Category: A Writer’s Take……

Don’t Miss Part 2 of ‘Spanish Camp’

This Saturday my post will continue the story of our hunting/camping trip into the Primitive Area of the Cascade Mtns. in Washington state.  22 miles by horseback, dropped at a camp site off the trail by the guide.  His parting words were, “See you in two weeks.  If you need help it’s a two mile walk to the forest ranger’s station that’a way.  Good luck!” 

meadowFifty-two years ago and the memories are as if the trip was last week.  Beautiful primitive mountains surrounded the meadow we camped in.  Springs and ponds dotted the landscape.  A day’s hike would have found us in Canada.

More on Saturday!  See you then!

 

 
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!

In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!    Dean Koontz is my June author.

To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  On the home page, enter your email address.  Thanks!

Nostalgia….Spanish Camp (Part 1)

We left the $11. a night motel just outside of Winthrop, a sleepy little town in the eastern foothills of the Cascade Mountains. winthrop We had to be at the corral by 6AM sharp.  The pavement became dirt four miles out of town and we drove the last few miles dodging pot holes and rocks.  It was September 10, 1962. Nestled amongst quaking aspen trees just off the road was a large fenced corral.  Pick up trucks were parked haphazardly about and men were off loading horse-pack gear and tack.  As we parked, our guide walked over and introduced himself.  He reiterated that we could take as much as we liked to insure our comfort at the camp site.  We had taken him at his word.  We had packed a camp stove that was made from a half 25 gallon barrel, stove pipe and all.  Our large canvas tent slept four even though there was only the two of us. Camp chairs and a folding table.  Sleeping bags, extra pillows, Army folding cots so we could sleep off the ground and gun cases.  We were traveling in style. Continue reading “Nostalgia….Spanish Camp (Part 1)”

Winners Announced Later Today!

fiction, women, flappers, prohibition, San Francisco, roaring twentiesThe Winners of the Weekend Book Give-away will be announced later today.  If you are a winner, drop us a message and tell us whether  you want a signed paperback or an audio version of your book.  For a paperback, we will need your mailing address.

CONGRATULATIONS to OUR WINNERS!  Like my page so you don’t miss future drawings!

After reading Wild Violets, I would really appreciate your writing a short review on www.amazon.com.  It helps the book’s rankings.  Thank you for all the ‘likes’ and ‘follows’!

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!

In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!    Dean Koontz is my June author.

To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  On the home page, enter your email address.  Thanks!

FREE BOOK Give-a-way!! This weekend!

fiction, women, flappers, prohibition, San Francisco, roaring twentiesIt’s easy to win a copy of my novel, “WILD VIOLETS” this weekend.   Just  1) LIKE my page at www.facebook.com/writeratplay  2)  start FOLLOWING me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/writeratplay4.  and 3) SHARE this Post.      Tweet me or ‘message’ me with your entry.

The (5) prize books are available, to the winners,  in audio or a signed paperback.  Winners will be selected randomly.

 “Wild Violets”   It’s the roaring twenties in San Francisco, a decade famous for hot jazz and bath tub gin. 

After  documenting my mother’s colorful childhood in the primordial forests of Washington State, I went on to write about Violet as a grown woman with children of her own.  She has left her small home town in the Pacific Northwest to pursue a successful basketball career and with her earnings, she bought a bar and grill.   She is a ‘flapper’ in every sense of the word; working all day and playing all night.  While her teenage daughter raises her seven year old son, Violet is out on the town with her latest man de’jour. Dressed in her signature red dress, she is the toast of the town and owner of a speakeasy where she hosts the cream of San Francisco’s society, city politicians, bishops, and Hollywood celebrities.

But there is an underbelly of corruption, grifters, the mob, excess, and neglect in Violet’s life.  Her two children are an afterthought and she chooses her men over their well being time and time again.  Their childhood needs are always trumped by her self-indulgent desires.   The two children are possessions that she can put down or pick up again on a whim, showing them off to her current beau or friends and then forgotten.  And when they get in her way, she gets rid of them.
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Wild Violets- Prologue   Sample AUDIO
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!

