memoir, Without a Net: a True Tales of Prison, Penthouses, and Playmates (Köehler Books, 2015), which, from idea to polished manuscript, took him eight years to complete.
“Without a Net is the story of a young man from a middle class background who shoots for the stars and goes after things that aren’t attainable, and when he thinks he has them, they get taken away,” states Hornig. “In the process, he winds up incarcerated, threatened with guns, and succumbs to addictions, but through a powerful series of visualizations he manages to manifest somebody who helps him change his whole life around through love and compassion. And through that, he is able to help other people.” Hornig’s over-the-top life is told with honesty, self-mockery, hope, and more than a little Jewish humor.
The decision to write this memoir came about from Hornig’s anger about his great ups and downs in life and the question, “Why do they continue to happen to me?” He needed to get it out of his system. Through writing, he hoped to see life more clearly and get rid of some of the anger and pain. He decided he wouldn’t misdirect his energy by looking back, but instead concentrate on looking forward and benefit from lessons learned, and it worked. “I hope I left a roadmap and some signposts to show other people that when they get lost, there is a way out,” says Hornig. “I believe that with determination, visualization, and the right partner, you can emerge from any darkness, live an interesting and fruitful life, and recover your sanity and your spiritual balance.”
In addition to his personal journey, the book offers a kaleidoscope of America from its triumphant and proud years in the 50s to a more recent time when – from Hornig’s perspective – “A great power has been shamefully falling apart. We’ve killed all our heroes, and there’s nobody to look up to. Violence never wins. And Gordon Gekko was wrong; greed is not good. (Sorry, Oliver.)”
Writing Without a Net had its challenges. From telling the truth, to stirring the hot coals, to old temptations re-awakening, to unsupportive peers telling him he was wasting his time and would never finish the book, Hornig admirably stuck to his vision through it all and came through the other side with a completed manuscript and a renewed sense of reality.
Besides the obvious painful, emotional journey of having to access his troubled past, Hornig’s challenge included the fact that he’s dyslexic. Because of this, he decided to work with Michael Claibourne, who helped him organize his thoughts and
pen his words. Claibourne loved his life story and had been urging him for quite a while to write it all down. It seemed just as exciting as any of the screenplays they were working on. “My creative process was a form of channeling with Michael, who acted as interviewer, scribe and psychiatrist,” adds Hornig. “We wrote this memoir from Topanga Canyon to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Montana, and New York City. Sometimes lying down and sometimes sitting up. In person, over the phone, and over the net. It was complex but clear. I tried to be truthful and honest with all the subjects.”In spite of help from his writing partner, as well as support from his spouse and family, becoming an author has been overwhelming for Hornig, to say the least. “I can’t quite wrap my head around it,” he says. “All I did was tell a story. We’ll see what happens from there, and I’ll leave it up to my audience.” He’s looking forward to sharing some of his experiences in this journey with younger people, and hopes that this book puts him in a venue where he can talk to them. “I want to spread the news: it’s never too late.” He hopes readers will learn from his story and even find themselves in it, and realize that even the most destructive impulses can be overcome. “I have been able to forgive the people who wronged me, and forgive myself for wronging the people that I wronged – both the ones who are dead and the ones who are still alive. And looking back now through the other end of the telescope, it’s all very clear.”
Barry Hornig currently divides his time between Santa Monica, California, and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he owns a gallery of fine art rugs. He is a professional sports fisherman, an expert on the paranormal, has talked with beings from space, had visions in Masar-i-Sharif, has been blessed by Muktananda, and hugged by Ammachi. “I have so many more stories to tell… and they’re not all autobiographical” states the author on what lurks on the horizon. “Screenplays, movies, all with messages. I am hoping that with this book my other story work will be taken seriously. And that in turn the other work will get out and more lessons will be learned.”
Connect with Barry Hornig on the web:
Website / Facebook / Twitter
Without a Net is available from Köehler Books, Amazon, B&N, and other online retailers.
My article originally appeared in Blogcritics.
June 16, 2015
Interview with Lynn Steward, Author of 'April Snow'
Lynn Steward is a successful business woman who spent many years in New York City’s fashion industry in marketing and merchandising, including the development of the first women’s department at a famous men’s clothing store. Through extensive research, and an intimate knowledge of the period, Steward created the characters and stories for a series of five authentic and heartwarming novels about New York in the seventies. April Snow, just released today, is volume two in the Dana McGarry Series.
Find out more on Amazon.
Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, April Snow. What was your inspiration for it?
A: I always enjoyed business-related writing and thought a non-fiction self-help book, with life-lessons I learned along the way, would be a fun project. But, as often happens when you put yourself out there, I discovered another path and took it: I developed a TV pilot about New York in the seventies because, as they say “Write what you know” and I know New York. I’m a native of Long Island, and between attending school and working, I spent twenty-two years in Manhattan. I was so overwhelmed with ideas, the TV series expanded to five seasons! Appropriately placed in the New York City of 1975, which was International Women’s Year, the plots in the series intermingle fashion legends, business icons, real events, and untold stories, providing a behind-the-scenes look at inspirational women in the worlds of art, fashion, and business.
After meeting with professionals in the entertainment industry, I realized that the main character, Dana McGarry, needed more drama and the plots had to be developed, and I felt the best way to do that was to convert the pilot and first season into a novel and A Very Good Life, was published last year. My new novel, April Snow, is based on season two
Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist.
A: Dana is underestimated by her soft demeanor but she has fortitude and will stand her ground for what she believes and wants to achieve. She will find a way to reach her goals.
Q: How was your creative process like during the writing of this book and how long did it take you to complete it? Did you face any bumps along the way?
