How To Write Fiction Archives - Page 5 of 16 - Trisha Sugarek, Author, Playwright & Poet

Marc Cameron ~~ Author Interview (conclusion)

Q. Do you think we will see, in our lifetime, the total demise of paper books?

MC. Not in my lifetime. Too many people I know, including me, love the feel of a physical book.

Q. What makes a writer great?

MC. I wish I knew… An ear for a good story? Insatiable curiosity? Persistence, for sure. I will say, though, that there are a lot of great stories out there that still haven’t seen the light of day for one reason or another.

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

MC. I start with a lot of plotting talks with my wife and adult kids, bouncing ideas and scenarios off hem. I do a lot of freewriting, exploring various plot ideas. Then I take that free writing and distill it into scenes. That goes onto a computer. Then I work through those scenes, usually in order. If I’m going fishing or camping, I’ll take pencils and paper and work on a few of the scenes while I’m away. I try to get 2,000 words a day but some days I do 1,000 and others I may do 4,000. I have a large whiteboard in my office that I use to get the big picture of the plot, POVs, and to make sure I’m writing about the correct time zone when I’m jumping from one locale to another halfway around the world—IE it can’t be morning in Boston and Beijing at the same time. I’m a detailed plotter, but I still deviate from my outline all the time. It’s a guide, not law. My wife reads everything when I’m done. I submit to my editor when I get the nod from her.

Q. How have your life experiences influenced your writing?

MC. I’ve been fortunate to do some interesting things, work with some stellar people, and have some incredible adventures. The nature of work with the Marshals Service might have me in New York City working a protection detail on a Supreme Court Justice or in deep in bush Alaska tracking a fugitive through the woods. Both my sons were in law enforcement for a time. One of them still is. My eldest son is a physician in the military. My daughter and my youngest son share my love of motorcycles. I’m able to pick their brains and benefit from their experiences as well as my own. The bad, even harrowing experiences like violent fights, evil people, and horrific crime scenes can’t help but inform my writing.

Q. What’s your downtime look like?

MC. There has been a lot less of that lately. I love motorcycles, boats, all things outdoors, and I love spending time with my grandkids. Teaching my grandkids about nature and tracking is one of my favorite ways to spend time. They’re inspiring and often end up in the books in one form or another.

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

MC. As I mentioned, I spent a lot of times around horses and cowboys and a youngster, so when it came time to try and seriously write a novel, a Western vernacular came naturally to my pen. I wrote several while I was still with the Marshals Service. Some were ghostwritten for another author. TO HELL AND BEYOND, is a compendium of two of them are under my earlier pen name, Mark Henry.

Q. Note to Self: (a life lesson you’ve learned.)

MC. Noticing that I wasted a great deal of time being social when I had more important things to do, my freshman college theater professor took me aside and gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever heard. “Marc,” he said. “You will never amount to your full potential unless you learn to use those little fifteen-minute segments of time that most people waste.” I took him at his word—and have written a lot of books in airports, on planes, or in waiting rooms. One of the reasons, I think, why I like to write longhand.

Did you miss the Beginning?
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Watch for more interviews with authors. October: Simon Gervais for ROBERT LUDLUM, November: Horror writer, Kevin J. Kennedy, December: Marc Cameron, writing for TOM CLANCY

A few BOOKS BY TRISHA SUGAREK

Marc Cameron Writing for Tom Clancy in New Book (part 3)

Q. What first inspired you to write?

MC. I grew up in a family of storytellers. We were poor, and often didn’t have a TV, or, when we did, not a very good one. As a young boy, I’d sit on the porch and listen to my aunts tell stories while we shelled peas. As I got older, I’d help my grandpa mend fence or hoe okra. He kept me entertained with stories about his boyhood. My aunt, a librarian, introduced me to Where the Red Fern Grows when I was eight years old. It was one of the first ‘chapter’ books I read. It made me cry. I took it to school and begged my third-grade teacher to read it to the class. She did. It made her cry. Shortly after that, we moved to a farm in central Texas. It was a different time and at ten, I was allowed to roam and explore with my dog. I read Old Yeller and Savage Sam—and started writing what we would call fan fiction nowadays—about brave boys and good dogs and their adventures together.

Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?

MC. Sometimes one, sometimes the other—but most of the time it’s the character.

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?

MC. When it’s going right, that’s exactly what happens. I tend to watch the story unfold like a movie in my head.

Q. What compelled you to choose and settle on the genre you now write in?

MC. I wrote all over the place when I was younger—Fantasy, Science Fiction, Adventure, Westerns. With my background, it was natural that I eventually found my way into contemporary Thriller/Crime fiction.

