Fiction for Adults Archives - Page 13 of 15 - Trisha Sugarek, Author, Playwright & Poet

Trisha Sugarek, Guest Blogger on FreshFiction.com TODAY!

This author is a guest blogger on FreshFiction.com TODAY! Telling the story behind “The Art of Murder” and how it went from an idea to a book to a series. Trish is currently working on book 2, “The Dance of Murder” in the series The World of Murder.

Click here: http://freshfiction.com/page.php?id=5447

Murder mysteries, gift ideas, New York, crime — Book 1 of The World of Murder series

Win a chance to receive, FREE, one of Trisha’s latest novels.

In a special ‘give away’ 10 visitors to FreshFiction.com will win a book, “Wild Violets” or “The Art of Murder”.

“Wild Violets” is also available in Audio Books!

Sure’n It’s Off to an Irish Village, You’ll be goin’…an Interview with author, Patrick Taylor (1 of 2)

This blogger was in her home place of Ireland for a month….and each time I read another ‘Country Doctor’ book by this author, I revisit the home of my heart. Patrick has given me this opportunity to interview one of my top favorite authors!

AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR, PATRICK TAYLOR

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

A. In my study when at home. In rented accommodation when we winter in California.

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.)

A. No. I usually sort out the admin stuff like e-mail then edit what I wrote yesterday and then get on with the new stuff.

Q. What is your mode of writing? (long hand? Pencil? Computer? Etc.)

A. Computer. I used to be a doctor. Nobody can read my handwriting—including me.

Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative? Continue reading “Sure’n It’s Off to an Irish Village, You’ll be goin’…an Interview with author, Patrick Taylor (1 of 2)”

Don’t Miss my Interview with author, Patrick Taylor! Begins this Tuesday!

AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR, PATRICK TAYLOR begins this Tuesday, Nov. 5th in a two part Nov. 7th.

To Read My Review Click here

You needn’t Suffer Waiting for the New Season of Downton Abbey — a Review

REVIEW (5 out of 5 quills)

HEIRS and GRACES Newest book in the Royal Spyness series
by Rhys Bowen

Impoverished, royal Georgiana Rannoch is set another task by HRM, the Queen. ‘Get thee gone….’to a grand country house and help an uncooperative Heir adjust to his new station in life and a mammoth fortune. Said heir, Jack, has been snatched from a sheep station in Australia, brought to England, and is the most reluctant of future Dukes.

‘Jack jumped to his feet. “How can you talk calmly of eating when your son is dead and everyone thinks I stabbed him?” he shouted.
“Such an outburst, the dowager Duchess said. “Hardly seemly for a duke, John. Really you will have to learn to control your emotions. Of course I’m upset at the loss of my son. I am outraged that somebody chose to murder him. But I am also aware that it is up to us to set a good example, chin up, best foot forward and all that. This household will continue as usual, except for the fact that we be in mourning for the requisite amount of time….’ Continue reading “You needn’t Suffer Waiting for the New Season of Downton Abbey — a Review”

Best selling Author, Jeffery Deaver…an Interview (part 2)

JD: “Mickey Spillane once told me: “People don’t read books to get to the middle. They read to get to the end.”

Part 2 of my Interview with author, Jeffery Deaver

Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?

A. I’m not sure I completely understand this question. If you mean the work process, I can tell you that I spend the better part of a year to create a detailed outline for my novels. Because my thrillers are so plot-driven, it’s important for me to know exactly where the story is going before I begin writing it. My outlines run hundreds of pages long and are the most difficult part of the writing process, but the most important. The outlines are where I work out all the twists and turns in the story. Once I finish the outline, writing the novel is fairly easy and only takes a few months. It takes about a year for me to write a novel, although some years I write two novels a year. Continue reading “Best selling Author, Jeffery Deaver…an Interview (part 2)”

An Interview with Jeffery Deaver…Best selling author of murder mysteries

Multi-talented, murder mystery best selling author, JEFFERY DEAVER shares his writing life with us………

“I never took classes. There aren’t any books that I would recommend. The best way to learn about writing is to study the work of other writers you admire.”

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

A. Usually I write in an office in my house. But, I write pretty much anywhere — on planes, in hotel rooms, anywhere in my house. (My office sometimes gets so cluttered I end up working in the kitchen. When the kitchen goes, it’s up to my bedroom. And so on and so on. I wish I had a bigger house.) I like the writing area to be silent (or with jazz or classical accompaniment occasionally) and either windowless or shaded. When it comes time to write the book itself I’ll shut the lights out, picture the scene I’m about to write then close my eyes and go at it. Continue reading “An Interview with Jeffery Deaver…Best selling author of murder mysteries”

Don’t Miss It! My Interview with murder mystery writer, Jeffery Deaver

October 7th we begin my Interview with world acclaimed, best selling mystery writer, Jeffery Deaver

This author has written dozens of spine-chilling, goose bumpy, edge of your seat, murder mysteries over a three decade writing career. His mega success, “The Bone Collector” was made into a movie.

