The Writer's Corner Archives - Page 28 of 74 - Trisha Sugarek, Author, Playwright & Poet

Interview with author, Dervla McTiernan, Part 2

Continuing with my Interview with Irish-born author, Dervla McTiernan

Q. What first inspired you to write?

DM. I’ve been an obsessive reader since I was three years old, and at a certain point reading became less satisfying to me, which was awful. I still read constantly, but it felt like something was missing. It took me a long time to realise what was missing was writing my own stories. As soon as a realized that I could experience the same joy and pain, the same highs and lows in writing my own stories I was utterly hooked and I knew I would never stop, whether or not I was ever published.

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

DM. Character first usually, then situation.

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?

DM. Yes. Absolutely. Usually when I am deep into a first draft – maybe after the forty/fifty thousand word mark. Characters come alive and the story really takes off and I just want to stay in it all of the time.

Q. Are you working on something now? If so tell us about it.

DM. Yes…but I’m not allowed to talk about it! Which is a pain because I am VERY excited about this story.

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

DM. 2014. That was when I gave myself permission to really take it seriously. I had been playing with the idea of doing an MBA, because I wasn’t particularly happy in my job. An MBA would have taken five years part-time, and when I really thought about it I realized I had absolutely no urge to go back and study again, nor had I any real interest in studying business. What I had always wanted to do, and never ever thought I could do, was write. Given the massive changes we’d already made in our lives (moving to Australia from Ireland in 2011) committing myself to writing didn’t seem all that crazy! So I kept working part-time, and when the kids were in bed I would write for two hours, every night, except Thursdays (wine-night – very important).

Q. How long after that were you published?

DM. I signed my contract with Harper Collins in October 2016, and The Ruin was published in Australia in February 2018, and shortly after that in the US (Penguin) and the UK/Ireland (Little Brown) and then a few other territories followed. Then The Scholar came out in 2019, and The Good Turn will be out in 2020.

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

DM. No, genuinely, no. I think with the absolute ubiquity of smart phones, we’ll continue to see growth in audiobooks. People still love story; they’re just so time pinched that they have to try to fit them around everyday life. But for me personally, there’s something that switches off in my brain on those occasions when I get to lie down on the couch with a paper book in my hand, screens and phones off or away from me. It’s such a release from the constant connectedness of my daily life. I think there’s a reason that the growth in ebooks has pretty much stopped and paperback sales are stable. We all want that release. That moment of indulgence.

Q. What makes a writer great?

DM. To me it is a writer is great if they can create characters who feel genuinely real to me. Characters I care deeply about.

Characters I want to spend time with. Everything is secondary to character for me. I absolutely love the Robert Galbraith crime novels, which are just getting better and better I think (Lethal White was awesome) because I love Cormoran and Robin and I want to be in their world. I love to disappear into a book the same way I used to when I was a kid, and that happens so rarely now but it’s no less intensely joyful when it does.

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

To find out, don’t miss Part 3 of this fascinating Interview ~~ January 27th
Did you miss Part I? Click here

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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Dervla McTiernan ~~ January: David Poyer
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Robert B. Parker’s Angel Eyes by Ace Atkins ~~ Review

5 out of 5 quills Book Review

Robert B. Parker’s voice remains strong and his stories continue thanks to writers like Ace Atkins. Ace has written most of the ‘Spenser’ series since Parker’s death in 2010.

Angel Eyes incorporates character favorites like Chollo, Victor Del Rio, Bobby Horse (from Spenser’s L.A. days) Sixkill, Susan Silverman, and while not featured in this book, Pearl, the Wonder Dog is referred to with love and warmth.

It’s a good story about cults and people who are chewed up and spit out by them. The bottomless corruption of the soul just to “Make It” infects many citizens of Hollywood and L.A. The new characters are well drawn and this review still wonders how another writer, no matter how accomplished (and Ace Atkins is that is spades), can duplicate the flavor and style of one such as Robert B. Parker. All I can say, is I am glad Ace has that added talent so that Parker’s stories can continue.

These stories are so well drawn that it’s just a tiny bit creepy while reading, when all along the reader knows that Robert Parker has passed. These writers are that good! I highly recommend this latest offering.

