A. I think unforgettable stories and characters. People talk about beautiful turns of phrases, and lovely writing is a joy to read, but unforgettable characters and wonderful stories makes a writer’s work live on. Dickens created some of the most unforgettable characters in literature, and some amazing stories and so his work lives on, even if people don’t read him — his characters and stories have entered popular culture so deeply that people who’ve never heard of Dickens know Scrooge and Miss Haversham and Fagin.
Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?
A. I think the important thing is to push on. Writers (IMO) tend to give up for two basic reasons — 1) they endlessly tweak and fiddle with the writing, and never get to finish the story. Perfectionism gets in the way. But the best piece of writing advice ever comes from Nora Roberts, also arguably the most prolific and successful writer of popular fiction in the world: “You can fix a bad page but you can’t fix a blank one.” So you need to push on and make yourself finish, even if you think it’s horrible. Then you can either fix it, or work out why it doesn’t work and learn from it. Writing, as with all things, takes practice. Not all the books you write will be publishable — some books have L-plates on them. But often the story idea is good and later, when you’re better at creating the architecture of a novel, you can revisit that early idea.
2) The second reason people don’t finish is…. Continue reading “Interview with best selling author, Anne Gracie (part 2)”
‘The Taste of Murder‘ has just been released and ‘The Art of Murder‘ (revised) has a new cover and two new chapters.
YOU CAN WIN A FREE BOOK! Just like my page on Facebook www.facebook.com/writeratplay and follow me on Twitter @writeratplay4. Write a comment about this post letting me know which book you would like to receive and your USA mailing address. A contact email would be good.
In Book 5 in the series The World of Murder, Detectives O’Roarke and Garcia have a cold case dumped on their desk. Despite their objections that they ‘don’t do cold cases’ their Commander tells them that they do now since the new Mayor has asked for them…. Continue reading “FREE BOOK GIVE-A-WAY! The World of Murder”
TS: I have been reading Anne Gracie for YEARS…no, decades!! I love her stories! And I admit quite freely that I’m a junkie for historic romances. Anne’s characters are rich and full and funny. So I must tell my readers, fans, friends and tweeters that it is a thrill for me to now be able to interview her!
International best selling author, Anne Gracie
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?
A. I write in different places. I often go to my local library and write by hand. I write in my office, and sometimes in my bed on my laptop. I carry a notebook with me at all times, because sometimes a phrase or snippet of dialogue will come to me at odd times, and I don’t want to lose it. I also go away once a year with a small group of other writers (eight of us) on a writing retreat… Continue reading “Interview with Australian author, Anne Gracie”
Book 1 in the World of Murder Series has a NEW Look and NEW chapters. Available now here in my store and at www.amazon.com
New dynamic cover, new title, and new love interest woven through the true crime mystery.
When I wrote this less than a year ago, I thought, ‘just a murder mystery, something fun to try, a different genre,’ and then I’d move on. Little did I know at the time that it would become a popular series and Book 5 has just been published.
So I thought the other day that I should revisit Book 1 and see what I thought about it now, 1+ years later. And this is especially aimed at my fellow writers. Don’t ever be shy about revisiting something you’ve written; maybe you can make it better. Low and behold I discovered that I had not given my readers enough about O’Roarke’s and Garcia’s personal lives and I had neglected to tie up some loose ends.
What I discovered with a critical look at my own work, was that there was more to write! I ended up with 6,000 additional words and new chapters. AND a better story!
If you liked this story don’t miss:
Book 2 ‘Dance of Murder’
Book 3 ‘ Act of Murder’
Book 4 ‘ Angel of Murder’
Book 5 ‘ Taste of Murder’
Book 6 ‘(Beneath the) Bridge of Murder’
Book 7 Video of Murder
Book 8 Shadow of Murder
Book 9 Triad of Murder (Soon to be Released)
Available on e-books and Audio books.
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!
In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!
To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Saturday I will post a nostalgic piece about my years living in the Vieux Carré of New Orleans. Full time actress, part time day job (gotta pay the rent) radio and TV talent. Hookers, mob bosses, millionaires all supporting our live theatre productions. Rehearsing in the cellar of the Performing Arts Building, where little beady red eyes watched from the shadows. So we will start with a little poetry to wet your curiosity:
Standing outside the gate,
eager to say goodbye, remembering
all the reasons to say hello
New Orleans, that witchy woman, whose song is
loved and never forgotten, whose taste
lingers on the tongue forever.
Where love bloomed on a rain slick night
Now, as I bend to kiss the powdered, rouged
cheek, my nostrils are assailed by
the sweet odor of rotting flesh eaten
away in the darkest recesses by a decadent,
self indulgent cancer Continue reading “Prologue to a Saturday Post”
Another one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Hoyt writes historic romances with humor.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?
A. I have an office—it’s a sun room at the back of the house. I also do a lot of writing at coffee shops.
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. I like to have something to drink—both coffee and water, preferably.
Q. What is your mode of writing?
A. If I wrote in longhand I wouldn’t be able to read the result. 😉 I use Scrivener on an eleven inch MacBook Air.
Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?