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I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview with one once a month . These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Karen Robards, Mark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Tasha Alexander, Patrick Taylor, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Cathy Lamb, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Raymond Benson, Andrew Grant, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create! September will feature Tasha Alexander. Jeffrey Deaver is October’s author and Patrick Taylor will join us in November. Slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. Loretta Chase will be featured later this year. Raymond Benson is my January author.
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‘Give them a rocky past, harsh problems,debilitating grief and sunny joy’. Part 3 of our chat with author Cathy Lamb

Part 3 of my Interview with author, Cathy Lamb

I first discovered this author when I was looking for something new to read; Henry’s Sisters is still a favorite of mine. Cathy quickly became one of my top ten authors. TS
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Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?

A. I start sketching them out in my journal. I first figure out what they do professionally. I then put family and friends around them. The family and friends are not the easiest people, although some are there for humorous purposes only.

I give them a rocky past, harsh problems and difficult challenges, debilitating grief and sunny joy. They get quirks, talents, and a lot of flaws, too. All this can be discovered as the draft is written and each edit is applied. I don’t know everything about my characters when I start writing that first draft. I let them live and breathe. I watch them. I write down what they’re saying, how they’re saying it. What makes them cry or throw things. What makes them fall in love. What has hurt them the most and how they’ve contributed to their own issues. It’s like watching a movie in my own head.

Q. What inspires your story/stories ?

A. Everything. Julia’s Chocolates came to life when I had an image in my head of a woman throwing her wedding dress up into a dead, gnarled tree on a deserted, dusty street. The Last Time I Was Me was inspired when I imagined a woman using an Exacto knife to open up her cheating boyfriend’s condom and slipping peanut oil into the condom using an eye dropper. She sealed it back up with a hot glue gun. The boyfriend is allergic to nuts. So is my husband. I was mad at him that night and a whole story came to me, laying in bed, two in the morning, and I thought of that condom and his allergies.

Such A Pretty Face was inspired when I wrote an article for Oregon Health Sciences University about bariatric surgery for obese people. What a journey that was for them. A Different Kind of Normal was inspired by my interest in people’s ancestral lines. If You Could See What I See was inspired by colorful lingerie, tree houses, blood, and a family owned business.

When I’m writing books, something I see during the day, part of a conversation, a person…all of those things can end up in my book that night, although I’ll twist and curl and turn them inside out to suit the story.

Q. When is your next book coming out? (or) What are you working on?

A. If You Could See What I See is out August 1, 2013. Here’s the first chapter:

Black.
That’s what he was wearing when it happened. I never wear black anymore. He ended up wearing red, too.
That’s what killed my soul. The red.
He haunts me. He stalks me.
For over a year, I have tried to outrun him.
It hasn’t worked.
My name is Meggie.

I live in a tree house.

I am working on my next book, which is untitled for the moment, but due in December. Argh. December? Really?

Q. Do you want to write in another genre?

A. I would love to write screenplays. I would love to learn how to write a play. When I have time, I’ll learn how to do that. I think people should always try new things and meet new people, so it’s on the list! I do write short stories for anthologies and I love the short story format. Short. Sweet. Tight storyline. Easy to edit. Done.

Q. Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?

A. I go to book groups all the time. Sometimes I visit in person, often we visit using Skype. Email me at CathyLamb@frontier.com if you’d like me to join your group for the evening. I’m happy to come.

Thank you for having me on your blog!

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Click here to read Part I and Part II

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! “The Writer’s Corner”

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview with one once a month . These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Karen Robards, Mark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Patrick Taylor, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Cathy Lamb, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Raymond Benson, Andrew Grant, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create! Sue Grafton is August’s author with a bonus chat with Cathy Lamb. September will feature Tasha Alexander. Jeffrey Deaver is November’s author and slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter. Raymond Benson is January’s author. Loretta Chase will be featured later this year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To receive my posts sign up for my On the Home page, you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”. You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

A Weirdly Wonderful Storyteller….(Part 2) an Interview with Cathy Lamb

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

This is a job. People imagine writers are off on palm tree studded islands writing, or in tree houses, or at their darling cottage at the beach, no distractions except their pinging imagination. This is a false image. Almost all the writers I know have children, responsibilities, people who need them. Some have day jobs. You simply must get your work done as others do in every other profession on the planet.

Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?

A. Don’t procrastinate. Sit your butt down and write and quit dallying around. Do you want to publish or not? Seriously. Ask yourself that question. It’s a good one.

I can procrastinate, too. I’m quite talented at it. But for me, if I don’t meet my goals, I don’t let myself go to bed at night. I have very, very late nights sometimes. Getting books written is about dedication, focus and hard work. Not romantic. Not always fun. You may be in pajamas most of the day. You may not wash your hair when you should. But you do buck up and write. It is what it is.

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?

A. I can get lost in my story, my characters, for hours. I’ll sit down upstairs, lean against the wall, my computer propped on my lap, and the next thing I know it’s three in the morning and the characters have taken me places I didn’t know we were going and done things that would get a normal person arrested.

Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment (i.e. specific creative inspirations)?