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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Dervla McTiernan ~~ January: David Poyer
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Interview with ‘DownUnder’ author, Dervla McTiernan

Darvla was born and raised Irish. But moved to Perth, Western Australia in 2011 with her husband, their two-year-old little girl …and was 36 weeks pregnant the day they landed. She was a lawyer in Ireland but very burned out by the time they emigrated, and says she was, “keen never to practice law again”. When she went back to work, it was part-time, and eventually she started writing. Her first book, The Ruin, was published in 2018, with The Scholar following in 2019. My third book, The Good Turn, is out next year.

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.

DM. I have a tiny study off the kitchen of our home, and most of the time that’s where I write. It’s small, but to me, just perfect and we just did a mini-renovation and now I really love it! Writing so close to where the kids spend a lot of their time is probably not ideal, but I have some excellent noise blocking headphones that take care of that!
When I started out we were living in a very small rental home with dodgy electrics – we couldn’t have the oven and the air con on at the same time or the whole system would trip. I used to write at a tidy corner of the kitchen table when the kids were in bed. The house was way too small for us so the detritus of the day inevitably surrounded me. I just had to learn to close my eyes to it all!

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

DM. I am ridiculously picky about notebooks. I go through different phases but at the moment I like the A4 sized Clairefontaine notebooks and gel pens– I change colour when I start a new book. I usually write free hand for at least half an hour before I move to my computer. I write notes about the scene I’m planning on writing that day. Thoughts about the characters and setting. What the characters know going into the scene, their mind-set, snippets of dialogue, all of that kind of thing. By the time I get started properly with fingers on the keyboard I usually have a pretty clear idea of where I’m going, which leaves me free to think about how I want to get there.

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

DM. Hmm. Tricky one! There are lots of things but it’s hard to think of something people might be interested in! I have a golden retriever, who lies outside my bedroom door every morning to guilt me into take her for a walk. She loves a good walk because she is ridiculously social and wants to chat with every human in the park and be generally admired. What she does not like to do is run. I’ve started running again for the first time in years (for running read *gentle stagger*) and she objects by lying down or dawdling along two hundred metres behind me. If I put her on the lead I have to tow her around like a little tow truck, and everyone in the park looks at me like I am cruelly punishing her. Then I let her off the lead and she spots a dog she likes and she’s off running like a crazy thing. It’s all very frustrating.

Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?

DM. I used to have a very strict routine – 8pm to 10pm every night, because I was working around kids and a day job. Now that I’m writing full time I generally write between 9.30am and 2 pm, and then again at night from 8pm for an hour or two. Not all of that will be active writing time. I have emails to deal with, of course, and the usual admin stuff that somehow manages to creep into my day despite my best efforts! And household tasks. But I will try to get a minimum of two hours active writing time a day and ideally that will be closer to four or five.

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

DM. Respect the story and respect your instincts. If it feels wrong then maybe it’s time to backtrack and see if you lost the organic thread of the story somewhere. Or if your story is fine and your procrastination is just coming from that fear/avoidance place we all have, I think it can be useful to trick yourself into it. Make a really nice cup of tea, find some chocolate, sit down and tell yourself you’re just going to have fun for a while. Write in a notebook rather than on your computer. Write some random scene from later in your book. Do an exercise where you write your character first person if your book is usually third. Basically anything at all that feels more interesting than scary. Usually I find that within half an hour the fear is in my rearview mirror and I am writing again.

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

DM. Everywhere and anywhere! Only one character ever came to me fully formed, and that was Maude Blake from my first book, The Ruin. I had this very clear picture in my head – two children, sitting on a stairs in a crumbling Georgian mansion deep in the Irish countryside. Maude was fifteen, and Jack only five. They were holding hands. The house is very, very cold, all the lights are off, and it’s getting dark outside. I knew that they were afraid. I knew that Maude loved her brother so much, that she had protected him from the moment he was born and that now she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to protect him from what was coming next. And that was it. I knew Maude from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet but I didn’t know anything else, not what had brought them to that place nor where they would go next. I had to write the story to find out.