A: I started developing the TV show approximately four years ago, spending the first year and a half researching historic facts, places, and events from the period, and creating the characters. I did not have writers block or any bumps along the way. The stories for the five TV seasons/books just kept writing themselves. Characters I thought would play an important role, never made it to the page, and others, I least expected, became my favorites.
Q: How do you keep your narrative exciting throughout the creation of a novel?
A: I again go back to “Write what you know.” New York City, especially Murray Hill, is home to me. As a child I was often in Manhattan visiting my grandparents in their Italian neighborhood on 106th St Street. There is so much to draw on when writing about a place or topic that is familiar, or part of your soul. And, of course, my in the fashion industry has provided many personalities, events, and experiences for inspiration. I lived many years a few blocks from B. Altman, and I was in the store practically every day. I have great affection and enthusiasm for the real and fictional characters, and the period, and I think that is translated to the page.
Q: Do you experience anxiety before sitting down to write? If yes, how do you handle it?
A: No anxiety at all. I think it helps to be prepared with good research, photos for inspiration, and organized files, readily available when an idea is sparked at the keyboard. I think, no matter your subject, organization is key. Your mind cannot possibly keep everything neatly filed and available when you need it. My iPad has been tremendously helpful for note taking, and I constantly use it in conjunction with my computer.
Q: What is your writing schedule like and how do you balance it with your other work and family time?
A: My favorite time to research and write is early in the morning, preferably around 5:30 a.m., when my mind is clear, it is peaceful, and there are no interruptions. I won’t allow myself to even peek at e-mails, I don’t want anything to distract me for at least three hours. I am always surprised and disappointed how fast that time goes.
Q: How do you define success?
A: Being at peace with one’s self, happy to face a new day.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers whose spouses or partners don’t support their dreams of becoming an author?
A: I believe that may be a problem. I quickly learned that writing becomes an all-consuming passion; you effortlessly and selfishly block out everything and everyone. I enjoy reading author interviews in The Paris Review and I have new insight into the minds and lives of writers. While all are very different people, they share an intensity about the amount of private time they need to think and write. With that being said, I think if you really long to get your story on paper, you will find a way; structure a routine, a time of day to be alone. Just try to curb your enthusiasm and don’t expect others to care what your favorite character did in the last chapter; trust me, they rather wait to read the book!
Q: George Orwell once wrote: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” Do you agree?
A: Orwell got the driven part right, but I did not have a horrible experience. It is surprisingly exhausting, considering I am seated in one spot for hours and not running a marathon. But, yes, the editing is stressful and tedious; you pull one thread, and everything else falls apart. The passion, however, or as Orwell said, the demon, returns you to the same place the next day.
Q: Anything else you’d like to tell my readers?
A: I have met the most wonderful people on this new journey: kind, helpful, and patient. I have had two high energy careers, and I am enjoying the peaceful world of not only writing, but of writers.
June 10, 2015
Interview with Richard Michael Cartmel, author of THE CHARLEMAGNE CONNECTION
Born into a military family, R.M. Cartmel was educated at Sherborne School in the South West of England and at Oxford. Cartmel served as a practicing doctor for over three and a half decades. As a novelist Cartmel combines two of his lifelong loves—writing and traveling throughout France’s exquisite Burgundy region.Connect with the author on the web:
Web / Facebook / Twitter / Blog
Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, The Charlemagne Connection What was your inspiration for it?
A: It is the second book in a series of books set in the famous wine making part of France called Burgundy. Originally when I retired I was looking for a novel set there, and when I couldn’t find one I decided to write one. That was The Richebourg Affair, which was set in the spring in Burgundy. The second book, The Charlemagne Connection is set in high summer of the same year, and the third of the trilogy, which I am writing at the moment, is set during the vintage.
Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist.
A: He is a small middle-aged rather tatty policeman, who is obviously very capable at his job, as he has reached the rank of Commandant [translated as Commander] in the French National Police. He has been married but it never worked out.
Q: How was your creative process like during the writing of this book and how long did it take you to complete it? Did you face any bumps along the way?
A: Having finished Richebourg, it was just the right time to go to Nuits Saint Georges to experience the flowering of the vines, so I set off to do the first piece of research, in France. I also needed to discuss the legal issues in the book, and the forensics. It took round 6 months to create the first draft, including finding out that some of the forensic detail I had got wrong, and that needed a rewrite. But as I had not actually finished the first draft when I hit that glitch, it wasn’t enormously difficult to write round it.
Q: How do you keep your narrative exciting throughout the creation of a novel?
A: I have no idea, it happens. Charlemagne pretty much wrote itself, so the plot I found exciting as I went along.
Q: Do you experience anxiety before sitting down to write? If yes, how do you handle it?
A: No. None of the process causes anxiety. I may not always be able to produce text that I like, but it is not a cause for anxiety. That of course may happen when I start to get behind a deadline, which is a place, so far I have never been.
Q: What is your writing schedule like and how do you balance it with your other work and family time?
A: There is no other work outside writing. My son lives in my house but he too has a job so we meet when we meet.
Q: How do you define success?
A: Someone I know from the past telling me that they loved my book and when’s the next one out?
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers whose spouses or partners don’t support their dreams of becoming an author?
A: If you want to write, and your consort doesn’t want you to write, then you either have to not write or change your consort. I can’t help thinking that if the conflict is irreconcilable, then don’t try. What a horrible place for someone to be. Is that idea copyright, there may be a novel there?
Q: George Orwell once wrote: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” Do you agree?
A: Obviously not! If I did I wouldn’t be a writer.
Q: Anything else you’d like to tell my readers?