A. I write to deadlines. When I’m on deadline I write. 😉
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
A. I find that the bowel-loosening fear of defaulting on a contracted deadline and possibly messing up my entire career is a pretty good incentive to sit down at the computer. If you don’t have a contracted deadline, you need to make your own deadline or goal because the muse may never arrive if you’re waiting on her to write. Continue reading “An Interview with best selling author, Elizabeth Hoyt”
Part 2: Continuing with this look into best selling author, Barbara Delinsky’s world:
Book signing
Q. What makes a writer great?
A. Not fancy prose or even extensive research. I believe that a writer is great when she can produce book after book that readers love.
Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?
A. Discipline. That’s it, short and sweet. Produce three pages each day before allowing yourself to leave the computer, and you will eventually finish a book. Do I start with an outline? Vaguely. But it’s sketchy and subject to change as the book grows and characters take over.
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
A. Given that my books are character-driven, my characters come to me at the very start. That said, I don’t fully know them until I’m nearly halfway through the book. This is good. By not boxing them into a preconceived notion of who or what they should be, they take off on their own and do things I may not have planned. Those things are often what make the book shine.
TS. I have been reading Barbara Delinsky for decades! Good, rich stories about believable and appealing people. Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, what better time to promote her stellar book, UPLIFT!
Now for the Interview I have been waiting years for:
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.
A. I have an office over our garage, with windows front and back and four skylights. This makes it bright and sets it apart from the rest of the house.
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. I have no rituals. My desk may or may not be neat, depending on where I am in my book, and I may have tea or a soda or water nearby, depending on my mood. I actually like to vary things when it comes to my writing space and habits. Keeps me fresh.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
A. Growing up, I was no reader. I much preferred playing outside to reading inside. Going through high school and college, I read few books that weren’t required for school. It was only when my children were young and I needed an escape from full-time motherhood that I began to really read.
Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?
A. I am usually working at my computer by six in the morning, Monday through Friday. Creativity? Some days it’s there, some days not, but I work nonetheless. If what I produce one day is bad, I either edit it the next or ditch it. I do believe that inspiration is 90% perspiration.
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
A. Limit your time at the computer. Two hours a day are better than none. Keep at those two hours, day after day, and you’ll eventually have something to show.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?
A. No. I don’t ‘get lost.’ I cut my teeth as a writer when I had three young sons at home. I stole writing time when they were napping and, eventually, at school. Given that they were my first priority, ‘getting lost’ was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment ?
A. Bloomingdale’s. I tell myself that if I produce something worthwhile at my computer in the morning, I can run to the mall that afternoon.
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
A. I was thirty-four and starting to look for part-time work when I noticed a piece in the morning paper about women who wrote category novels. They made it sound easy and very do-able while raising a family, so I decided to give it a shot.
Q. How long after that were you published?
A. I spent two months reading the kind of novel I wanted to write, wrote my own in three weeks, sent it to various publishing houses, and got a bid for it six weeks later. I was lucky. I happened to deliver the right manuscript to the right editor at the right time. If I were to do it over again, I might not be as lucky.
Don’t Miss it! Part 2 of this fascinating writer’s life coming on October 9th.
DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!
In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create! Barbara Delinsky and Elizabeth Hoyt will be my October authors.
To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Three out of five quills A REVIEW With Mother’s Approval
by Mike Wells
When the Seattle Police Department bumbles the investigation of a serial killer who has brutally taken the lives of five women, Detectives Allie and Jeremy Branson take over the case. The husband and wife team work out of the King County Sheriff Department’s Violent Crime Unit and have one of the best track records in the country. But this time around, the Bransons are tested to their limits. Will they catch “The Call Girl Killer,” or will the sadistic murderer continue his spree of horrific crimes unchecked?
If you like extremely incestuous, murderous, cra-cra.…you will love Mike Wells’ latest offering. I know his fans will be ecstatic that he has written another one. Stephen King is all this reviewer’s stomach can handle and With Mother’s Approval goes way, way beyond King’s warped world. I found it a little ingenuous that the Seattle PD was painted with such a broad brush as ‘bumbling’ and totally incompetent. And I couldn’t get my head around Jeremy giggling, given his physical description and demeanor.
It’s well written but not to my taste. I know his fans, old and new, will love it! Going on sale as an e-book TODAY!!!
Don’t miss my Interview with Mike Wells coming in December!
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!
In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create! Barbara Delinsky and Elizabeth Hoyt will be my October authors.
To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
Are you gearing up for that special audition at the high school, university, or community theatre? Or maybe you are a seasoned actor who needs something NEW and FRESH to show them!!
Monologues 4 Women is just that. Original, never before seen monologues mixed in with the classics.
Tear away all the profound, pompous opinions about a successful audition.
Here’s the nitty, gritty facts of going through the audition process by an actor/director/author with thirty years experience in the theatre.
This collection of contemporary, original monologues also includes several pieces for the African-American woman. Mixed with classic.
DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!
In addition to my twice weekly blog I also feature an interview with another author once a month. So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create! Barbara Delinsky and Elizabeth Hoyt will be my October authors.
To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