Q. What first inspired you to write?

Join us for Part 2 of this interview with Australian author, Dervla McTiernan
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Dervla McTiernan ~~ January: David Poyer
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Book Review ~~ The Summer of Sunshine & Margot

4 out of 5 quills Book Review

Susan Mallery always delivers a solid story. The Summer of Sunshine and Margot was no exception. I found the main characters (Sunshine & Declan, Margot and Alec) empathetic and charming. I had a little trouble with Margot’s career and the services her company offered. Was she a life coach? A therapist? A baby sitter for adults? It was never made clear.

And that leads me to write about one character, in her story. Bianca. She was an aging film star who evidently had been indulged her entire life. The result was an implausible, spoiled brat. Immature, thoughtless, reckless and a bully. I worked in Hollywood many years ago and her antics would have led her to be, at the worst, blackballed. Or at best, she would have been considered a ‘difficult’ actress when casting a film and to be avoided. Difficult actors cost money. I found her outrageous behavior tiresome and unbelievable.

The character of Bianca was the reason I couldn’t give this book my highest rating.
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Dervla McTiernan ~~ January: David Poyer
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How To Write a Play~~Plot, Pro/Antagonist, Conflict

Whether you are a reader or a writer you love a little conflict and a few antagonists in any plot. So to the writers of stage plays.…

It is a challenge to write conflict with dialogue only. There is no description (like fiction) where you can tell the reader how angry and against something your antagonist is. Granted you have the characters right there to tell the story with their body language but….

I am going to use examples from my most recent play. A children’s play but the rules still apply and are not less challenging because it’s a kids’ play.

Sub-PLOT: The sooner the plot is revealed the better. If you haven’t engaged the audience in the first three minutes, you don’t have a very good plot. In Emma and the Aardvarks the plot begins on the first page of script. Two Aardvarks, sisters, tumble out of a Time Portal and into the fabled forest. In minutes the occupants of the forest discover them and the audience discovers the protagonists and antagonists.

Example: (Plot)

AGNES ©
(Gazing up into the trees, HER nose switching as fast as possible.)

I think we’re lost, dear sister. This doesn’t look anything like the pictures of Australia in our book.

ANNIE
(Frowning.)

Oh, dear, I’m quite afraid.

STARE (Owl)

Whooo?

                                                            ANNIE
                                                (ANNIE runs over to AGNES.)

Ekk. What was that?
                                                            STARE

Who?

AGNES

What?

ANNIE

That.
AGNES

Not certain. But keep a look out anyway.

ANNIE

I don’t like this place, Agnes.

AGNES

You’re such a scaredy-cat, Annie. It’s a simple forest, much like the jungles of home.

(DONALD, a fairie, enters.)

DONALD

Don’t go. I mean you no harm.

(With the dialogue, we’ve told the audience that the two sisters are in the forest by accident. That their destination had been Australia. They meet their first friend (protagonist).

ANTAGONISTS: We’ll return to the plot later but let’s go on…Enter the first antagonist. This character is very selfish and immediately is suspicious of the two newcomers.

Example: (Antagonist)

PATSY (Banana Spider)
(Knitting her web very fast.)

Eye–eee! Por favor, who are these ugly newcomers? Dios mío, ¿se comerán mis insectos? The bugs are for me and me alone!

DONALD

Patsy, where are your manners? Everyone is welcome in the fabled forest, as long as they come in peace.

PATSY

Dios mio, how do we know they come in peace, pequeño? Se ven como bandidos!

Another Protagonist enters:

EMMA

Please join us. (Turning to Donald.) Donald introduce us immediately.

DONALD

Miss Agnes, Miss Annie, this is my friend, Emma.

EMMA

Oh! You are so cute. It’s nice to meet new friends. And such pretty hats. May I? (EMMA reached up and adjusted the frothy thing atop AGNES’ head that had been knocked askew in the mad dash into the forest.) You’re the shy young lady, aren’t you? May I adjust your hat, Miss Annie? There! All fixed. May I ask? What species are you?

PLOT: After a few main characters are established, we return to the main Plot, (all told through dialogue) which is about global warming and endangered species.

Example (Plot):

EMMA

Miss Agnes, why were you going to Australia?

AGNES

Back home, in Africa, we are losing our habitat to humans, farms, and roads.