A: Never ever think you can do it all alone. Write the first draft of book, and then be prepared to let it fly. Send it to an editor to polish it.
June 8, 2015
Interview with Terry Jackman, Author of 'Ashamet, Desert-Born'
Terry Jackman was christened Teresa, and is married with kids. She’s not pretending to be a guy just for the book. It’s just that nobody, but nobody, calls her anything but Terry, so Terry is actually the most honest name to put on the cover.To go with her two names she inhabits two worlds. In one she’s a mild-mannered lady who tutors children and lives in a pretty English village, called Lymm. [It’s not far from the Manchester United football ground. You can take a peek at it on www.lymmvillage.co.uk/gallery If you look carefully at the picture of the old stone cross in the village centre you might see the ancient stocks below, where villagers would have thrown rotten eggs etc at local miscreants – but we don’t do that now, honest.]
In the other, she’s written articles and study guides, is secretly on the committee of the British Science Fiction Association, coordinates all their online writers’ groups, writes a regular page for Focus magazine and reads submissions for Albedo One magazine in Ireland. Oh, and has been known to do convention panels and some freelance editing.
When Ashamet goes public the two worlds will finally collide. She suspects there’ll be some raised eyebrows so she’s stocking up on fortifying tea and biscuits – and lots of chocolate!
Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, Ashamet, Desert-Born. What was your inspiration for it?
A: Honestly, it was bad temper. I got really cross that a writer made the all-powerful prince in her story stupid, basically to make the plot work out the way she wanted, where if he’d had an ounce of sense it would have fallen apart. Why, I fumed, did powerful characters so often have to be bad, stupid or both? And just like that Ashamet walked onstage. He’s lots of things, but he’s definitely not stupid.
Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist.
A: Maybe you know someone who says one thing and does another, or is different things to different people? Or maybe they hide their true character, even from themselves? That’s Ashamet. He’s also about the fact that even those who seem all powerful are still bound by some restrictions, and that in the end it’s how they cope with those that defines who they really are?
Q: How was your creative process like during the writing of this book and how long did it take you to complete it? Did you face any bumps along the way?
A: Ashamet, Desert-Born took several years to write. The first fifty pages came in a mad rush then I had stops and starts, because while Ashamet and Keril arrived fully formed, the world they lived in didn’t. It took me at least three tries to define the society Ash was born into well enough to make total sense of who he was. I couldn’t finish the story till I got that right.
Q: How do you keep your narrative exciting throughout the creation of a novel?
A: Ah, an easier answer. I listen to my characters. If it’s not what they’d do, or say, then out it goes. Otherwise the story loses its credibility, just like that stupid prince I mentioned. The story slumps, and frankly I get bored writing it.
Q: Do you experience anxiety before sitting down to write? If yes, how do you handle it?
A: Actually, no. I get anxious about showing stuff to others but not about writing it. Some days I can’t wait to write, others I have to remind myself there’s a deadline, but after the first couple of sentences I’m usually in the groove. I’m no longer aware of what I’m doing, as long as I’m not interrupted.
Q: What is your writing schedule like and how do you balance it with your other work and family time?
A: I have a VERY flexible schedule, because it depends largely on when my husband is playing golf! Crazy as it sounds, and I know it does, I can write around strangers, on trains, around other writers – but not around people I know well but aren’t also writing (otherwise known as friends and family). When they walk out the door I reach for pen or keyboard.
Q: How do you define success?
A: Success was selling my first three articles in one week, then turning one of them into a series. Less successfully, that ambushed me. Regular requests for more got me writing nonfiction for ten years. Between a more than full time job and articles I had no time to try fiction.
So an even greater success was having Dragonwell ask, out of the blue, if I’d “like to send them something” because they’d heard about me from another writer. Wow.
And the final and greatest success will be if people like reading the result, and take a second to review it or tell me so.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers whose spouses or partners don’t support their dreams of becoming an author?
A: It will make it harder but it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t go for it, if they’re sufficiently driven. Hey, I grew up in a house without books and look where I ended up. Due to my extreme shyness problem my family didn’t even know I wrote for several years, till I was selling articles regularly.
And in the end I only owned up about fiction because an amazing author/university lecturer, Adam Roberts, said “You are a writer”. After that even I had to ‘come out’.
But it helps a lot if people at least humor you.
Q: George Orwell once wrote: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” Do you agree?
A: Gosh no. Hearing strange voices in your head. Spending hours writing, assessing, rewriting. Crying over those nasty critiques – which are right, damn them – editing, polishing… How could that possibly be exhausting?
Seriously, sometimes it’s exhilarating, others depressing. So yes, I can’t imagine anyone doing it if they aren’t driven to. Me, I have to get those voices out of my head before they drive me mad.
Q: Anything else you’d like to tell my readers?
A: Well, I guess I should tell people who don’t know me that Terry is actually short for Teresa, but that I regard Terry as my real name. I’m definitely NOT pretending to be a guy for my publisher. Since no one calls me anything but Terry, if I’d put Teresa on the book cover it would have felt more like hiding who I was, not less.
So unlike most of my characters I’m female, and as you’ll have gathered married with kids. I’ve visited some beautiful Moorish architecture, but I’ve never ridden a camel. In fact I’ve only once ‘sat’ on a horse. But hey, if we only wrote what we already knew science fiction and fantasy wouldn’t exist.
But I hope, very much, readers will enjoy reading Ashamet as much as I enjoyed writing it, and maybe tell me so, so I can breathe easier.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Title: Ashamet, Desert-Born
Genre: Fantasy/adventure/romance/paranormal
Author: Terry Jackman
Website: www.terryjackman.co.uk
Publisher: www.dragonwellpublishing.com
Find out more on Amazon
A desert world. A warrior nation that worships its emperor as a god. But for Ashamet, its prince, a future filled with danger...