Q. Are you working on something now or have a new release coming up? If so tell us about it.

MC. Tom Clancy RED WINTER is out now.

Then, BREAKNECK, my next Arliss Cutter novel, a crime fiction series about an deputy US marshal based in Alaska, comes out in April of 2023. I’m working on the next Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan now. After that, I’ll jump back into another Cutter and finish up another Jericho Quinn.

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

MC. Charlotte Skidmore, my English teacher in eleventh grade, was known to be the hardest teacher in our high school. Early that year, she gave me a C- on a creative writing assignment. I’d written it in pencil when it should have been typed. The format was wrong, and there were gobs of spelling errors. Her famous red pen had bled all over my story. I deserved the grade—or worse. But, at the top of the page, written in pencil, was a note from her that said, “Marc, this looks publishable to me.” Those six words from the hardest teacher in the school changed the trajectory of my life. I tell this story all the time, but when we were fist married and living on slightly over six bucks an hour as a rookie police officer, my wife bought me a bullet proof vest (the PD didn’t provide them then) and a Smith Corona electric typewriter. I spent the next twenty years or so writing short stories and walking to the mailbox for rejection letters before I finally got a story published. My wife was always supportive, but when we received that first little check in the mail, she met me at the door with a rolled up magazine, swatted me on the butt, and said, “Congratulations. Now go write us a new refrigerator.” It’s been fairly steady since then.

Conclusion next week!
Did you miss the beginning?
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Watch for more interviews with authors. October: Simon Gervais for ROBERT LUDLUM, November: Horror writer, Kevin J. Kennedy, December: Marc Cameron, writing for TOM CLANCY

A few BOOKS BY TRISHA SUGAREK

Monday Motivations for Writers! #3

Writers! Jump-start your day with more Monday Motivations!

Oh, so you think you will write all day, and beautiful things will happen? Think again, grasshopper. If you’re a one-person band like myself and most other indie authors, you will have to wear an editor, publicist, marketing, and publishing hat, to name a few.
It takes hard work and then some more hard work. But here’s the payoff: After eight years…yep..you heard me right…of consistent weekly 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 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!

“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 puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday.” John Wayne

“Writing isn’t a calling; it’s a doing.” T. Sugarek

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

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Marc Cameron Writing for Tom Clancy ~ Interview (part 2)

Q. What tools do you begin with? Legal pad, spiral notebook, pencils, fountain pen, or do you go right to your keyboard?

MC. I do a great deal of freewriting and plotting at the beginning of any project. The lion’s share of that is done with a pencil or fountain pen. I’m partial to Blackwing 602 pencils. I buy them by the dozens and always make sure I have a bunch with me when I travel. I carry a small brass sharpener on my keychain every day. My wife gave me a very nice Montblanc fountain pen years ago when I was promoted to chief deputy with the Marshals Service. I write a healthy portion of each book with that pen, pencils, or some other fountain pen. I have several manual typewriters and I sometimes bang out a chapter on one of them for fun, to remind me of the good old days when I couldn’t cut and paste. I like yellow Rhodia notepads for longhand work. The paper is great for pen or pencil. I burn through five or six pads for an Arliss Cutter or Jericho Quinn novel and as many as ten for a Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan. Still, my laptop gets plenty of use too.

Horse pack camping ~ eldest son ~ Idaho 1996.

Q. Do you have pets? Tell us about them and their names.

MC. I was a mounted police officer for my department in Texas and a horseshoer to help make ends meet in those early years. We had a number of ranch horses during our time in Texas and while I was station in Idaho, but not Alaska. My family has had blue heeler cattle dogs as well as a cat or two for most of my adult life—maybe a reason my wife and I find ourselves steering our grandkids toward watching Bluey during their scant TV time. We’ve had Rowdy, Bandit, Belle, Pepper, Havoc, Mazie, and a few others over the past thirty-plus years. Mazie, our last, passed away a few years ago at the age of twelve. We travel so much now that we’ve held off on any new dogs…for the time being.

Q. Do you enjoy writing in other forms (playwriting, poetry, short stories, etc.)?
If yes, tell us about it.

MC. I grew up reading short stories. My short fiction has appeared in both Boys’ Life magazine and The Saturday Evening Post. My other commitments keep me focused on longer projects, but I always have some little story hanging around out there to toy with for fun. Lately, I’m dabbling at some screenwriting. I enjoy reading poetry, but writing it eludes me.

