I first met Tal when he requested a review of his new work, The Art of Fully Living. His back story intrigued me so much that I asked and he consented to an interview. A person buys a one-way ticket to Napal, India? Who does that? Tal did.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? (please provide a photo/s of your shed, room, closet, barn….) Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
TG: I usually write at coffee places. Also, I wear earphones when I’m at my computer. Otherwise I can be easily distracted.
Gulf of Finland
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.)
TG. Yes, I usually put my favorite music and almost instantly feel at ease.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
A pathway in Nepal
TG: A few years back, I sold everything I had, packed a small backpack, and left on a one way ticket to Nepal. I thought I’ll spend 3-4 months but that trip turned to be a fateful encounter, eventually leading me to become a blogger, an entrepreneur, and travel and live abroad in various countries for more than than five years. In a nutshell, after a few months I felt the urge to experience freedom on a whole new level. I purposefully did not set an ending date and traveled on one-way tickets, which meant that I stayed in places as long as I wanted and moved to wherever I felt like going. The wealth of time and the richness of places provided me with a unique opportunity to look deeper and gain broader insights into life.
Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?
TG: Usually first thing in the morning.
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
TG. Do it first thing in the morning, before you get distracted by life 🙂
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?
TG. Rarely. My writing is pretty slow. Mainly because I think about it while doing it.
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
Tune in tomorrow forPart II of this wonderful visit with Tal.
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: International adventurer, writer, Tal Gur. To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
It’s certainly no secret that I’m a big fan of Jodi Thomas’ writing style. Mornings on Main is another winner. Characters that you fall in love with. ‘Gram’ was a favorite of mine. She owns a quilting shop and, even though she suffers from short-term memory loss (don’t we all?) she’s feisty and loves her shop, her friends, and her life.
Jillian and Connor present a sweet love story as Jillian curates Gram’s historic and valuable quilt collection.
Jodi Thomas’ writing is suburb. Her stories move along and her characters entertain the reader. There’s never any doubt (in my mind) about whether the newest book out by Jodi will be any good. They always are…and in this case, I got a lesson about the art of quilting, the historic significance of quilting and the social aspect of quilting…all of which I had little knowledge about. This is a good read and I highly recommend it.
Jodi writes:
‘Three women’s stories together as the stories of the town’s history are displayed in quilts. Quilts have always fascinated me. I remember lying under my grandmother’s quilt from that drifted down from the ceiling. I remember my mother quilting long after her mind had had been invaded by Alzheimer’s. I loved seeing my sisters’ quilts displayed on their bedroom walls.
One of my first memories is lying beneath the quilting frame and listening to my mother and her friends talking as the needles flew. I learned that for them it was never about how fine the stitches were, it was about the friendships, the creative adventure, the love that went into each quilt.
Years later, I was in my late thirties and just beginning to write. My mother was moving into Alzheimer’s. She’d set in the study with me and quilt on a little frame while I typed away on my stories. As the years passed and my skill as a writer grew, while her skills slowly vanished we both still loved those morning working together.’
But, I don’t quilt. My mother quilted, my grandmother quilted. Both my sisters quilt.I have a quilt room in my house full of handmade quilts dating back five generations.
My mother only read my first book before she stopped reading completely. I’ll never forget what she said about my patchwork stories that blend together. She said, “Jodi, you quilt with words.”
You don’t feel like working on your novel today. Don’t force it! If you have an unfinished novel, play, or story…you don’t have to necessarily work on it every day. Too much pressure! A successful writer DOES try to write every day but you can write anything. Maybe you’re not in a creative mood today to work on your novel. So write on your blog or write a piece of poetry. Or a short story. Whatever it is, you don’t have to finish it TODAY. Just write! Write every day! Write something!
“Remember these stories, Tlaga. My people live inside them. When a tale is told, everyone who ever heard that story is alive again….” Bartle Bull
“An alphabet makes the words that keep a people together….” Bartle Bull
“If you stumble, make it part of the dance.” ~ Abi Eberman
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: International adventurer, writer, Tal Gur.To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: International adventurer, writer, Tal Gur. To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks! To Purchase
Ethnic groups have polarized and bullied each other for years, out on the street. Recently, teens have taken to their cell phones and computers to do the same. Blacks against whites against browns. All good kids at their core, but divided by the color of their skin.