Ashamet is confident his swordsmanship, and his arranged marriage, will be enough to maintain the empire’s peace. But when a divine symbol magically appears on his arm, closely followed by an attempt on his life, he no longer knows who to trust. Worse, the strange attraction he feels toward a foreign slave could be another trap. As events unravel, too fast,Ashamet must find out if this innocent young male is a tool for his enemies--or the magic key to his survival.
"Ashamet, Desert-Born" is a debut adventure fantasy with an exotic Arabian-style setting and elements of same-sex romance.
May 27, 2015
5 Questions with Joan Schweighardt, author of 'The Accidental Art Thief'
Joan Schweighardt is a former indie publisher who now works as a freelance writer, ghostwriter, and editor. The Accidental Art Thief is her fifth novel.Q: What’s inside the mind of a fiction author?
A: I think we all get obsessed with certain ideas, things we hear about or read. When that happens to me, I spin the idea around for a while and sometimes it becomes fodder for fiction. With The Accidental Art Thief, I was thinking about, among other things, money. I had been to a conference for fundraisers with the amazing Lynne Twist. I am not a fundraiser and probably didn’t belong at the conference, but Lynne Twist is also the co founder of an organization that advocates for indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest. I knew her work, had been to the Amazon, and wanted to meet her. So I went to a fundraising conference at a Buddhist Zen centre and listened to Lynne and others talk about money for three days. It was fun and I learned a lot and I added much of what I learned into the book.
While there are other more prominent themes in my book, it was money that got the book going. One of the characters pretty much ruins her life because she is blinded by anger having to do with money that had been withheld from her. She’s not the main character, but her anger ignites the plot.
Q: Tell us why readers should buy The Accidental Art Thief.
A:The Accidental Art Thief is fun, sometimes zany, and thought-provoking. I would never in a million years compare any aspect of my writing to Shakespeare, but I have to say that The Accidental Art Thief has some of the features that you might find in a Shakespearean comedy. First of all, there’s a thread of tragedy that runs through the backstory. Next, the lovers in the story express themselves through a lot of (contemporary-style) word play as they attempt to reveal their affection while simultaneously concealing their secrets. Also, there is definitely a theme of mistaken identities going on. And like a lot of Shakespearean comedies, all the issues of concern get cleared up at a grand event at the end of the book. I didn’t set out to emulate Shakespeare, but I couldn’t help but notice that there were some structural similarities. The bottom line is that the book is fun and, with its element of magical realism, I think it should appeal to people who like Alice Hoffman and Sue Monk Kidd and Gabrielle Zevin and other authors who mix a little magic (and, in the case of Zevin, humor) into their plots.
Q: What makes a good novel?
A: That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Of course a good novel has to be well structured and well written, but there’s always something else too, some je ne sais quoi that makes the story sing. It might be a fabulously-drawn character, like the husband in Carolyn Parkhurst’s Dogs of Babel. Or it could be a really clever plot, like in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. Or great dialogue, like just about everything by Tana French, especially her first novel, In The Woods. I could have listened to her characters talk forever, even if the book had no plot, which of course it did.
Q: What is a regular writing day like for you?
A: I am a pen for hire and I write and edit for a living, for various clients. Sometimes months go by and I don’t have a minute to work on my own stuff. Other times the freelance famine sets in and I have lots of time. Either way, whether I am writing for clients or writing for myself, I write five days a week, for at least a few hours a day.
Q: What do you find most rewarding about being an author?
A: The process is its own reward. I never feel more myself than when I become passionate about a project I’m working on. You have to be pretty lucky to make a fortune writing fiction in these times, so it’s a good thing that writing has other merits.
May 10, 2015
Meet Dr. Jim Bailey, author of ‘The End of Healing’
Jim Bailey is a fellow in the American College of Physicians and professor of medicine and preventive medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, where he directs the Center for Health Systems Improvement, cares for the sick, and teaches doctors in training. His research appears in many peer-reviewed medical journals, including AMA, Journal of General Internal Medicine, and Annals of Internal Medicine. Dr. Bailey has an abiding passion for the classics, medical history, and ethics, and believes that sharing our stories can heal.The End of Healingis his first novel.Website / Twitter / Facebook
Q: Congratulations on the release of your book, The End of Healing. What was your inspiration for it?
A: My inspiration came on 9–11, my birthday, when I realized that as bad as the twin towers disaster was, healthcare was worse. I knew that a 747 planeload of people were being killed by medical mistakes every day and no one was doing anything about it. To the contrary–many were profiting from it. And the public was oblivious of the danger. People mindlessly look to hospitals as their great temples of hope and healing, when in fact they are the most dangerous places of all. As a physician and healthcare researcher I knew that I could write dozens of journal articles every year in the best medical journals and it wouldn’t open the minds and hearts of the American people to understand where true healing comes from. I knew then that I needed to tell a story.
Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist.
A: Dr. Don Newman is much like the young doctors I teach at the University of Tennessee. He wants to be a healer, but finds himself in a broken healthcare system that puts profits before patients and waits until people are near death—when it is usually too late—before anyone thinks to help. Many doctors, nurses, and other healers become cynical and suffer burnout when confronting this situation. Don is one of those extraordinary young physicians who makes up his mind to find a better way.
Q: How was your creative process like during the writing of this book and how long did it take you to complete it? Did you face any bumps along the way?
