Category: Creative Writing

Interview with Canadian writer, Michael Saad

Saad.athis.desk)An Interview with………Michael Saad has been writing almost his entire life.  He is about to release  his first full length novel,  All the Devils Are Here.  He  lives in Lethbridge, Alberta.  A teacher by day, a writer by night, this is a fascinating journey of how Mike fits it all into 24 hours.

Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.

MS. I write in my ‘man-cave’ as my family so affectionately calls it. It is my own, customized room in the house filled with items that fuel my imagination.  Everything from Star Wars posters & memorabilia (yes, I’m a wannabe Jedi – I’m totally a child of the 1980s…), historical paintings, nature portraits, my favorite books, and hockey artifacts.  Every writer needs his or her own, customized work space, whatever that is, and it needs to be tailor-made by the writer, and for each writer that’s different, but it’s so important.

I didn’t always have my man-cave.  In the past, as a university student, my writing was best done in a little cubicle in the basement of my old university library.  It wasn’t customized and was quite drab, but it was my space and I did my best writing there.  Continue reading “Interview with Canadian writer, Michael Saad”

Motivational Moments….for Writers! #4

2A.girl.write..mouse_1Writers! Jump-start your day with more Motivational Moments!

If you are a relatively new writer, start by writing about something you know.  Maybe a family story.  Talk to your grandparents about their life experiences.  My mother and her 12 siblings have been an endless reservoir of stories for me.  The length doesn’t matter when you first begin to write.  Be a good storyteller.


“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a
good children’s story in the slightest.” ~C.S. Lewis

If I hear an adult chuckle when reading my children’s books, I know I’ve done a good job. 

 

 “I dream my paintings, then I paint my dreams.” ~ Van Gogh  Dream your story and then write it!

“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” ~ e  e cummings

 

‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’  Trisha Sugarek
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Motivational Moments….for Writers! #3

 

Oh, so you think you will just write all day and wonderful things will happen?  Think again, grasshopper.  If you’re a one-man-band like myself and most other indie authors, you will have to wear an editor, publicist, marketing and publishing hat, just to name a few.
It takes hard work and then some more hard work.  But here’s the payoff:  After four years…yep..you heard me right…of consistent blogging with relevant content, supporting other writers, and interviewing authors so much more famous than I am (well, I’m not famous at all) my posts (blog) are on page ONE of Google search and my books are selling.  This year a traditional publisher picked up my true crime series of books.  Don’t misunderstand, when you get a publisher DO NOT stop publishing your indie books.  And most important of all: KEEP WRITING!

Alan.1PE2Y  “If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.” Alan Rickman, actor

“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.”  John Wayne

 

 

                                                ‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’  Trisha Sugarek
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS! In April, a long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) May’s author was Jordan Rosenfeld.  Michael Saad, Canadian author, will be June’s author. Robyn Carr is July’s author.

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Motivational Moments… for Writers! #1

2A.girl.write..mouse_1Writers!  Start your day with a little writer’s jump-start.  You can do it!

Procrastination is just a word.  Write one new word, one new sentence.  Breath!  That sentence should make you want to write another.

What?  Why? When? How? Where does that sentence lead you? Breathe. It doesn’t have to be perfect…it’s the first draft.  That’s what re-writes are for.

‘Writers aren’t exactly people, they’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.’
– F. Scott Fitzgerald


Sign up for my blog and receive your ‘Motivational Moments‘ twice a week! Simple: type your email address in the box on my Home page (top/right). Click on ‘subscribe’.writer

 

‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’  Trisha Sugarek

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS! In April, a long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) May’s author is Jordan Rosenfeld.  Michael Saad, Canadian author, will be June’s author. Robyn Carr is July’s 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!

Writers! Leave Yourself Open To Stories!

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you know that I am a proponent of keeping yourself open to life, stories, and snippets of tales.

shrimp-and-gritsI recently heard this question asked of a West African chef, “How did you feel when you heard a fat, rich, white woman (cooking show) claim that her recipe had been handed down from  generation to generation in her family? When actually the dish (Shrimp and grits) has been cooked on the west coast of Africa for hundreds of years?”
The answer?
The chef/host who was giving an intimate dinner party in his home in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa (each syllable drips with mystery, fish.senegaldoesn’t it?) smiled and said, “Gratitude that our cuisine lives on and is enjoyed in the United States.”