This series has been very popular, over the years, with teachers and students. Sets, costumes, props are not needed. Most pertain to real life issues for teens so these plays are meant to open a dialogue between teens and their teachers. Or, at the very least, to experience live theatre.
All ‘G’ rated so no adult content. When profanities are used, as teens do in real life, they are optional and can be easily eliminated.
Available at www.amazon.com and all other fine book stores.
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy ~~ April: International adventurer, writer, Tal Gur. Check out more Motivational Moments…for Writers!
To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Who doesn’t like a rousing, shoot-em-up western? I haven’t read a good, (or for that matter any), western in several decades. I stumbled upon Larry Sweazy as I stalked Amazon, looking for unique writers to possibly read/review/interview. Larry has written a series around a Texas Ranger, Josiah Wolfe. And he lives up to the old classic western writers, Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, and Larry McMurtry.
I happen to choose The Cougar’s Prey which falls in the middle of the series. I am happy to report that it stands alone and nothing is missed. The author deftly brings the reader up to speed (on Josiah’s story) without belaboring his past.
Josiah Wolfe, an old Texas Ranger is sucked back into service and sent away. He is not a happy man. To be separated from his son in such perilous times. Corpus Christi, Texas is literally lawless and terrorized by Mexican bandits; the early days of Mexican cartels and Josiah is sent there on basically a suicide mission.
It was surreal, at times, riding (with Josiah) north, up the Gulf Coast from Corpus to Ingleside, Tx in 1874. I lived and worked there in the early 2000’s and my veterinary was in Ingleside. Funny. It is beautifully written and the reader cares about Josiah almost immediately. I highly recommend this book.
Looking forward to reviewing his upcoming mystery, See Also Proof: A Marjorie Trumaine Mystery, coming May 1st.
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: International adventurer, writer, Tal Gur. To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
6 out of 5 quills The White Rhino Hotel ~~ A Review
A sweeping epic reminiscent of Hemingway, Steinbeck and Kipling. But, none of these…a unique voice that will touch you deeply if Africa touches you.
The setup for the legion of characters and the landscape of Africa took about 100 pages. By then I was hooked by the richly developed people that fill Bull’s story. The writing is pure prose.
“Remember these stories, Tlaga. My people live inside them. When a tale is told, everyone who ever heard that story is alive again….”
“An alphabet makes the words that keep a people together….”
The story is dusty, hot, dangerous and violent. But so is Africa. Just when the new settlers think they’ve domesticated the continent, warrior ants, a herd of elephants and floods storm through. Bull’s characters populate Africa but never effect it, much less conquer it. Olivio, the grotesque dwarf. The reader can’t help themselves, they love and hate him at the same time. The star-crossed lovers, Anton and Gwenn. Hugo von Decken and his son, Ernst. German pioneers homesteading their piece of Africa. The list goes on and on.
The story begins in (literally) the last days of World War I as a German unit traverses the plains of Africa, toting along their prisoners of war, some severely wounded. I don’t write spoilers so that’s about all I will tell of the story. I adore fiction that teaches me history. I had no idea of a Soldiers Lottery for land in West Africa after the world war ended. Whereby soldiers who fought in Africa could enter a lottery and homestead land that belonged only to the African native.
This is their story. But it’s also Africa’s story; how it was fought over and then the land was passed out as booty after the war. Given away even though none of it belonged to any white man.
I highly recommend this book. Take your time, savor each word, taste the air of Africa. That’s what I did!
To Purchase
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes. To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Q. Do you have a new book coming out soon? If so tell us about it.
LS. Yes, See Also Proof, the third book in the Marjorie Trumaine Mystery series releases May 1, 2018. Marjorie is mourning the loss of her husband. It’s winter in North Dakota. Cold. Snowy. A neighbor’s fourteen year-old disabled daughter disappears, and Marjorie joins the search. I think it’s my most personal Marjorie book to date.
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
LS. I wrote poetry and short stories in high school, and beyond, but I was close to thirty when I started sending out short stories to be published. I sold my first short story in 1993 to a little magazine called Hardboiled for five bucks. That was a great day.