A: After studying the great books at St. John’s College in the early 80s I dreamed of writing the next great American novel. But then my graduate fiction-writing teacher told me I needed to write about what I knew and I didn’t seem know much of anything. At that point, medical school seemed like the easier option. Twenty years later, in 2003, I started writing The End of Healing as a work of narrative non-fiction. For over a year I wrote and wrote without having the courage to admit that I was writing fiction. When my spouse, who is also my editor, told me I was writing fiction—and suggested I’d better stop because it would take me forever—my first reaction was denial. I assured her that I was, in fact, writing creative non-fiction. As usual, though, she was right. It was over a full year later, in 2004, I realized that I was writing fiction—and that filled me with terror. I couldn’t write fiction. That had already been determined. But despite my despair, The End of Healing was a compulsion for me, and I wrote nearly every day for ten years until its publication. I wrote and wrote and edited and edited and learned the art of story telling over the last ten years because I had to do so. The story needed to be told. And it is a story you need to hear.
Q: How do you keep your narrative exciting throughout the creation of a novel?
A: You have to have an entire story arc or at least the heart of a great story that you think is really exciting. If you don’t have that kind of story in your heart that needs to be told then you will never make your narrative exciting for others. How can you expect your story to be exciting for others if it isn’t exciting to you? So you start with the story that needs to be told. A story you have to tell because it burns to be let out. Then you can craft it, shape it, and perfect it to make it exciting for others.
Q: Do you experience anxiety before sitting down to write? If yes, how do you handle it?
A: Yes. I think if we are honest, most of us experience anxiety when we have something that we need to do that is undone. So how do I handle my anxiety? By writing. That seems to be the best cure. And if it doesn’t work right away, then I write some more.
Q: What is your writing schedule like and how do you balance it with your other work and family time?
A: Writing is hard. And it is hard to balance writing fiction with my already difficult work schedule as a physician, teacher and researcher and my role as a husband and father. My wife and I reconnect by taking our dog for long walks around our neighborhood. Early in my writing of The End of Healing I told a good friend and mentor of my despair and deep concern that I would never finish the book I had started. I still remember his advice. He said to just write a little bit every day. Set a schedule. Make a plan to fit a little writing into each day’s work and in time your effort will add up. So I followed his advice. Almost every day for the last 10 years I got up early in the morning while the rest of the house was asleep and wrote for at least 30 minutes but most often for an hour or two. And lo and behold, I discovered that my dear friend—who has since passed on—was right. The writing did add up.
Q: How do you define success?
A: I’d consider The End of Healing to be successful if it encourages people to take charge of their health and healthcare resources. I’d like to stop to the unnecessary suffering caused by our hospital and sickness-focused healthcare system, eliminate the needless waste of lives and dollars spent on unnecessary care that isn’t really care at all, and help people see what a real healing healthcare system would look like. We should get much better value for the $2.3 trillion dollars we spend each year on healthcare. When I first started writing The End of Healing, I set as my sales target at 200,000 books. To me that would represent the beginning of real success, for it would mean that I had really touched enough minds and hearts that we’d be well on our way to making a significant impact.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers whose spouses or partners don’t support their dreams of becoming an author?
A: Get couples counseling. All of us need friends, spouses, or partners. And true friendship and partnership means supporting one another’s dreams. We have to do that for one another if we are to have a successful partnership. I have been incredibly blessed to have an extraordinarily supportive partner. My wife, Sharon, has served as my primary editor. Although at times my writing frustrates her because of its all-consuming nature she has been incredibly supportive. My novel would not have been completed without her, nor would it have what beauty it has to offer.
Q: George Orwell once wrote: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” Do you agree?
A: Yes. My ‘demon’ was the fraud, waste, and suffering I saw every day in my profession. Understanding the reasons for this illness at the heart of my profession made the illness all the more painful for me. Then I rediscovered the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri and found myself driven by his spirit to expose the hidden corruption in healthcare in the same way that he had exposed the hidden corruption of his time. I started writing The End of Healing in 2004 while on sabbatical in his hometown of Florence, Italy. Each time I walked past the statue of Dante in the Piazza delle Santa Croce, I’d see his grim visage scowling down at me with disapproval that I was out walking and enjoying the city and had not yet finished my book. Across the centuries, Dante both tormented and encouraged me to persevere and finish my work.
Q: Anything else you’d like to tell my readers?
A: I was able to write The End of Healing because it grew out of my own experience and was a story I needed to tell. Whether you are writing a PhD dissertation or a poem, great writing begins with careful choice of your subject. You have to write about something that you care about–something that you care about a lot—or it will never resonate and you will never be able to finish. When it comes to great writing you will struggle to keep your focus and dedication to the task unless it is a task that matters, a story that matters. Look for the story that matters most in your life. That is the story you should aim to share.
Title: The End of Healing
Genre: Suspense
Author: Dr. Jim Bailey
Website: www.endofhealing.com
Publisher: The Healthy City
Purchase on Amazon
SUMMARY:
Dr. Don Newman, a resident physician at the renowned University Hospital, awakens in a windowless call room in the middle of the night to the screams of his pager. As he runs to a dark ward to attend to a dying woman strapped to a bed, Don realizes that despite having worked long and hard to become a doctor—and having sworn to do no harm—harm has become his business.
So begins Dr. Newman’s quest to become a healer in a system that puts profits ahead of patients. Abandoning his plans to become a cardiologist, Dr. Newman enrolls in an Ivy League graduate program in health system science, where an unorthodox professor promises to guide him ever deeper into the dark secrets of the healthcare industry. Along with fellow students Frances Hunt, a sharp and alluring nurse practitioner, and Bruce Markum, a cocky, well-connected surgeon, Dr. Newman begins a journey into the medical underworld.
