This is my one year anniversary of interviewing best selling authors and I’m amazed at the success of it!! Authors have been so generous with their writing process and their time. The interviews are on-going and currently we are booked through April, 2014. It’s always a thrill for me when busy, well-known authors are so generous with their answers that I must break it up into ‘parts’. Continue reading “Interviewing Best Selling Authors…looking back!”
Tag: create
Famous Quotes….and What I Think!
“My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.” – Dylan Thomas
“When I’m not writing, I am reading….and I think, along with many other authors, that it makes me a better writer.” Me
“I went to brush something off my cheek and it was the floor.” Unknown.
“But it had to have been said by one of these famous drunks. Hemingway? Tennessee Williams? James Joyce? F. Scott Fitzgerald? Bukowski?” Me
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Hemingway
“Bleeding words…..things could be worse. I live for those days.” Me
‘What does No Book to Finished book Look Like? Part 3 with Raymond Benson, Author
My Interview with best-selling author, Raymond Benson (part 3). It’s always a thrill for me when busy, well-known authors are so generous with their answers that I must serialize the interview. Don’t miss Part 1 or 2.
Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?
A. There is no set in stone process that writers should follow except the process they fashion themselves—the process that works for them. As I said (see Part 2), I happen to outline, it’s part of my process. I know writers who don’t outline, and that’s part of their processes. Everyone is different. That said, you do have to develop a process, and it must be a productive one, for the most important thing about writing a finished book is to indeed finish it.
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters ?
A. My books tend to be plot-driven—I think of the storyline before I cast it with characters. They develop with the story, usually. This hasn’t always been the case. With The Black Stiletto, the character came first. My literary manager and I were having lunch one day, and he advised me to create something women would like, since the vast majority of book-buyers were women. I facetiously suggested creating a female superhero, and we laughed for a minute. And then he said, “You know, that’s not a bad idea.” At the same time, I already had a story brewing in my mind about a grown man who discovers some dark secret about his dying mother (who has Alzheimer’s). I didn’t know what that secret was yet. Continue reading “‘What does No Book to Finished book Look Like? Part 3 with Raymond Benson, Author”
A Chat with Raymond Benson, Author (part 2)
TS. ‘This photo speaks loudly about the rewards of overcoming procrastination, doesn’t it??’
Part 2 of 3 ** My Interview with Raymond Benson
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
A. If you don’t have a real deadline from an employer, then make one for yourself. Just tell yourself, “I’m going to finish this by the holidays,” or whatever, and stick to it. It takes discipline, and you might have to work at it, but hey, being a writer is, after all, a job.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?
A. Never, because I take care of all the instances of getting lost during the Outline phase. I’m a firm believer in outlining a novel prior to writing it. I know many writers don’t, and that works for them, but for me, I find it to be an invaluable tool. I spend a month or two on it, and it’s in that document I work out the plot, the twists and turns, the red herrings, and I structure the story into a dramatic piece, the entirety of which I can look at with a bird’s-eye view. It’s like doing a prose storyboard for the novel. Believe me, it’s easier to throw out a few paragraphs of an outline when you don’t like the way the story is going, than it is to throw out two or three chapters. So I do all of my hair-pulling and angst-spouting during the Outline phase, which then makes the longer, more tedious phase of Writing much easier. Continue reading “A Chat with Raymond Benson, Author (part 2)”
Interview with Raymond Benson, best selling Author (1of3)
RAYMOND BENSON is the internationally-acclaimed author of thirty published titles. The third book in his most recent thriller series—THE BLACK STILETTO: SECRETS and LIES— was released today. He took out time to interview with me and generously talked at length about his writing process and world.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?
A. I have an office at home, and it’s exclusively used for that purpose. It’s full of books and filing cabinets, artwork, trinkets, a CD player, and of course, my desk and computer. There’s even a lava lamp, although I don’t use it as much as I should! On my desk is a photo of my wife, an “action figure” replica of the black monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and a pebble from the beach at Goldeneye, in Jamaica, the home where Ian Fleming wrote all the Bond novels. And a slinky, to play with during the times when I have to sit there and ponder.
