Ellyn Oaksmith's Blog, page 16

Reblogged from my Group Blog: Girlfriends Book Club: A man's perspective!

Writers: Nature or Nurture?

 We are thrilled to have something a little different to the Girlfriends Book Club today… a man.  Okay, so more than this, Grant Blackwood is the New York Times bestselling author of the Briggs Tanner series (re-releasing this month), as well as the co-author of novels with Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler and James Rollins. Thank you for visiting with us, Grant, and welcome to the club!  



By Grant Blackwood

 

Tanner Briggs Novels, coming May 27th!Do writers come into this world with the “scribe’s spark” or can it be born later through random forces in our lives?  It’s a popular and hotly debated question among writers and readers alike. 
            When I was ten, Irwin Allen style disaster movies such as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno were all the rage.  I loved them all. So I tried to write one.  Its tentative title was “Death in Airtight Tube” and it involved a undersea train tunnel that partially collapses, trapping a slew of fascinating characters in the doomed vehicle.  A decent premise, perhaps, but I hadn’t the vaguest concept of the basics — dialogue, point-of-view, exposition, and so on.  I was about a thousand words into the story when I got distracted by collecting doodle bugs in my backyard and abandoned the project.  The question is, had I decade earlier emerged into this world with the desire to tell stories?  I have no idea.  And I don’t think anyone else does either — about themselves or about anyone else.
            It wasn’t until 1987, when I was a couple months out of the Navy that I put pen to paper again (not counting high school book reports on The Catcher in the Rye and Plato’s The Republic) — or in my case, fingers to typewriter.  What came out of that chattering, White-Out guzzling machine was the first draft of my first novel, now dubbed my “sock drawer book” because that’s where it sat, deservedly unpublished, for the next five years until I lost it in a move.  It was an awful piece of writing, only better than “Death in Airtight Tube” because I managed to extort 100,000 words from the plot.  Even so, I was hooked.  The image of complete strangers glued to their chairs, entranced by a story and characters that I made from whole cloth was intoxicating.
            Now a junkie, I dove into the writing life and never looked back.  That was 27 years ago and now I’m a different person from the student who hated and was baffled by English class.  Diagram a sentence?  No thanks.  Topic sentences and transitions?  Where’s a sharp stick I can jab into my eye?  Since my mom had handed me my first Dr. Seuss book I’d loved reading, but I had no interest in how the sausage got made. 
            Somewhere between  “Death in Airtight Tube” and when I wrote “The End” on the last page of my sock drawer book all that changed.  I don’t know when or how it happened, but for the better part of my adult life I’ve been not only disassembling, studying, and resembling the sausage machine, but also the sausage itself, right down to its atomic structure.  And I’ve learned.  However, aside from the quantifiable decades of practice and trial-and-error (emphasis on the latter) I can’t tell you how, but I have given the mysterious process a name: “Writer’s Osmotic Syndrome”, or WOS.
            There seems to be a consensus that the bits and pieces that make up a great book can be through diligence learned and even mastered.  Characterization can be learned.  Dialogue can be learned.  Plotting can be learned.  All of it can be learned.   Writers that persist are proof of this.  No one sticks with an endeavor without seeing improvement.  That’s human nature — unless that is you’re Sisyphus and you’ve got no choice but to roll the boulder. 
            Given the daunting attrition rate in our business, the most pressing question is not about technique, but about the unrelenting drive it takes to succeed as a writer.  Is this quintessential ingredient sewn into our DNA before we first open our eyes, or can you plant the seed yourself?  Certainly no one can do it for you, or teach it to you, but I say desire can indeed be self-sewn.  And self-nurtured. 
            The problem is, along the way struggling writers often hear that you’re either born with it or you’re not.  Rarely is this enigmatic “it” explained; nor the reasoning behind the the axiom.   This should be a red flag for writers.  And as most writers are saddled with a stubborn streak the size of Montana, let such red flags be to you what red flags are to bulls.  Charge at anything with “No” emblazoned across it.
            The tiniest of sparks can be coaxed into a furnace. 

            Writer’s Osmotic Syndrome applies even to desire.

Grant Blackwood is #1 New York Times bestselling author. His latest, The Kill Switch, co-writtenwith NYT bestselling author James Rollins released this week! He’ll be relaunching his Briggs Tanner series on May 27th. For more information visit Grant’s website, GrantBlackwood.com.

Sneak Peak of New Book and Congrats to Two Winners!

Maraina Brown and Twoina Hager both won copies of my current title. Congrats ladies! Divine Moves

Here's a sneak peak at my new manuscript FIFTY ACTS OF KINDNESS...

First line: "It happened on a fair June morning, as most horrible things do."

http://ellynoaksmith.tumblr.com/post/...