And Gumbo is another example. Louisiana claims it originated there. A poor man’s dish. Ingredients: Fish/seafood from the river out back, tomatoes and other veggies from the garden, a roux from pork drippings,(from the pig pen out back) butter  and flour.  Again, Africa via France and brought to the south with the Cajuns.

When I heard this conversation (above) what this writer’s ears heard was:  “MamaBelle, cook up some of your shrimp and grits as a side dish for my guests!”  The fine lady, from the senegal.Mamabellmansion on the hill, had walked down to the kitchen house to talk about the menu for her dinner party.  MamaBelle had been the head cook on the plantation for decades but still had knife-sharp memories of arriving in Georgia, bound in shackles, barely surviving the trip on the slave ship from West Africa. Put on the block for auction, teeth examined, hips examined (for breeding) stripped naked. Being marched miles and miles to the plantation. Working the fields until it was discovered that she was of better use in the kitchen. Living through the horror of her children being sold off when the Masta’ needed ready cash. Continue reading “Writers! Leave Yourself Open To Stories!”

Time For More Famous Quotes

1a.Headshot.TS.259x300It’s been quite some time since I gave my readers some of my favorite quotes from famous writers…those people that inspire me to be a better one.  Maybe this weekend, after reading these, YOU will write something new or go back and rewrite something old or write a piece of poetry that you were afraid to lay down on paper.

Or maybe these quotes will just make you smile…

Kipling‘I keep six honest serving men. (They taught me all I know); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.- Rudyard Kipling  (I can’t let this go by without commenting on Kipling’s colloquial term of ‘honest serving men’. He spent decades in India.)

‘I have this feeling of wending my way or plundering through a mysterious jungle of possibilities when I am writing. This jungle has not been explored by previous writers. Istaffordt never will be explored. It’s endlessly varying as we progress through the experience of time. These words that occur to me come out of my relation to the language which is developing even as I am using it.’- William Stafford (I am particularly fond of this quote.)

‘In Ireland, a writer is looked upon as a failed conversationalist.’- Anonymous

Reade‘Make ’em laugh; make ’em cry; make ’em wait.’- Charles Reade

‘No tears and the writer, no tears and the reader.’Frost– Robert Frost

Bukowski.
take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the beginning. ~Charles Bukowski
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Elizabeth Barrett Browning ‘Many a fervid man writes books as cold and flat as graveyard stones.’- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

‘This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back again.’- Oscar Wilde

 

green‘Thought flies and words go on foot.’- Julien Green  (this is why I type 80 words a minute)

 

‘What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.’- Logan Pearsall Smith
‘Writers aren’t exactly people, they’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.’
– F. Scott Fitzgeraldfitzgerald

‘The truth is, we’ve not really developed a fiction that can accommodate the full tumult, the zaniness and crazed quality of modern experience.’- Saul Bellow

‘Writing is one of the easiest things: erasing is one of the hardest.’- Rabbi Israel Salanter

Bukowski.
‘The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.’ – Charles Bukowski

 

1.Creative.Write.BookCoverImage
Journal/Handbook by Trisha Sugarek

 

and I’ll finish with a not-so-famous quote:
‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’   Trisha Sugarek
……that is, when I’m not beating up the writer in me with a large stick in the shape of a pencil. 
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DON’T MISS BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with  best-selling AUTHORS!   In April, a long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) May’s author is Jordan Rosenfeld.  Michael Saad, Canadian author, will be June’s author.

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An Interview * Author, Kathleen Grissom

Grissom.studioTS. It took me awhile but, with a little perseverance, I finally caught Kathleen Grissom with a few free moments and she gave me the interview I have been nagging her for.  Grin!  Glory Over Everything, the sequel to The Kitchen House has just been released so this is perfect timing to visit Kathleen while she writes.