In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!    Dean Koontz is my June author.

To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  On the home page, enter your email address.  Thanks!

Kurt Vonnegut had a Few Rules….

Vintg.2            I am in the middle of creating a Journal – Workbook for Creative Writing.   There are six sections, ‘How to Begin’, ‘How to Write Fiction’, How to Write a Stage Play’ and more.  I also included inspiring quotes from famous authors and playwrights as well as poets.  It’s more than a journal, although the owner of the book will have well over 260 blank pages in which to create and write.

While I do not profess to be the ‘expert’ when it comes to writing I did want to share with you, in this Journal, some tools that you can use when you sit down to write. I don’t know about you, but I am so inspired when reading the work of another author that I admire, that I also included many fascinating quotes.

“I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.” Ernest Hemingway Continue reading “Kurt Vonnegut had a Few Rules….”

Interview with Loretta Chase, best selling author (part 2)

Q.  When did you begin to write seriously? LC & Puccini May 2011

A.  As soon as I learned to write.  As a small child, I used to tell stories.  Some people called these lies.  Truth—lies—all the same to me.  But I remember I couldn’t wait to learn to read & write.  As soon as I had the alphabet and some vocabulary under my belt—Look!  See!  Go!—I was writing.  It did not stop.  Journals, letters, poetry, and interminable Great American Novel.  But the GAN never got finished, probably because I did not know how to write a story.  I didn’t get my head wrapped around story structure until I started writing scripts for corporate video.  One of my producers(the man I eventually married) got me to admit I wanted to become a novelist (like Charles Dickens!).  As part of his cunning Get Rich Slow Scheme, he persuaded or tricked or taunted me—I’m still not quite sure what happened—to work up the nerve to write a book for publication.

Q. How long after that were you published?

A. Contrary to all the laws of publishing, the first novel I wrote from beginning to end was accepted by the first publisher I sent it to.  Un-agented.  Over the transom.  Those were the days. Continue reading “Interview with Loretta Chase, best selling author (part 2)”

Interview with best selling author, Loretta Chase (part 1)

LOretta.IMG_0823 Seems like I’ve been chasing Loretta around forever for an interview, but it turns out that she’s just been busy writing and traveling.  I am delighted that we re-connected and she has shared this wonderful look into her writing process and experiences.

 Q.  Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? 

A. I have a room set aside.  It’s about ¼ the size I need.  I dream of a barn, to be converted into a studio, with miles of bookshelves and a vast wall space for my historical maps.

Q.  Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? 

A.  A cup of tea or coffee.  Then I panic.  Then I run out of the room & find something else to do.  Then I return, maybe write something, panic, and so on.  My work area is always in chaos, and putting things away provides a superior method of procrastinating.

Q.  What is your mode of writing? 

A.  Years ago it was longhand.  Now I work mainly at the computer, occasionally reverting to longhand when writing in bed, imagining I’m Marcel Proust or Edith Sitwell .  This tends to happen when my brain needs to get unstuck. Continue reading “Interview with best selling author, Loretta Chase (part 1)”

What Inspired Me to Write a Play? part 2

Let’s see, where did we leave off?  As you can see by now truth is sometimes stranger than fiction….why make stuff up when the true stories are just standing there in front of you…waiting for you to write a play about them?  Or not….because about this time Cheets, the effervescent elf came into my life! 

greed, ecology, elves, warlords, love, friendship‘The Fabled Forest Series‘ was brought to me by my friend, Cheets, about three in the morning to be exact.  He put his over-sized elf feet in the middle of my back and pushed.  Yelling in my ear,  ‘Cheets has a story….write about Cheets!’
By the time I crawled out of bed, made a cup of tea and stumbled to my keyboard he was skipping along beside me, telling me about his friends in the fabled forest and about the unicorn that they must save.  No, I’m not crazy  (or if I am, I’m in very good company)  and yes I do hear voices (again, good company).  A few years and four children’s plays later ‘Emma and the Lost Unicorn‘ was produced outside of Boston.  The little actors in the show pleaded with me to write them story books based upon the plays.  That was my launch from playwright to author.

