Lynn Sholes's Blog - Posts Tagged "blog-hop"

I was a senior in high school when I attended an assembly that had an enduring impact on dreams of my future. I remember hearing the introduction of the guest speaker, James Michener. I was totally mesmerized. In my mind this man seemed to consume the entire stage with his presence. I had read Hawaii and there, right before me, stood the man who had written it. I recall looking at him with such wonder and thinking, wow, that’s what I want to do. I want to be a writer.
Years crept by, filled with excuses for putting off my aspiration.
The first attempt was an experiment to see if I could sustain 100,000 words. I did. I stored the completed manuscript in a box where it still remains for my eyes only. During that time I learned a lot about myself as a writer and also that the typewriter thing wasn’t working out for me. I needed a computer. So, on the way home from work one day I stopped at a computer store, told the sales person I wanted one of those (an Apple IIc), a printer, and software. My whole family was in shock when I unboxed it and set it up in the dining room. That night when everyone had gone to bed, I planted myself in front of the tiny green screen excited to begin my book. To my horror I realized I didn’t have anything to say, no story to tell.
Luckily, I was participating with the Broward County Archaeological Society in digs and salvages. One day as I scraped away layers of black muck with my trowel, I uncovered an interesting artifact. The find that intrigued me that day was a lovely polished columella pendant (the columella is the center spiral of a conch shell). I created a story about how a man had given the pendant to the woman he loved. As I spun the story, I realized this was the seed of the novel I was going to write. At last I had a something to say. The result was WOMAN OF THE MISTS and the 5 others in THE EDGE OF THE NEW WORLD SERIES.
After writing six historical fiction books, I teamed up with Joe Moore to write thrillers. When we first tried, it was a train wreck. Our voices were totally different. Mine was much more lyrical and his was bold action. Finally we backed up and constructed a 50-page outline before trying to write the story. Our first book was THE GRAIL CONSPIRACY, the first in Cotton Stone series.
Cotten Stone is still very dear to us. We loved writing stories about her. We wrote the ending for THE 731 LEGACY, the last in the series, two different ways and it wasn’t until the very end before submitting it to the publisher, did we decide which end to keep.
We have continued to write thrillers. All titles include: THE GRAIL CONSPIRACY, THE LAST SECRET, THE HADES PROJECT, THE 731 LEGACY, THE PHOENIX APOSTLES, THE BLADE, and our most recent, THE SHIELD.