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

KG. I have a writing room above my garage, separate from the house. It is a wonderful space with lots of light, desks and bulletin boards galore.Writing.Grissom.Desktop pic There, along with pertinent reminders, I post pictures of my research that shed light on my work in progress.

Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)

KG. For my first draft I always begin with a stack of fresh legal pads from Staples and a stash of Paper Mate mechanical pencils – my favorite. A glass of water is always at my side.

Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?

KG. I once raised Cashmere goats. I meant to spin the cashmere, but I had no idea how difficult and time consuming that was to do. After we sold the farm, the goats went to live on another farm with my goat mentor, a woman who knew more about goats than anyone else I have ever known. But I still have some fiber stored away in bags.

Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?

KG. I would not write a word if I waited for the creative spark to strike. Continue reading “An Interview * Author, Kathleen Grissom”

Glory Over Everything by Kathleen Grissom ** A Review

reviews, authors, writingreviews, authors, writingreviews, authors, writingreviews, authors, writingreviews, authors, writing 5 out of 5 quills     A REVIEW
Glory Over Everything by Kathleen GrissomGlory.Everything.book

Volumes have been written about America’s Civil War and we have been led to believe it was ALL about slavery.  In this writer’s opinion, when it comes to politics it’s never that simple or pure.  Power, economics, global presence also played a part in our civil war.

Little has been written about the southern states and slavery that is so profoundly beautiful as The Kitchen House and now, the long awaited, Glory Over Everything.

We join Jamie Pyke again and watch his struggle with ‘living white’. The natural son of a plantation owner and his kitchen slave. How does one conciliate oneself to the deception when all about them is the horror of slavery?  It all comes tumbling down when Jamie is compelled to keep a promise and travels back to the South that he had once escaped from.  Will he be so lucky a second time?

Recently, as I prepared my interview (coming later this month, April) with this stellar writer, I commented to Kathleen that her writing was pure prose.  She replied, “Thank you.  My mentor was a poet.”  Continue reading “Glory Over Everything by Kathleen Grissom ** A Review”

Cursive Writing. A Thing of the Past?

My brother, Jack, (84) recently reprimanded his great grandson for his terrible penmanship. He complained that he couldn’t read what the boy had hand written. Jason’s reply was, “Paw-Paw, I don’t need to know how to write, everything iscursive.hand done on the computer. My brother was outraged. But, it got me to thinking, is cursive writing a thing of the past?

If you are over forty, you remember you had classes in penmanship and spelling.  Those are not classes offered or required in many schools. It’s hard to get my head around this. A beautiful ‘hand’ (penmanship) was the benchmark of a well educated person, a refined person. And it doesn’t matter anymore. Okay, I can’t remember when I last received a hand written letter, I’ll admit.
Educator Weston Kincade, English teacher at the Akron Digital Academy, weighs in on the cursive writing debate to offer his opinion on why such instruction is not needed in the classrooms of today’s society. To Kincade, cursive writing instruction is outdated and therefore a waste of time. “The technological revolution that started in the 1970s and ’80s brought many new types of written communication: email, texting, Continue reading “Cursive Writing. A Thing of the Past?”

Writers, What To Do When You Get a Bad Review?

book.reviewWhat you don’t do is contact the Reviewer to debate with them why.  No matter how much the review stings, no matter how much you disagree with it, NEVER, NEVER contact the Reviewer.  Put your big-person panties on and DEAL with IT! When you do respond to a review; complaining about the unfairness of the review, how the Reviewer got it wrong, and how you are the best writer since sliced bread, YOU simply come across as an AMATEUR!

What you should do is learn from the critique.  Take the criticism to heart and see how the Reviewer’s points can make YOU a better writer.  Sure, we’d all like only rave reviews all of the time, a couple of best sellers and loads of money.  But that just ain’t how it works, folks.  As writers we must be open to suggestions, criticism, and growth no matter how painful.

I recently interviewed a very interesting writer and following the interview I reviewed her book.  An honest opinion (by me) about how the book could be better.  Here is her response in an email: Continue reading “Writers, What To Do When You Get a Bad Review?”