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

MC. I think a lot of procrastination comes from fear. Fear of not knowing where we’re going. Fear of getting it wrong. Fear of someone not liking our stuff. Twenty-five novels and a gob of short stories down the road and I still remind myself that it’s normal to make mistakes. I don’t have to get everything right the first time. I can fix anything but a blank piece of paper. Deadlines help too, either from the publisher or self-imposed as long as there is accountability. I’ve asked my wife to check on my word count periodically throughout the day. Also, I don’t read my Amazon reviews. Good or bad.

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

A. Almost thirty years of law enforcement has afforded me a deep roster of interesting characters to draw from. Most everyone I write about is inspired by some combination of people I’ve either arrested, investigated, or worked alongside in the trenches. I’ve kept a small notebook for years and written down descriptions, names, quirks, etc. that show up in my books all the time.

Q. What first inspired you to write?

Part 3 will follow next week….

Did you miss Part 1 of this fascinating Interview?
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Watch for more interviews with authors. October: Simon Gervais for ROBERT LUDLUM, November: Horror writer, Kevin J. Kennedy, December: Marc Cameron, writing for TOM CLANCY

A few BOOKS BY TRISHA SUGAREK

Author, Marc Cameron writing for TOM CLANCY (Interview)

TS. Marc Cameron had a twenty-nine-year career in law enforcement, the last twenty-two as a deputy U.S. marshal. Originally from Texas, he and his wife have made their home in Alaska for the past twenty-five years.

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

MC. I grew up on a farm and did a lot of writing under oak trees, along creek banks, and in haybarns. I traveled a lot during my career with the Marshals Service so much of my writing was on airplanes and in hotel rooms. I have a home office now. In Alaska, I often go to a cabin when I’m planning/plotting a book. My wife and I go to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands for a couple of months, most every year. A large portion of my books have been written there, on

a tiny island in the South Pacific surrounded by palm trees and close to the beach. The culture, the setting, the weather… It’s difficult to imagine a more idyllic place for me to write.

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

MC. I get up a little before six most mornings and stumble across the hall to my office. My plan each day is to sit down and write for a couple of hours before I open my emails or check in social media. I write roughly a third of each book in pencil, depending on my mood each day. I keep several notepads and a hundred or so sharpened Blackwing 602 pencils on my desk. There’s something about writing longhand that gets my brain moving in a different way. Most days, I set a timer, writing for fifty minutes then getting up and doing something physical for ten or fifteen minutes, repeating this cycle six to ten (or more) times a day.

Q. How do you ‘get inside’ Tom Clancy’s head and write for him?

MC. Writing the Jack Ryan’s for the Tom Clancy estate has been one of the great honors of my life. It is not something I sought out. The offer came as a complete surprise when the previous writer, Mark Greaney, recommended me. I was terrified when my agent called and said I’d been offered the gig. In fact, I told my editor, Tom Colgan, that anyone who was not terrified was probably the wrong person for the job. From the very beginning, he helped alleviate some of that fear by letting me know that he didn’t expect me to try to imitate Tom Clancy. He just wanted me to write the best Marc Cameron book I could “in the spirit of Tom Clancy.” I’ve been a Clancy reader since The Hunt for Red October so his characters are real to me. Even so, I reread all the books when I started, and continue to refer to them often to make sure I keep the characters consistent.

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

MC. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was around eight years old, and a police officer about as along—but from middle school through my first year of college I was extremely active in theater and, for a brief period, considered trying to become an actor. I met my future wife when we were cast in a play together our freshman year of college.

Part two continues next week…
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Watch for more interviews with authors. October: Simon Gervais for ROBERT LUDLUM, November: Horror writer, Kevin J. Kennedy, December: Marc Cameron, writing for TOM CLANCY

A few BOOKS BY TRISHA SUGAREK

Book Review ~~ Miss Dauntless by Grace Burrowes

5 out of 5 stars Book Review

Miss Dauntless (of the Mischief in Mayfair series) is another delight for the reader and fans of Grace Burrowes. It turned out to be one of this reviewer’s favorites. Charming and loveable characters are beautifully drawn. A good plot with a big challenge for the protagonists to overcome. Carefully constructed. I loved this one!

Matilda Merridew, former hoyden of the first water, finds herself widowed, weary, and in want of coin. Along comes Marcus, Lord Tremont, with an interesting–and decent–proposition. Tremont will provide Matilda a handsome salary and keep a commodious roof over her head if she will relieve him of the burden of managing a houseful of unruly former soldiers. (amazon.com)

The Mischief in Mayfair series provides readers with independent, ‘blue-stocking’, heroines that find themselves in straitened circumstances. But they are fearless when it comes to rescuing themselves. When one of the characters is a mischievous little boy or a darling little girl, it makes for a richer story and some laughs for sure! I highly recommend this book and this series to my readers.