When Dr. Newman unearths evidence of a conspiracy stretching from the halls of Congress to Wall Street and even to his small campus, his harmless course of study becomes deadly serious. Will he be silenced? Or will he find a way to save his patients and others from needless torture? One thing is certain: the path to healing is fraught with danger. Will this path lead Don to a dead end?
April 24, 2015
Joel Fox, Meet author of 'The Mark on Eve'
Joel Fox has spent over 30 years in California politics, serving on numerous state commissions, working on many ballot issue campaigns, and advising candidates. An adjunct professor at the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University, Fox has authored hundreds of opinion pieces for numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USA Today and Los Angeles Times. Joel Fox is also the author of the Zane Rigby mystery series—Lincoln’s Hand and FDR’s Treasure— in which an FBI Special Agent must solve a puzzle from the past of an American president to solve modern day murders. A native of the Boston area, Joel Fox lives in Los Angeles.Website / Facebook
Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, The Mark on Eve. What was your inspiration for it?
A: The idea for my book came from a Cape Cod legend in which a woman in colonial New England was suspected of witchcraft when her pirate lover’s ship went down in a storm. The pirate ship Whydah, captained by Sam Bellamy, was real. It sank in 1717 and was discovered and salvaged in 1984. I simply took some of the persons in the legend and changed the story by asking: What if the woman was not a witch but was be-witched to live forever? It allowed me to explore how she would manage through different periods in American history all the while maintaining suspense in the modern day story in which she tries to keep her secret while giving meaning to her long existence by helping a female governor run for president of the United States.
Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist.
A: Besides that she is over 320 years old! Since the pirate ship went down in 1717 I made her 25 years old at the time. The actual woman referred to in the legend, Marie Hallett, was supposedly 15 years old, but I wanted my leading lady to be older and more sophisticated as she made her way through the epochs of American history. Conveniently, having her as a 25-year-old means she would have been born in 1692, not coincidentally, the year of the Salem Witch Trials.
Q: How was your creative process like during the writing of this book and how long did it take you to complete it? Did you face any bumps along the way?
A: This book was written in two phases. I did an earlier draft a decade ago. I moved it aside to begin a mystery series I created featuring a senior FBI agent, Zane Rigby, who solved modern day murders by solving a puzzle related to a former American president. I picked up the book again and polished it off, making some changes. I guess you could say the decade long span was a big bump. However, I gained more confidence in my abilities over that time and I always liked the story in The Mark on Eve so I decided to go back to it.
My writing process consisted of waking up early in the morning, opening up a laptop computer and sitting in a comfortable chair in the corner of the bedroom with a low standing light so as not to disturb my wife. I figured I would not be distracted if I did not venture beyond the bedroom. I wrote most of the book this way, about two hours every morning. Toward the end I would write at my main computer and other hours of the day relying on adrenalin to get the job done.
Q: How do you keep your narrative exciting throughout the creation of a novel?
A: I believe in keeping the story moving. I rely on relatively short chapters and chapter endings that hopefully leave readers with the desire to see what happens next. In this particular book, I have a number of flashbacks in time so a chapter may end with a question but the next chapter takes place during another historical period, usually connected in some way to the previous chapter. The reader will get involved in that part of the story and read on to find out what happens in the modern day story.
Q: Do you experience anxiety before sitting down to write? If yes, how do you handle it?
A: I guess there is always some anxiety that the story will flow. However, what I often try to do is end the previous day’s work in the middle of a chapter so that I have some sense where I’m going. That way, I find it is easier to pick up the story and move ahead on the next day.
Q: What is your writing schedule like and how do you balance it with your other work and family time?
A: As I mentioned earlier I do most of my writing in the early morning when everyone is asleep and the phone is not ringing. Usually 5 to 7 a.m. That way I have a sense of accomplishment even before the sun is up and I don’t have to excuse myself from family to get involved in my writing. I also find early morning writing is more conducive to creativity. I think I might work out some of the problems I face with the writing while I’m sleeping.
Q: How do you define success?
A: I once told a writing instructor that I would consider that I was a successful fiction writer when someone pays me for my writing. As an act of encouragement, she sent me a few coins to build my confidence and said I was a paid writer. I appreciated the thought but I needed to receive payment from an independent source. Now that I have conquered that step, I look forward having readers tell me they enjoyed what I wrote. That is success.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers whose spouses or partners don’t support their dreams of becoming an author?
A: I would encourage the spouse or partner to become a sounding board for the project. Be involved in discussing the plot and the characters. If that doesn’t work, perhaps the writing should be done while the partner is sleeping.
Q: George Orwell once wrote: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” Do you agree?
A: There is no question that writing is as difficult as Orwell describes but it also has those exhilarating moments when you know you hit the right phrase or you are tickled by what a character says or the direction the plot is heading. In those moments you become a fan of your own writing and that helps propel you past the difficult demons that Orwell describes.
Q: Anything else you’d like to tell my readers?
A: Thanks for spending some time with me. I hope you are interested in joining Eve on her 300 year adventure and also checking out my mystery series at my website www.joelfox.com.
April 11, 2015
Meet Graciela Limon, Author of ‘The Intriguing Life of Ximena Godoy’
Graciela Limón is a Latina Writer, Educator and Activist. She received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Spanish Literature from Marymount College Los Angeles, a Master of Arts Degree in the same field from the University of the Americas Mexico City, followed by a PhD in Latin American Literature from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Prior to retirement, Limón was a professor of U.S. Hispanic Literature as well as Chair of the Department of Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California. She is now Professor Emeritus of that University.