Book Review of One of My Favorite Contemporary Authors

The Gap Year by Sarah Bird

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I cannot believe that other readers didn't enjoy this as much as I did. Nothing I've read by Sarah Bird bores me in the slightest even when I find the subject matter tedious. In this book, as in all her others I've read, she manages to make her subjects and her world come alive. Perhaps a mother fearing the departure of her only child bothered some people but I found her suffocating attitude hilarious and poignant. And the daughter and her high school world struck me as realistic although I certainly didn't attend this type of high school. Bird was dead on with the antagolistic/tighly knit/complicated world of mothers and daughters.

Most interesting of all was the story of the football hero and unraveling his past. All the characters stories come together in a riveting ending that made me sad when this book ended.

Bird's writing is suffused with humor and tenderness. She's so talented. Loved this book.



View all my reviews

CELEBRATING INTERNATIONAL CHICK LIT MONTH WITH A 99 CENT E-BOOK SALE

May is finally here! The weather's warming up, your cute new bathing suit's all ready to go, and you've got the kitchen stocked with fixins for your favorite fruity cocktails. The only thing missing is the perfect book to read while you're soaking up some Vitamin D at the beach or pool. Good thing May is also International Chick Lit Month! To celebrate, some of the genre's funniest and most talented authors are offering their lighthearted, romantic reads for $0.99 each! So, load up your eReader and slather on the sunscreen, because your new book boyfriends are waiting for you under the umbrella . . .

This sale will last through Mother's Day on May 11th!

Find all 26 of the Chick Lit books that are on sale on Pinterest or click on the Amazon links below:

http://traciebanister.blogspot.com/20...

"A great book that you think is about marriage but really is about perfect imperfection." - 5 Star Amazon review

Free e-book today 4/20. Ends tonight.



http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Moves-El...

Free e-book ONE DAY -- Sat. 3/22 Divine Moves

http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Moves-El...

Hanging out Waiting for my New Book

.... to be posted on Goodreads so I can start the giveaway. Takes 10 minutes. Check out this giveaway, which I'm going to load up as soon as Goodreads works their uploading magic or this one :https://www.facebook.com/EllynOaksmit...

(Blue Giveaway button at the top of the page.) Either way it's a chance at 2 free paperbacks.

Good luck and Happy Monday!

Enter to Win two Copies of Divine Moves -- the paperback

Finally, the paperback copy of Divine Moves is arriving! Enter to win one of two paperback copies on https://www.facebook.com/EllynOaksmith

Here's the e-book link and reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Divine-Moves-El...

Good luck!

Ellyn

A Review of Divine Moves from Rockin' and Reviewing

Well, I can honestly say I don't think I have ever quite a book quite like this, and I loved every second of it! The characters were great, lovable, and the best part very realistic for me. I feel as though I connected with them all on some level, feeling their joy and pain, the spectrum of emotions that flashed through me
corresponding to theirs. The plot was something I don't think I have ever read before, which is interesting considering this stuff probably happens somewhere everyday. The plot twists kept me up on my toes, one thing leading up to the next seamlessly without me even thinking the story could possibly head that way. I laughed, almost cried, and fell in love with this book as my companion. There's romance, rekindling of old relationships, hopeful new ones, trouble kids, sexy dancing and just an all around good time. Ellyn had done a fantastic job of melding comedy into a story of love, heartbreak, pain, and rediscovering who you are by making amends with the past to hopefully pave the way for a better kick ass tomorrow.

See the full post on: http://valkyri3fatality.blogspot.com/...

My Life as a Zookeeper

Mothering teens is like being a zookeeper where the animals think they are smarter. Also, these animals won’t eat vegetables. In fact if you dangle a piece of broccoli in front of them, they shrink back, like vampires in front of a crucifix. I think one of them even hissed.

Being a woman with teens, who waited until her 30’s for motherhood is a cruel trick of nature. You have the maturity and patience to deal with these creatures but every day is a tiny hit on your ego. Just when your daughters are coming into the full bloom of their beauty, with skin like rose pedals, your skin is folding like a shar pei. When you see new wrinkles, your daughters see them too. But unlike you, your daughters will casually talk about them in general conversation as if you’ve purchased a particularly un-flattering pair of jeans. But rather than let them know that the new topography of your skin bothers you, you decide to play if off like wrinkles are the new black - everyone looks good in them.

The best attitude, I’ve found about aging is to think of the alternative. Death. Death has no second act and while the happily ever after aspect of death is something many people debate, I’m not quite ready for it.

I’d like to live long enough to see my daughters get a few wrinkles. Then I can die happy.

For more funny blog posts please visit:
http://ellynoaksmith.tumblr.com/