Coming next week! An Interview with author, Marc Cameron, writing as Tom Clancy
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Watch for more interviews with authors. October: Simon Gervais for ROBERT LUDLUM, November: Horror writer, Kevin J. Kennedy, December: Marc Cameron, writing for TOM CLANCY

A few BOOKS BY TRISHA SUGAREK

Robert B. Parker’s FALLOUT by Mike Lupica (a review)

5 out of 5 stars ~~ Book Review

Mike Lupica returns to write this most current release, FALLOUT. Another Jesse Stone true crime created by Robert B. Parker. And it’s flawless, as usual. Mike writes in the voice of Parker effortlessly and I really enjoyed this one.

The small town of Paradise is devastated when a star high-school baseball player is found dead at the bottom of a bluff just a day after winning the team’s biggest game. For Jesse, the loss is doubly difficult—the teen was the nephew of his colleague, Suitcase Simpson, and Jesse had been coaching the young shortstop. As he searches for answers about how the boy died and why, he is stonewalled at every turn, and it seems that someone is determined to keep him from digging further. (www.amazon.com)

I never cease to marvel at these authors who keep Parker’s storytelling alive for us. All successful authors in their own right. Lupica, one of the most prominent sports writers in America, and Reed Farrel Coleman for Jesse Stone. Ace Atkins for Spencer and Sunny Randall. There is a list too long to list here. All speak with the same clarity and write as if they are Robert B. Parker incarnate.

Check out my fascinating INTERVIEW with Mike Lupica and Ace Atkins.

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Watch for more interviews with authors. October: Simon Gervais for ROBERT LUDLUM, November: Horror writer, Kevin J. Kennedy, December: Marc Cameron, writing for TOM CLANCY

A few BOOKS BY TRISHA SUGAREK

A Word to Newbie Writers

authors, writers, reviews, famous authors — Charles Bukowski

He was, in my opinion, the greatest American fiction writer of the last half of the 20th century. Fortunately for his book sales, most think of him as the archetypal drunk, misanthropic male pig. Whatever else he was, he was also the archetypal writer, a force of nature who knew exactly what to do to a blank page.

Bukowski attributed so much weight to the single line that it eclipsed the writing philosophy of writing. If the single line was magnificent, the rest would take care of itself. In a 60,000 word novel, the working focus was on the single line. In the sex stories he wrote and sold to skin mags for money, the working focus was on the single line. In a small, immortal poem that 50 people might read, his working focus was on the single line.

Do you possess this kind of love for your words? Well? Do you? Possess this kind of love and respect for your work? Do you respect your craft enough to narrow your focus to the attention of a single line? It’s not easy. It’s not fast. “But this must certainly be a path to immortal (and powerfully influential) writing. If you can stomach it.” Robert Bruce when writing about Henry Charles Bukowski, Jr.
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I’ve encouraged to re-write and delete and edit so much in my blogging you probably want to take a
‘delete’ key to me! BUT! It’s what makes a so-so writer into a good or great one.

Experienced writers know this and value the rewrite more than anything. That’s really when the magic happens.
In a recent interview here with Jo-Ann Mapson, she said, “I love rewriting. Just thank God for it every single day, because that is where good writing pokes its head up.”

A word to you aspiring writers: I’ve been there, believe me, when I was terrified to delete a single word.
Not that I was certain that everything I uttered was ‘gold’…..far from it….no, terrified that I had nothing better to replace it with. Now that I have found my ‘process’ I understand how I work. I write it in my head for days, then, when the moment comes I type (thank God for my Admin skills of 75 wpm in a previous life). Once the story is laid down, I begin the re-writing, editing, adding, deleting.

Re-writing and deleting: some of my best work has been born in the re-write. Some of my worst work has been deleted. Get it?

The Delete key: I know, I know, I’m a tired old record. But it can’t be said enough. Get to know and love your delete key. Every word you write isn’t going to be ‘golden’. Before you push your child (story) out into traffic (the world) you are the only critic and editor in the room. Be certain that you critique yourself; keep polishing, keep editing.

I’m of the school of writers that believes my work is never finished; I could and have found something to re-write in everything I have published. It’s a demon I have to live with.