ANNIE

It’s terrible. There aren’t very many of us aardvarks left, you know.

CHEETS

What does that mean? ‘Not many of you left’?

AGNES

We’re being killed off.

EMMA

Oh no! But you’re so cute. And if you’re insectivores, you help keep the natural world balanced.

AGNES

One would think so. (Beat.) So when our habitat goes, we go. We are threatened.

DONALD

We must do something!

ANTAGONIST & Protagonists: The Plot thickens when you have more than one antagonist. And when you can, more than one protagonist.

Example (Antagonist and Protagonists.):

CHEETS

I don’t like them. Nope. Don’t like the look of them and they smell funny.

STARE

Who?

CHEETS

Those two⸺whad-ya-call-ems.

EMMA

Aardvarks.

CHEETS

Yeah⸺them.

EMMA

Cheets, that’s unkind. You know nothing of Annie and Agnes. They seem perfectly fine to me. In fact, I think they’re cute.

STARE

Who?

THOMAS

Quiet, Stare. Those two ladies are my friends from the Dark Continent. As for you, you⸺you scurvy young scallywag you keep yer opinions to yerself.

CHEETS

But what if they eat someone we know?

EMMA

Cheets, that’s silly. Do you know any ants? Beetles? Termites on a personal basis?

CHEETS

Noooo⸺but I might meet some.

EMMA

Yes, Cheets, you’re judging these newcomers and deciding you don’t like them based on⸺what? Nothing.

THOMAS

They’ve had a rough go. The place they lived is no more. The picaroons have burned it, then planted it. Some of their family and friends have been killed.

CHEETS

Don’t care. Still don’t like ‘em. Who ever heard of aardvarks, anyway?

CONFLICT: 5 Ways to Create Conflict in Your Story:
Give your characters clear goals.
Go big, go small.
Let your characters fail.
4. Make your characters opinionated.
Use exposition to your advantage.

The Time Portal is malfunctioning. Some of the occupants of the forest are welcoming, some are suspicious and angry.

Example: EMMA

He’s very excitable, Miss Agnes. Are you really from Africa?

ANNIE
(Cuddling close to EMMA’s side.)

Yes, Miss Emma, we were going on vacation and then this⸺happened.

EMMA

Oh, dear, I’m sorry.

AGNES

Yes, our travel agent, Time Portal for All Your Vacation Needs, was supposed to send us to Australia. We have distant relatives there. Something must have gone wrong. Someone at the agency pushed the wrong button.

ANNIE

Where are we, exactly?

CHEETS
(Poking HIS head out of the bushes.)

You’re in the Fabled Forest. Don’t you know anything?

AGNES

Who raised you? Dogs? (Beat.) No, not dogs, they are strict with their children. Hyenas, perhaps? Yes, hyenas, our arch enemies.

More CONFLICT:
Example:

EMMA
(Steps forward.)

Welcome to our forest. I am Emma and these are my friends. Where did you come from?

STARE

Who?

AGNES
(Sneering.)

Emma, you don’t want to be friends with them. After all they’re just dogs.

Resolution of CONFLICT: The royal engineer enters. Sent to repair the Time Portal so the Aardvarks can be on their way.

Example:

CHEETS
(Jumping up and down.)

The Queen! The Queen! The Queen Cometh!

FERGUS
(Looking around.)

No. I don’t think so. It’s just me and my toolbox.

EMMA

Why have you been sent to us, Mr. Fergus?

FERGUS

It’s just Fergus, Miss. Or in more formal settings, Sir Fergus.

DONALD

And you’re here because⸺?

FERGUS

To repair your portal⸺time machine⸺of course. It is broken, isn’t it?

DONALD

Our portal?

CHEETS
(Whispers in awe.)

We have a portal?

EMMA

And the Queen knew ours is broken?

CHEETS

What’s a portal?

FERGUS

Yes. Yes. Indubitably. If you’ll just show me the way, I’ll begin my work.

EMMA
I’m afraid we have no idea where it might be in the forest. Until the sisters arrived we didn’t know anything about a portal. They arrived from Africa.

More CONFLICT: More animals arrive through the Portal. This results in more conflict.

Example:

EMMA
(Steps forward.)