Limón has written critical work on Mexican, Latin American and Caribbean Literature. However, she now concentrates her writing efforts on creative fiction that is germane to her areas of interest: feminism, social justice and cultural identity. Her body of work includes In Search of Bernabé that won The Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award (1994). Limón also published The Memories of Ana Calderón (1994), Song of the Hummingbird (1996) and The Day of the Moon (1999). Erased Faces, which was awarded the 2002 Gustavus Myers Book Award, was published in 2001, Left Alive was released in 2005, The River Flows North, 2009, followed by The Madness of Mamá Carlota, 2012. Her latest book is The Intriguing Life of Ximena Godoy, published by Cafe con Leche Books. Find out more about Graciela at www.gracielalimon.com.
Q: Congratulations on the release of your latest book, The Intriguing Life of Ximena Godoy. What was your inspiration for it?
A: There were several inspirations, but above all is the woman of strength, resilience and ambition. Certain historical events of the first part of the 20th Century worked as well as inspirational in the novel. These were the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Influenza, the Repatriation and Prohibition.
Q: Tell us something interesting about your protagonist.
A: I believe that the most interesting aspect of my protagonist is her fierce independence and courage when faced with adversity. However, just as interesting is her flawed nature that in the end succumbs to her passions.
Q: How was your creative process like during the writing of this book and how long did it take you to complete it? Did you face any bumps along the way?
A: The creative process for me when writing this novel was different from my other experiences in that my protagonist turned out to be so unpredictable. Ximena Godoy kept me guessing. Hence, I experienced times when I needed to stop writing just to reflect on her nature, and try to decipher her motives. Ximena Godoy is hardly what is expected of the Latina: she breaks the canon, so to speak. All of this created bumps and interruptions along the way, but once my Muse pulled me over those bumps, I was able to get going. How long did it take me to complete Ximena’s story? I would say that it was completed in about two years.
Q: How do you keep your narrative exciting throughout the creation of a novel?
A: Good stories, I find, contain enough ‘excitement’ to make the narrative flow. In The Intriguing Life of Ximena Godoy, there is a strong historical element, such as the Mexican Revolution. This event was followed by the Spanish Influenza, which, by the way, killed more people than did the Revolution. There are other critical periods that form a background to my protagonist’s story and animate the novel’s narrative, keeping it going and – I hope – keep it exciting.
Q: Do you experience anxiety before sitting down to write? If yes, how do you handle it?
A: No, I wouldn’t say that I experience anxiety. What I do feel is a sense of urgency, of wanting to write what I’m feeling before it dilutes or disappears. It’s really a mysterious feeling, difficult to explain.
Q: What is your writing schedule like and how do you balance it with your other work and family time?
A: I’m an early bird, meaning that I write early in the day. By this I mean to say that my schedule puts me at work before daylight when all is still in the house as well as out in the street. With a cup of coffee to energize me, I usually write between three and five hours. This isn’t a strict schedule because, as you can imagine, I get tired. When the time comes to rest I do it by cooking – which I love to do, and by interacting with those around me.
Q: How do you define success?
A: Success for me means completing the novel I’ve been writing. It means everything to me to be part of the mystery of creative writing, and giving it fullness. Remember, completing a novel takes about two years out of my life. That’s significant. Also, success for me is knowing that a story has come to me from out of nowhere, and that I’m a part of the creation of characters that take flesh, who now live among us. Success for me is being able to give life to that story.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers whose spouses or partners don’t support their dreams of becoming an author?
A: This is problematic, and I find it difficult to give such an aspiring writer advice except to say to not allow the dream to fade much less disappear. I’d say to hang in there, to persevere until an understanding can hopefully be reached.
Q: George Orwell once wrote: “Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” Do you agree?
A: No. I regret to disagree, and I do so with all respect since George Orwell is one of our world’s shining literary lights. How painful it must have been for him to give us such gifts despite so much pain. In my case, writing a book, although lonely, scary and sometimes bleak, nonetheless is a life-giving experience. Writing for me is to breathe, to travel to another world, to dwell with people before unknown but now more real than even those that surround me. Yes, for me writing is life giving.
Q: Anything else you’d like to tell my readers?
A: I would tell your readers to have faith in his/her work, to be confident, to reject nasty, mean-spirited criticism, to forge ahead and give us all a part of that God-given talent.
March 31, 2015
An Interview with Anne K. Edwards, Author of ‘This and That—Collection of Light and Dark Tales ‘
Anne K. Edwards enjoys reading as well as writing and would be hard put to choose one over the other since her love affair with the printed word started with reading at age six. When she found she could write stories as a third grader, she found a certain sense of self-fulfillment that lonely kids often miss. That love of words stayed with her and finally found satisfaction in her first publishing contract. Since then, each book or story she writes adds to that private happiness. It is only exceeded by having readers tell her they read and enjoyed one of her books. She’s here today to talk about her latest book, This and That—Collection of Light and Dark Tales.
It's nice to have you here, Anne. Do you have another job besides writing?
I’m retired now, but did work much of my life as a secretary. The pay wasn’t good and I changed jobs frequently for that reason. The work isn’t particularly fulfilling either, but the advent of the computer did make it somewhat easier. I usually looked forward to the end of the day when I could escape into the worlds I could create and live vicariously through my characters. The best thing that happened outside of writing was a move to a farm where we associated with horses and several cats. I’m still here.
Were you an avid reader as a child? What type of books did you enjoy reading?
I was and still am an avid reader. As a child I always preferred books that were not on a reading list and ahead of my age group. I went through stages of westerns, romance, history and so forth. I love a good historical tale, fact or fiction, biography, some sciences like anthropology and others.
Tell us a bit about your latest book, and what inspired you to write it.