The mocking bird had been following the cat
all summer
mocking, mocking, mocking

Teasing and cocksure;
the cat crawled under rockers on porches
tail flashing
and said something angry to the mocking bird
which I didn’t understand

Yesterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway
with the mocking bird alive in its mouth
wings fanned, wings fanned and flopping
feathers parted like a woman’s legs
and the bird was no longer mocking… (from his book of poetry: The Pleasures of the Damned)

Reprised from post 3/2013 writeratplay.com
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Watch for more interviews with authors. October: Simon Gervais for ROBERT LUDLUM, November: Horror writer, Kevin J. Kennedy, December: Marc Cameron, writing for TOM CLANCY

A few BOOKS BY TRISHA SUGAREK

Interview with Horror Author, Kevin Kennedy (conclusion)

Q. Do you think we will see, in our lifetime, the total demise of paper books?

KK. Nope. Paperbacks have outlasted radio, tv, cd players, Netflix, and all other forms of entertainment. I am a big fan of Kindle but I still have around a thousand paperback/hardbacks.

Q. What makes a writer great?

KK. Knowing how to entertain a reader. Every author has their own style and writes in their own genre or sub-genres. No matter what you want to write, if it doesn’t entertain the reader, they will find something better to read.

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

KK. Stress, worry, giving up, picking it up again. Starting multiple projects in between. Writing short stories for other anthologies when I don’t have time. Getting back to it. Finally getting to an endpoint. Formatting it. Sending it out for edits then proofreading, then publishing it.

Q. How have your life experiences influenced your writing?

KK. Writing has to feel real and I’m not one for spending hours researching things so I tend to write about stuff I know about. I may warp the experience and change it but I will be knowledgeable about it.

Q. What’s your downtime look like?

KK. Downtime? Na, I tend to chill with my wife, go out for lunch or dinner, snuggle up with my cats and watch something on Netflix. Visit my mum or take her out shopping. I live a quite life now and I like it that way.

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

KK. Pretty much Horror or Bizarro. I occasionally slip into gangster type crime with a horror element.

Q. Note to Self: (a life lesson you’ve learned.)

A. Do what works for you. The best advice might not suit you personally. Read the guidelines to wherever you are going to sub. Editors often ignore anything that falls outside of the guidelines for subs. Don’t wait on a response before starting something new. Keep working, keep sending your work out, and remember, it’s supposed to be fun. Don’t take rejections too personally. Re-sub it somewhere else. What one person doesn’t like, another may enjoy.

Did you miss the beginning of this Interview?

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Watch for more interviews with authors. October: Simon Gervais for ROBERT LUDLUM, November: Horror writer, Kevin J. Kennedy, December: Marc Cameron, writing for TOM CLANCY

A few BOOKS BY TRISHA SUGAREK

Nothing You Write, if you Hope to be any Good….

Lillian Hellman (Author of The Little Foxes and Children’s Hour) once said, “Nothing you write, if you hope to be any good, will ever come out as you first hoped.”

As a writer, that has happened to me over and over. In the early days of my writing, I was appalled that the story was going somewhere that I had not planned for. The characters would lead me down paths I had no intention of going down or writing about. Now I accept this strange phenomenon that happens not just to me but to other writers as well.

A glaring, or perhaps glorious, example of a story taking an unexpected turn was when I was writing Women Outside the Walls. My plan for the storyline was that this would be a cozy little story of three very different women coming together while visiting their men in prison.

A third of the way through this project, Charlie, while sitting in the prison’s visiting room, jumps up, grabs Kitty, and, holding a shiv (knife) to her throat, takes her hostage. I sat at my keyboard and wailed aloud, “No! No, you can’t! I don’t know anything about hostages……or hostage negotiations!” Too late! He’d already dragged Kitty to the back wall, and pandemonium had broken out. The prison went on emergency lockdown, and there was nothing I could do! There I sat at my keyboard, dead in my tracks.

It took me four months researching hostage negotiations before I could resume working on my novel. I had not the faintest clue as to how I would finally resolve this room being taken, hostage. And I want to stop here and thank the federal and state hostage negotiators who assisted me in my research. While they would not share any of their techniques, they agreed to look over my story and tell me where I was off base. They allowed me to send them this segment of my novel for them to critique and assisted in keeping my portrayal accurate. Before you COs jump all over me about the gun, I did take dramatic license with that.

I have learned to anticipate and enjoy it when the story takes on a life of its own. It’s my fondest wish to become, simply, the ‘typist’. When my characters take control and tell me the story!

(Reprised 2013)

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Watch for more interviews with authors. September: Culley Holderfield. October: Simon Gervais for ROBERT LUDLUM, November: Kevin J. Kennedy, December: Marc Cameron, writing for TOM CLANCY

A few BOOKS BY TRISHA SUGAREK

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