December 2015 #2 Mod Read FULL IRISH and HALF IRISH

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December #2 Mod Read:

Title: Full Irish
Author: Pete Morin, Suzanne O'Leary

Title: Half Irish
Author: Pete Morin, Suzanne O'Leary

Facilitator: Mallory Heart

[Pete]

Well ain’t this a nice surprise.

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Consider it an early Christmas:)

[Pete]

So what do we do now?

Wake everyone up?

Shall I deposit boxes of tomatoes at the door?

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Ring church bells? :) I'll start on FULL IRISH tomorrow.

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Reading now--wondering, "Why did i wait so long to read this?':)

Very intriguing, fast-paced, liked the reader's hook--appreciate that the authors clarify and don't obscure the confusing subjects of American government procurement and Irish government.

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Here is the GR synopsis:

"
A Dublin reporter is on a mission to find the murderer of an honest politician and close friend. A Boston lawyer is hired to dig up dirt on a conniving Irish competitor. When the two collide at a famous County Kerry castle and discover their mutual interests, the ensuing game plan is more Pink Panther than Hercule Poirot. Full Irish marks the return of Paul Forté and his wife, Shannon, and the introduction of Finola McGee. In a sometimes madcap, sometimes dark adventure, Shannon lands a blow against lecherous politicians, McGee shows off her pole dancing prowess, an Anglo-Irish butler turns double-agent, and the zygomatic bone takes disproportionate abuse. But can the trio unravel the web of conspiracy stretching from the back corridors of Leinster House to the polished inner sanctum of the Massachusetts Senate? Against the backdrop of the windswept west coast of Ireland and the watering holes of Dublin and Boston, Full Irish exposes a rivalry that goes to the very heart of politics. "

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I totally recommend !

I also recommend turning off your tv and your phone before you pick it up. Here's my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Pete]

Thank you for that, Mallory!

Quite an interesting (and sometimes trying) experience, writing a novel with someone on the other side of an ocean.

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Pete, please tell us more about that process. I've never been able to wrap my mind around the co-authoring process at all, so I'm fascinated to learn more, if you will, sir.

[Pete]

Well, here’s the “short" version: I realized after writing 2 novels (one unpublished) that it takes me too long to make up a story. Like, years.

In the current publishing climate, that will not do. So I solicited for a co-author, and Susanne O’Leary, an Irish author of romantic comedy whom I had known from Authonomy, chimed in. She had co-authored two mystery spoof novels with Ola Saltin, a Swedish author and one of the best writers I know. She assured me that she was a plotting machine.

First is inventing the story - at least enough of it so that your pantsing isn’t totally random. What would have taken me three months to wrangle through (with Full Irish) took exactly two days. I wrote the Boston scenes, she wrote the Ireland scenes, and we swapped drafts of each chapter written to insure a nice fit. If there was a plot wrinkle we had to work through, we got on Skype and solved it. Beginning to end, it took us 6 months to completion and 8 to publication. My previous two had been 2.5 years.

I think the principal dispute we had at the outset was that Susanne wrote romantic comedy, chiefly, and she had a habit of writing female characters who were kind of ditzy. Initially, Finola McGee was a sort of female Falstaff (minus the booze), and I objected to that and insisted that a news editor for a major paper would be savvy, and would take no crap from anyone. I ended up rewriting a good bit of Finola to make her stronger.

Since there were two different writing styles (not radically different, but enough), one of us had to do a comb-through to smooth things out and insure consistency, while leaving the Irish flavor intact.

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Thank you so much, Pete! I admire authors who can manage it. Full Irish seems seamless to me.