Welcome to our forest. I am Emma and these are my friends. Where did you come from?

STARE

Who?

AGNES

Emma, you don’t want to be friends with them. After all they’re just dogs.

FERGUS

Blimey. Someone’s coming.

(Out of the entrance to the Portal tumble dog-like CREATURES. The five PUPPIES yip and howl as they tumble to the forest floor.)

MIC
(Howling.)

Moommmyy! What’s happening?

SERENGETI
(Howling louder.)

Moommmyy! I’m a-scarrr-eeddd.

STARE
(Trying to join the howling.)

Whooooooooooooo?

(Two adult DOGS enter from the Portal mouth.)

MRS. MOSEYALONG
Tentatively wagging HER tail.)

It’s all right, children. We’re safe.

JAX

Stop being such a baby, Serengeti.

SERENGETI
(Cowering near HER mother’s legs.)

I’m not.
JAX

Are too.

MR. MOSEYALONG

Quiet now, children.

SERENGETI

Yes, Papa.

MIC

Where are we, Papa?

MR. MOSEYALONG

I’m not certain just yet⸺but I intend to find out! Yip, Yip, yowwww.

MRS. MOSEYALONG

Goodness, who might you all be?

ROGER
(Whining.)

Mama, who are they? Will they hurt us?

ZEKE
(Yipping and howling.)

I want to go home.

CHEETS
(Pointing at the dogs.)

Look! Our forest is turning into a jungle of expired animals!

Remember, dialog is simply conversation between your characters. In your story, imagine what your characters would say to each other in a conversation. The more conflict you create in your story, the richer the story will be. Be aware of ‘loose ends’ when you solve the conflict.
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A NEW Children’s Play~~Book Give-a-Way

CLIMATE CHANGE. ENDANGERED SPECIES have all come to the Fabled forest. In this sixth script in the series, Emma, Donald, Thomas, Cheets and Stare all return (to the story) to meet their visitors and try to help them.

~~THE FIRST THREE DIRECTORS/TEACHERS THAT CONTACT ME WILL RECEIVE A FREE COPY OF THE NEW SCRIPT.

Synopsis:

This is a fable about climate change and endangered creatures. Two sisters Aardvarks arrive in the Fabled Forest by accident. Their travel agent, Time Portals to Your Next Adventure, malfunctions and instead of Australia, they are plopped down in Cheets’ clearing in the forest. Here they meet Donald, the fairie, Cheets, the elf, Emma, the farm-girl and all the creatures that inhabit the fabled, mystical forest. Agnes and Annie are so ugly they’re cute. With their jaunty hats atop their weird heads, with their rabbit-like ears and short elephant type snouts, Emma and Donald are entranced. They set about helping the two aardvarks to complete their trip to Australia while helping other endangered species.

The Aardvarks and the Painted Wild Dogs are endangered species and it is a dangerous lifestyle. In this fable children learn more about climate change wiping out habitat and about other endangered species and how we humans can protect them.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Emma ~~ A young earthling girl
Stare ~~ A rhetorical owl
Donald ~~ A young fairie

Cheets ~~ a rambunctious elf
Patsy ~~ A large banana spider
Agnes & Annie ~~ the sister Aardvarks

Thomas ~~ the sea-faring sea turtle
Bertie, the bookworm ~~ the resident reading teacher

Fergus ~~ The royal engineer

Mr. Moseyalong ~~ Papa of the Painted Dogs
Mrs. Moseyalong ~~ Mama
Mic, Jax, Roger, Zeke and Serengeti ~~ the Puppies

No child need be turned away, there can be non-speaking roles as forest creatures and fairies.

TS. “We created a book cover representing the future time when our planet dies and everything is black and white. With a spot of color called hope.”
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Dervla McTiernan – January: David Poyer
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When will My Stories be Discovered??

TS. I wrote this post back in 2012….seven years ago. But most of it still holds true today.

Okay, so now you have a publisher…your books will fly off the shelves or through cyberspace, right? Au contra, it’s still going to take some time. Or at least, that’s certainly been my experience….