A. I don’t have a muse. Can I get one somewhere? Are they on sale?

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

A. When I was sixteen. Truly. That was when I decided I had to be a writer. There was no other goal, professionally, for me. I couldn’t be anything else. I wrote for the school newspaper, I wrote my first romance at age nineteen at the University of Oregon as a freshman. (It was rejected.) I taught fourth grade from the time I was twenty – two to twenty nine. I became a teacher specifically so I would have time at night and during summers to write.

Q. How long after that were you published?

A. I sold my first book in 2005. My road to publishing took a while. I went to college, then grad school, taught school, got married, had three kids, was a freelance writer for years for The Oregonian writing about homes, décor, people, events, fashion…the usual curvy road. When my kids were little I wrote late at night, too. It was the only time I had. I lived off about five to six hours of sleep a night for sixteen years.

Q. What makes a writer great?

A. A writer is great when they’re able to reach the reader through characters and wrench deep emotions out of them.

If you missed Part I, click here. Return to read Part 3 of this interview August 29th

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! A SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview with one once a month . These authors have already responded and you can read their interviews by clicking on their name: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Karen Robards, Mark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Patrick Taylor, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Cathy Lamb, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Raymond Benson, Andrew Grant, Heidi Jon Schmidt, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

To receive my posts sign up for my On the right side you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”. You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

‘A is for..Alibi’ ‘B is for…’C is for’… An Interview with Sue Grafton (part 2)

Part II ** Interview with Sue Grafton In Loving Memory

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?

SG. On occasion, but not nearly often enough. I love that feeling but most of the time it’s just struggle, hair-tearing, whining, and complaints. I’m easily distracted. If the work is going well…call it twice a week…then I’m happy. Most of the time I’m sitting here because that’s what it takes. Comfortable or uncomfortable doesn’t make any difference. I suffer because I feel stupid and clumsy and blocked most of the time, but so what? That is all part of the process. If you’re not willing to sweat it out, you’re in the wrong business. No short cuts.

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

SG. When I was eighteen. I wrote seven full-length novels from the ages of twenty-two to thirty-eight. Novels four and five were published. The others have never seen the light of day. The eighth novel I wrote was ‘A’ IS FOR ALIBI and that was after a long stint in Hollywood where I wrote pilots, movies for television, and the occasional film script.

Q. How long after that were you published?

SG. My first novel was published five years after I began teaching myself how to write long form. ‘A’ IS FOR ALIBI took me five years to write. I’d say ‘five’ is the magic number. It takes fifteen years of being published before you can support yourself with the writing. This is not a career for sissies or cowards. You better get used to hard work. And rejection and frustration. That’s what teaches you. You can’t side-step the anguish.

Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?

SG. As I’ve often described, I keep a series of journals or notebooks on my computer for every novel I write. The journal is where I keep plot possibilities, ideas, research notes, character sketches, dialogue when it occurs to me. The collective journals for ‘V’ IS FOR VENGEANCE came to 967 single-spaced pages. The journals for ‘W’ came to 1298 single-spaced pages on the day I finished the book, which was February 21, 2013. It took me a year to settle on the storyline . I work by trial and error which is why it takes me so long. After a mere thirty years at this, I know what doesn’t work but I don’t always know it in advance. I write and then I think, no. I write some more and think, don’t think so. I write some more and think, are you kidding me? I write some more and I think, well that stinks. And on it goes.

Q. Where/when do you first discover Kinsey and your other characters ?

SG. I am Kinsey Millhone so that was easy enough. Other characters I discover as I go along. Character and plot can never be separated. Both have to be developed at the same time, in tandem, or a story won’t come to life.

Q. What inspired your story/stories ?

SG. Sometimes a germ of an idea will come to me. In fact many times I have the germ of an idea. That’s the easy part. What’s difficult is figuring out what you can do with an idea, figuring out how you can develop it to the point where it will carry 660 manuscript pages. You need heft and complexity and major muscle. Not every idea will yield a novel. One of my big lessons, always, is learning when to let it go. I’m ruthless when it comes to that. I might work on an idea for six months. Once I realize it isn’t working and that I don’t know how to make it work, I dump it.

Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre?

SG. I’ve written in other forms and formats; movie scripts, television scripts, short stories and novels. I’ve never written science fiction or erotica or romance or horror or westerns. I don’t know those forms and I wouldn’t do a good job of it. I love the hard-boiled private eye novel and I love crime fiction, which is…as it turns out…where I belong.

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Biography: I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky where I graduated from the University of Louisville in 1961 with a degree in English. I worked in a variety of jobs in the medical field, writing after the family was down for the night. Sold a ‘mainstream’ novel, KEZIAH DANE, that was published when I was 27 and then a second novel, THE LOLLY-MADONNA WAR, that was published when I was 29. Altogether, before the alphabet novels, I wrote 7 books . The eighth novel I wrote was ‘A’ IS FOR ALIBI. Guess what I’ve been doing every since?’

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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? December: British writer, J.G. Dow. January: In Memory, Sue Grafton.

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