Continue reading “Interview with Raymond Benson, best selling Author (1of3)”
Don’t Miss my Interview with Author, Raymond Benson this Tuesday!
Raymond Benson has been an award-winning and best-selling author, composer, computer game designer, stage director, film historian, and film genres instructor for over thirty years. He is also the fourth official author of the James Bond 007 novels.
Step inside and find out why Lee Child describes Raymond as “a top class thriller craftsman” and David Morrell calls him “one of the best thriller writers in the business.”
Continue reading “Don’t Miss my Interview with Author, Raymond Benson this Tuesday!”
Guest Blog Today on Fresh Fiction!
I am so pleased when FreshFiction.com invites me to blog on their site. Here is the latest and I hope you will enjoy it.
Excerpt: ‘It was only while I was researching for my novel, Wild Violets that I learned that my mother “farmed out” my sister and brother to strangers. The term usually referred to children who were sent to a relative back in the day. In my siblings’ case it was a true indenture. My brother and sister had to work for their keep, ages six and 11….’
Also available in AUDIO books
New Year’s Resolution for Writers!
Okay…here’s some tough love! Get your butt in that chair and write something………..or finish something !!! You’ve read my interviews with famous, best selling authors for about a year now. And the recurring theme is DISCIPLINE!!
Forget what others might think of your scribbles…they’re yours and they’re PERFECT! And what if they aren’t perfect? So What!!?? If I thought I was going to get perfection when I first began writing, I would never have written a word. All I hoped for was to grow as a writer and keep growing with every new project. Still not perfect………….
Write a short story. Write a poem in prose. Write a play. Finish your novel. WRITE SOMETHING!!
Now, here’s the tough part. You have to be selfish to be a writer. You have to tell your spouse, or kids or friends that you aren’t going to be available for a couple of hours. And mean it!! Then go lock yourself in a room and WRITE!! Then tomorrow (or this weekend) do it again. Continue reading “New Year’s Resolution for Writers!”
An Idea..A New Mystery Series! “The World of Murder”
I can’t believe that it was just this past September that I wrote this blog about an idea becoming a one act play and NOW I’m writing my fifth book in the World of Murder mystery series. The first four novels are available here and on amazon.com and now are audio books at audible.com So I am thinking it is worth posting this again to let my fellow writers see how an idea can grow into something pretty damn amazing!!
If you missed the story here it is again:
Let’s see….I think it was 2005 and we were in rehearsals for “Cheatin'” in Port Aransas, Texas. I was the director and we had pulled together a terrific cast. The title pretty much tells you the story line but the fun part and what made it so funny was it was set in….where else?…… Texas and was filled with good ole’ boys and girls. It was the highest grossing play for that theatre in many a year and won Best Production and Best Set Design (thanks to Janis Johnson’s contribution). I was very proud of the cast and crew!
Continue reading “An Idea..A New Mystery Series! “The World of Murder””
‘Brave’…Brilliantly Written…an Overdue, Alternate Ending to Prince Charming
I don’t really know why I’m writing about this topic…could it be because the writing for “Brave” was so exceptional?...filled with double entendre like the Mama Bear fighting to protect her ‘cubs‘. Once in awhile I enjoy a good Disney animated film. And I hadn’t seen the advances of animation in a long time, so I rented ‘Brave’.
We all know the timeless, underlying theme, the girl is looking for her Prince Charming. Her Prince finds her, usually rescues her and they live happily ever after. Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Robin Hood, The Little Mermaid, the list goes on and on.
God knows that’s how I was raised; that my Prince Charming would come someday and I too would live happily ever after. After all, when all was said and done, every movie (in my days of growing up) had an underlying story with this result and girls of my decade pretty much sat back and waited for HIM. Now, fifty years later and three husbands ago, I finally achieved some wisdom and the fact is there are NO Prince Charmings and all three men that I married were just as human as I was. What a huge expectation I put on them! Continue reading “‘Brave’…Brilliantly Written…an Overdue, Alternate Ending to Prince Charming”