This and That—Collection of Light and Dark Tales is an assortment of short stories written over a period of several years. They are varied in subject and genre. For instance, in this book, the reader would learn how the devil outsmarts himself when he leaves Hell, why Death had to hire a private detective, and what happens when the sun sends a ball of fire toward Earth. These tales were a pleasure to write and that is what inspired me to write them. I wrote them when I suffered writer’s block or was between projects. They filled what would have otherwise been wasted time.
Did your book require a lot of research?
No. I rarely do research these days because over the years when I did a log of non fiction reading, I managed to store information I could use as backdrops for books. For instance, I write mysteries, but I don’t spend time on dna and fingerprint evidence research as this is the sort of material mystery readers in general are familiar with. I don’t use a lot of scientific jargon or crime scene description, nor do I spend a lot of the readers time on things I believe they already have in their minds to help comprehend the basic mystery.
What was your goal when writing this book?
No specific goal was in mind as the stories were written for fun and one at a time with months in between. The goal for each story is to write a good story for the reader, one that I hope they enjoy as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Agatha Christie got her best ideas while eating green apples in the bathtub. Steven Spielberg says he gets his best ideas while driving on the highway. When do you get your best ideas and why do you think this is?
My best ideas come, like Christie and Spielberg, when my body is busy with one thing and this lets my mind range freely on other things. I used to get great ideas or solutions to problems with a book while I was cleaning out a stall, or weeding. Those times, the rote of the work let my mind work on writing related matters.
Do you get along with your muse? What do you do to placate her when she refuses to inspire you?
My muse is a nutty critter called Swamp Thingy. We don’t get along for many reasons, such as he is a real complainer. Read his column One Muse’s Opinion on my website www.AnneKEdwards.com and you’ll see what I mean. He’s turned my mind into a bog and then whines it’s wet. There is no placating him. Yes, I know, muses are supposed to be female, but this one is a weird guy built like the blob. For some strange reason, he does give good ideas most of the time, but when he stalls and produces aome half baked idea, I could give him such a boot. If anyone out there knows where I can trade him in, please let me know.
What types of scenes give you the most trouble to write?
To this, I’d have to answer action scenes with several people in attendance. It is very difficult to keep track of say five or so characters at the same time during a conversation that includes all of them. One must include facial expressions, dialogue, body positions and changes, and perhaps the shifting background such as shadows or people in the background coming and going. Such scenes get a lot of information into a story at the same time so the author cannot concentrate on only one or two.
Do you write non-stop until you have a first draft, or do you edit as you move along?
I edit over and over and over as I write. I learned to do this because by the end of the story, I only have to reread once for typos and other errors. I usually find editing as I write, the development of scenes, characters and dialogue feel more natural and that helps me write the next scene because I have a clear picture of what is the story’s past and can safely draw on it to push the tale forward.
As a writer, what scares you the most?
Not being able to write, no matter what the cause.
Do you have an agent?
I don’t have an agent. I admit to going through a short phase of wanting one to take me under their wing, but when they said they’d read the manuscript only to return it unread or half of the pages missing or not at all, I began to think this was not for me. About that time the Internet publishers began to accept submissions and I was off. I quit sending out manuscripts and the waiting of six to twelve months or more without word from the agent and I always queried before sending to them. I learned from this experience that agents would put your work in a slush pile and at some point take another job and leave behind that pile of manuscripts without returning them or letting the author know they were moving on and the work wouldn’t. No other agent in that agency would take on the work either, even if the prior agent had requested changes that had been done. The secret of my not wanting an agent any longer was I factored in all that wasted time when I could have been submitting it to online publishers. Perhaps these were new agents, editors changing jobs and the like, but they did keep me from submitting elsewhere. I came to believe ‘you got to have an agent’ is a myth spread by agents who fear losing control of the markets. I don’t know if that’s really possible, but for myself, I lost my acceptance of their mantra. I do know you don’t need an agent to be published online by a good publisher, but you do need to submit your best work.
What is your opinion about critique groups? What words of advice would you offer a novice writer who is joining one? Do you think the wrong critique group can ‘crush’ a fledgling writer?
I think a good critique group in which the author and their work fits, such a mystery writer into a mystery critique group, is a very good tool. You not only can learn the craft better from experienced or published members of the group, but you can hone your writing and your own critiquing skills. I would advise a novice writer to ask questions to find the right group and not to join the first group that appears. Some groups are headed by a founder who is on an ego trip and who will not allow other opinions than their own. Some groups don’t seem to have a goal such as helping other writers or sharing information. Some groups have members who only offer critiques in a very negative form and nothing a writer does will please them. Those are groups to stay out of. Ask other writers in your area where to start, or perhaps the local bookstores or libraries will know. And if you join a group that does not work out, do not apologize if you feel it best to drop out. After all, you are in the group to learn.
What is the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
A good author once gave me some very basic advice and I’ve found it to be true. Keep writing. Read, read, read, and study what you read. Pay attention to your own mistakes and those of other writers and learn from them. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Learn to self edit your own work. Then keep writing.
Do you have another book on the works? Would you like to tell readers about your current or future projects?
Yes, I do have a new mystery in the works, a second in a series starring Hannah Clare. I am also looking to finish some children’s books for publication. They may end up self published because I do not want to put in a lot of time trying to make them fit publishers specific guidelines by stretching the story or changing things to suit someone else. A publisher told me and I believe correctly in referring to a story, it is what it is, and she is so right. The children’s books are written to show kids can think and make decisions without adult input. They are really people, smaller perhaps than adults, but by the time they are seven or so, they already know things they can do and can’t, how to make some decisions, and right from wrong.