Q. How long after that were you published?
Kassi and Sunny meet a new friend
LS. I realized early on that if I wanted to really make it as writer that I needed to write novels. It took me a long time. I published my first novel in 2009. It was the seventh novel I’d written. I promised myself that I would write ten novels. If I didn’t get published by then, I could quit with my head held up high, knowing that I’d given the dream to be a writer everything I had. Luckily, I didn’t have to quit. Not that I would have anyway…
Q. What makes a writer great?
LS. Always being a student.
Q. and the all-important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like for you?
LS. A year of butt in the chair. Write, revise, walk the dogs a lot, revise more, rewrite more. Let it go when it’s ready, and not until. Writing is a job. I show up every day and write a thousand words, or revise a thousand words a day, or rewrite a thousand words a day, no matter what. I wrote the day of my mother’s funeral. On Christmas. On my birthday. At midnight, and every hour in between. Writing a book is an obsession. If it’s not that way for the writer, then how could the story be and obsession for the reader?
Q. How has your life experiences influenced your writing?
LS. Here’s the thing I learned early on: Life’s not fair. You’ve got a choice to learn from a bad experience or to be bitter about it. One or the other is going to dictate the direction your life takes, how you handle the bad days and the great days. Publishing is a tough business. Being bitter just kills the spirit and the desire to make a go of it, especially when it looks like things are never going to work out…Don’t be bitter no matter what. That will destroy your dreams faster than anything.
Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre`?
LS. I write westerns and mysteries at the moment. I’m not married to any genre, really. I think the story determines the genre, not the other way around.
Q. Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
LS. I know every day that I’m a lucky guy when I sit down to write. I’ve published fourteen novels, and spent half my life as a published writer all because readers have read my work and liked it. I’m humbled and grateful.
SEE ALSO PROOF will be released for sale May 1st.
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes. To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
LS. As a kid I played with Hot Wheels cars like a lot of little boys. I liked making up stories about where the cars were going and why. It started there. On the floor as a six year old boy, under the feet of adults, listening to their stories, and to the voices in my head.
Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?
LS. Characters. Always.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?
LS. Yes. Those are the good days. When the world and time disappears. I hope the writing does the same thing for readers.
Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment?
LS. My muse has always been my desire to become a better writer.
Q. Tell us about writing westerns.
LS. I have always loved westerns. I grew in the 1960s and there were a lot westerns on television. Bonanza, The Wild, Wild West, The Rifleman,
cowboy larry 1968
etc. And we could only get three channels on our little black and white TV in small town in Indiana. Add in that I grew up in a house without a father, those cowboys became my heroes, the good guys who stood up to the bad guys, and showed me who the bad guys were. I needed that. I learned a lot from those westerns.
Time went by, and westerns kind of fell out of favor. Detective stories took over. I grew up and went about my life. After I started writing seriously, an editor asked me to write a mystery short story with a modern-day Texas Ranger as the main character. I’d published in the small press, and this was my first chance to publish professionally in an anthology, Texas Rangers, to be published by Berkley (Penguin Random House). The editor, the venerable Ed Gorman, liked the story, “The Promotion,” and bought it. What I didn’t know was that story was going to be published in a western anthology, not a mystery anthology. And then the magic happened. My first professionally published short story went on to win the WWA (Western Writers of America) Spur Award that year. I was floored. I went to the convention in Spokane, Washington and met a lot of great writers; Elmer Kelton, Don Coldsmith,
Larry is part of ‘and others’
Robert Conley, and Loren Estleman to name a few. Westerns felt like home. I knew the stories and the characters, so I started writing westerns in hopes of getting one published. Three years later, my agent, who I met at that first WWA convention, sold the first two books in the Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger series. I went on to write six books in that series, and I’m happy to say the series is still gaining readers today, almost ten years after the first book, The Rattlesnake Season, was published.
The demise of the western has long been forecast, but I don’t believe it. Westerns are mortality tales, crime stories, and the only all-American genre we have. Westerns are like jazz, an American contribution to world of literature. Hollywood still makes westerns and they seem surprised when one of them draws a big audience. But I’m not surprised. Western characters are our people. We know their struggles of their stories. All readers ask is that westerns are authentic and honest. And that’s the kind of novels, and stories in general, that I try to write.