Samuel French (biggest publisher for stage plays) picked me up in 2004 and has since published four of my stage plays. I am so grateful to be in the same publishing house as Louisa May Alcott, David Mamet, Anton Chekhov, and Tennessee Williams. And the staff is so nurturing to their authors. But, here’s the reality: No sales the first year, a few the second year, more the third year and so on…….but, sadly, no BIG immediate discovery of this playwright! Not like in the movies!!

So I kept writing and editing and submitting……and writing more!

I am happy to share with my readers the news that I received a nice fat check from French with reports that reflected my biggest sales period EVER, the first quarter, this year (2012)! Over the last six months they have sold seventy scripts of mine. Most orders were in multiple quantities which means a theatre company was buying enough books for cast and crew. And that means that somewhere, out in the world, theatre companies are producing my work! You might be saying to yourself, ‘that’s not so many’ but think about it. That’s 11.6 scripts per month. And like I said, most of them were NOT perusal copies (of one) but the number that they would need to produce a show! One production in Bangor, Maine and the other in Phoenix, AZ.

Last year (2018) a play of mine was produced in Iceland and the UK.

My books are finally selling with some welcomed regularity on amazon.com (USA and Europe) and other book outlets. After eight long years!!

So my message to you is: Keep writing, fellow writers. Keep editing, rewriting. That’s where a really good story/book is born. When you get rejection after rejection (as I did) let that be the spur to write more! Use ‘Self publishing’ . ‘Vanity’ books are a thing of the past…or almost. Most of us, as writers, have something important to say and vanity is far, far away from our thoughts. With the advent of ‘print on demand’ self publishing is not the huge investment it used to be. I self publish for less than $100. plus the wholesale cost of the finished book. Sure your publisher takes a cut…but! You’re published!!

Writing is a lonely business but keep at it. I’ll believe in you if you’ll believe in me!
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! December: Australian mystery writer, Dervla McTiernan
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An Irish Country Family ~~ Book Review

5 out of 5 quills

Every time I begin the newest (#14) in this series it is like returning home to my village. BallyBucklebo, (the village), is a character unto itself. This particular story goes back and forth between the current year (1969) in the village and when Barry Laverty is still in residency at a local hospital. (1964-5). So half the book is before Barry ever met the patriarch and senior country physician, Final Flahertie O’Reilly or was offered a position in his practice.

A rich series that spans decades in the ‘wee village’ of Ballybucklebo, Ulster County, Ireland. Seldom will readers find characters more deeply drawn. Beginning with An Irish Country Doctor (2007), each book follows the characters’ stories. The author, Patrick Taylor, has an opulent flavor to his writing which is brilliant. The reader can smell the salty brine of the nearby Lough, the whisky and stale smoke in the Mucky Duck (pub). See the golden crust of Kinky’s latest offering for lunch. Feel Barry and Sue’s personal pain. I particularly enjoyed the accurate weaving of medical history throughout the story.

This writer intertwines his characters’ stories with a precise ebb and flow. Each book makes the reader wish for more.

Did you miss my Interview with Patrick Taylor
Book Available for Sale ~ November 12th
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Write Your First Play

Over the many years writing my blog the stats report a recurring key phrase, ‘How to write a play’, and I thought my readers might find it interesting to read about what inspired my play scripts.

The short answer is: A true story…. something that caught my attention that was someone else’s story.

The long answer: My first play ‘Lost Child‘ back in 1994 was based on a true story of a Dad dealing with his gay son. Back then HIV and AIDS was a death sentence. The father was homophobic and macho. He rejected his son. To make the story complete I added another set of parents that were totally supportive of their gay son. Sadly this story did not end well and the script was lost on my hard drive ….someday, I may finish it.

Next came ‘Cook County Justice‘ based upon a fifteen minute segment offered on one of those TV magazines like 20/20. Bill Heirens had been incarcerated for over 40 years (even though his sentence included parole) for a murder I came to believe he didn’t commit. This story took me on a six year journey; letters from Bill (inmate), support from his team trying to set him free and several productions of my play.

While visiting Bill in the Illinois state Prison for Men early one Sunday morning, I sat in the reception area waiting to be ‘processed’ through into the visiting room. I was surrounded by women of all ages and their children. Mothers, sisters, wives, daughters….as I sat there they figuratively took me by the nape of my neck and shouted….’you must write about us…tell our story!’ That was the birth of ‘Women Outside the Walls’ a full length play and later a novel.