Two summers ago I was talking with some teachers and they were bemoaning the fact that ‘the arts’ budget was non-existent at theirteen run aways, running away, teenagers, classroom, short plays schools; anything that they wanted to do in that area; paints, music, scripts,  was out of  their own pocket I thought, what if I wrote several 10 minute plays for the class room, made them affordable, no sets, no costumes, no props?  Twenty-six scripts later and it’s definitely been a hit. While I did write some fun ones, I quickly learned that I needed to write about teen issues in real life.  Bullying, mean girls, dating violence, divorce, drugs, running away, cyber-bullies…the list goes on and on.

And as I am not a mystery writer but do love to stretch my creative wings, I thought I’d throw in a murder mystery play into the collection.  I knew the kids in the classroom would love it.   “The Art of Murder” was born.  Then some well meaning friends told me, after reading the play, “But what happened to Monty?” and “Who killed her?”  “You have got to tell us the rest of the story!”

‘Okay, okay!  I’ll write a novella for you.’   Well, it went pretty well and my friends and fans seemed to like it.  Just one problem, they came back again and told me,  “You’ve got a series here!  We want more of O’Roarke and Garcia, your murder cops!”   I objected:  ‘I’m not a mystery writer!’   Well, apparently I am since I’m currently writing the fifth in the series!Act.Murder.Cover.Book3

Book 2 takes place back stage on Broadway……so we’ve come full circle!

Want to read more?  Click here to read Part 1

 

 

 

 

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!

In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  An Interview with Loretta Chase on May 29th.   Dean Koontz is my June author.

To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  On the home page, enter your email address.  Thanks!

Don’t Miss My Interview with author, Loretta Chase

IMG_1910Thursday, May 29th begins my exciting and refreshing interview with best selling author, Loretta Chase.

LC.      “My career at Clark University was not short. After earning a B.A. in only twice the usual time, I stayed on to work in clerical, administrative, and part-time teaching posts. There were other real jobs along the way: stints with jewelry and clothing retailers, and a Dickensian six-month experience as a meter maid.

 But my main business in life was writing. This is why I majored in English instead of something useful that would lead to a real job with an actual salary. English majors must read mountains of books and write reams of papers. If only they would have paid me for being an English major, my life would have been perfect…….”   (courtesy of her web site)
  Coming Soon!  Loretta’s newest book  Released June 24th

The Wide Side of Drink

I had a Bukowski moment yesterday morning, as I am wont to do, probably more often than is healthy.  But, what can I say?   He’s a heavy influence in this poet’s life.   This just flowed from my brain into my fingers, onto the page.   I don’t have any drunks in my life,  I haven’t been in a bar in a long, long time, and I don’t know anyone  who can’t remember to zip up.  More than anyone else in my life, reading Charles Bukowski allows me to be free.  So whether my readers can relate or not, ENJOY!!  (Viewer discretion advised.)

the wide side of drink    ©  T.Sugarek

smooth amber against the tongue
ice cubes wetly thump each other
life smooths out

bigger self
bigger car
bigger life
bigger dick
bigger mouth

drive slow
pretend to be sober
fall out of the car
drop the keys on
the cold asphalt

harass the band
they won’t let the drunk play
join the music in a braying voice

dance on the bar
break glasses
fight the bouncers
grab the girls

bigger self
bigger car
bigger life
bigger dick
bigger mouth

piss against a tree
mumble something astounding
forget to zip up
where’s my car for chisshakes?

kill the family
unlucky enough to be
driving home
at the same time

bigger self
bigger car
bigger life
bigger dick
bigger mouth

after, he hobbles down the road
with a few bruised ribs and two scratches,
he steps carefully over the carnage

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” ~ Dr. Seuss

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!

In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!    Dean Koontz is my June author.

To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  On the home page, enter your email address.  Thanks!