The conclusion to this Interview with Larry will appear March 16th.
Did you miss Part 1? Click here
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory. March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes. To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks! To Purchase
TS. ‘ACTION drives a screenplay, that and plot. DIALOGUE drives a stage play so it better be damn good. In my opinion, if your action is good in a screenplay, the dialogue can be mediocre and often is in blockbusters. If your dialogue is crisp and interesting and helps drive the story, you’ve done a better job than most in Hollywood.’
While you can buy books and software to do the job for you it’s always good to have a grasp of the general spacing standards. The top, bottom and right margins of a screenplay are 1″. The left margin is 1.5″. The extra half-inch of white space to the left of a script page allows for binding with brads, yet still imparts a feeling of vertical balance of the text on the page. The entire document should be single-spaced.
The very first item on the first page should be the words FADE IN:. Note: the first page is never numbered. Subsequent page numbers appear in the upper right hand corner, 0.5″ from the top of the page, flush right to the margin.
Screenplay Elements
Below is a list of items (with definitions) that make up the screenplay format, along with indenting information. Again, screenplay software will automatically format all these elements, but a screenwriter must have a working knowledge of the definitions to know when to use each one.
Scene Heading
Indent: Left: 0.0″ Right: 0.0″ Width: 6.0″
A scene heading is a one-line description of the location and time of day of a scene, also known as a “slugline.” It should always be in CAPS.
Example: EXT. WRITERS STORE – DAY reveals that the action takes place outside The Writers Store during the daytime.
When a new scene heading is not necessary, but some distinction needs to be made in the action, you can use a subheader. But be sure to use these sparingly, as a script full of subheaders is generally frowned upon. A good example is when there are a series of quick cuts between two locations, you would use the term INTERCUT and the scene locations.
Action
Indent: Left: 0.0″ Right: 0.0″ Width: 6.0″
The narrative description of the events of a scene, written in the present tense. Also less commonly known as direction, visual exposition, blackstuff, description or scene direction.
Remember – only things that can be seen and heard should be included in the action.
Character
Indent: Left: 2.0″ Right: 0.0″ Width: 4.0″
When a character is introduced, his name should be capitalized within the action. For example: The door opens and in walks LIAM, a thirty-something hipster with attitude to spare.
A character’s name is CAPPED and always listed above his lines of dialogue. Minor characters may be listed without names, for example “TAXI DRIVER” or “CUSTOMER.”
Lines of speech for each character. Dialogue format is used anytime a character is heard speaking, even for off-screen and voice-overs. Normal upper and lower case is used.
A parenthetical is direction for the character, that is either attitude or action-oriented. With roots in the playwriting genre, today, parentheticals are used very rarely, and only if absolutely necessary. Why? Two reasons. First, if you need to use a parenthetical to convey what’s going on with your dialogue, then it probably just needs a good re-write. Second, it’s the director’s job to instruct an actor on how to deliver a line, and everyone knows not to encroach on the director’s turf!
Extension
Placed after the character’s name, in parentheses
An abbreviated technical note placed after the character’s name to indicate how the voice will be heard onscreen, for example, if the character is speaking as a voice-over, it would appear as LIAM (V.O.).
Transitions are film editing instructions, and generally only appear in a shooting script. Transition verbiage includes:
CUT TO:
DISSOLVE TO:
SMASH CUT:
QUICK CUT:
FADE TO:
As a spec script writer, you should avoid using a transition unless there is no other way to indicate a story element. For example, you might need to use DISSOLVE TO: to indicate that a large amount of time has passed.
Shot
Indent: Left: 0.0″ Right: 0.0″ Width: 6.0″
A shot tells the reader the focal point within a scene has changed. Like a transition, there’s rarely a time when a spec screenwriter should insert shot directions. Once again, that’s the director’s job.
Sample of what your page should look like: [Source: The Writer’s Digest]
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory Check out more Motivational Moments…for Writers!
To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
I first met Tal when he requested a review of his new work, The Art of Fully Living. His back story intrigued me so much that I asked and he consented to an interview. A person buys a one-way ticket to Napal, India? Who does that? Tal did.
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks! 