‘Scent of Magnolia‘ A Tribute to Billie Holiday was conceived in 2001 when a very talented jazz singer/actress out of Chicago asked me if I would write her a one woman show as Billie Holiday. I used, as my inspiration, the early years of Billie’s career before she succumbed to alcohol and drugs.

NEXT! A Hollywood Tale was based on my own experiences as a young actor in Hollywood and all the story swapping we would do in the green room, waiting to ‘go on’. There was nothing worse than going to a cattle call audition and in the middle of your monologue or reading have the casting director yell: ‘Next!’ That was your cue line to exit right. The razor sharp teeth of the machine known as Hollywood chew up aspiring actors and spit them into the gutter.

I grew up on my mother’s stories about growing up in the forests of Tumwater, Washington with her 13 siblings. Back at the turn of the twentieth century life and its entertainments were simple.

‘The Guyer Girls’ is a cross between Little Women and I Remember Mama. The first act is almost all based upon her stories. The second act was my creation of what happened when the six sisters come back home fifteen years later. With this age of technology I didn’t want these stories to die with her or with me.

‘Sins of the Mother’ was also partly biographical. Again stories told by my mother of her years in San Francisco (1920’s) as a bar owner, women’s basketball player, flapper, and mother. She used to say, “I’d work all day and dance all night!” This full length play developed into a novel, ‘Wild Violets’.

There’s more but this is where I will stop. Every play plot has conflict. The trick is to solve it within two and a half hours.

This post is a re-run from 2014 but well worth the read.
Want more? Click here for Part 2

A Journal/Handbook to Start YOU writing! 275 blank pages for your work; each margin with an inspiring quote from a famous actor, writer, playwright, or poet. Sections on ‘how to’ will get you started.

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Revise, Edit and Re-publish

My first novel was written in 2011. Being known as a playwright, I was urged by friends and fans to expound on the play by the same title. They were left unsatisfied by the play (even though it was a thumbnail of the story and quite successful on the stage.) They wanted more. What happened to the three women in the story?

Writing a play is child’s play (pun intended) for someone like me. After all I’ve read thousands of play scripts and portrayed hundreds of characters from other plays, not my own. One hundred pages is a walk in the park. But 300+ pages of a work of fiction. A Novel. I still remember the day I sat at my keyboard and faced the blank page 1. I was scared out of my mind. Thank the stars I had a story plot and the stage play to refer to.

Now, eight years later I brought it out and dusted it off. (Remember I’ve written about this before.) The first thing I do is check for my personal idiosyncrasies when writing: those words we all use too much. Mine are ‘just‘ and ‘that‘. So I checked the first one. 264 ‘Justs‘ and I only needed about 28 of them. So I went through the manuscript and deleted a couple hundred. Ugh.
Now, let’s see about the second word. ‘That’. 723. Oh dear!

Several years ago I was reading one of my favorite authors (when I’m not writing, I’m reading) and something was irritating me in the back of my consciousness, a little niggle.

Then I realized the author repeatedly used the word ‘snickered’ or‘ snicker‘ when describing the tone of the dialogue. (Let the dialogue set the tone.) I doubt the author was even aware of it. ‘Snickered’ was exactly the same as my ‘that’. There’s a whole slew of synonyms for ‘snicker’ (she could have mixed it up) Scorned, scoffed, mocked, derided, sneered, snorted, etc. Once I discovered the culprit of my irritation, I couldn’t unsee the word and it spoiled the story for me. I put the book away, unread.

Technical Note: For those of you who don’t know how to find a word used to excess: Use the keys ‘Control F’; a box will open. type in the word that you might have used too much. It will tell you how many times it was used in the ms. And the word will be highlighted in yellow so you can easily edited them.

So whenever you edit, clean up and revise an older work you will get a better story out it. You will achieve better writing. You may even find a new chapter or two.

“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’Tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.” ― Mark Twain
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! July — Catherine Ryan Hyde. August: My interview with Susan Wiggs September: Alan Foster (sci-fi) and October: Kristina McMorris

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