Tag: interviews

More with best selling author, Julia London (part 3)

Julia in Ireland
Julia in Ireland

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

(con’t. from Part 2)  JL.  From there, the manuscript is improved over and over again with subsequent rounds of editing by me, by an editor’s notes, by copy editors who catch inconsistencies that, unbelievably, neither me or a developmental editor caught. So the finished book has been massaged and manipulated many times over. At least in my experience.

Q. How has your life experiences influenced your writing/stories?

JL. Just living life informs the writing. I meant what I said about having to be in the world to understand it. It would be very easy to never leave my house, to sit in front of a computer all day. But I won’t allow myself to do that. I have an active lifestyle, I travel, I have an extended family I love and that has been dysfunctional from time to time. Continue reading “More with best selling author, Julia London (part 3)”

Interview with Julia London, best selling author of Regency Romances

Julia.London.203,200_I confess!  I read them along with several million other women.  I love the regency period when men were gentlemen and women were ladies, in the drawing room.   Subtle, and full of innuendo, I like something left to my own imagination. And Julia London delivers!  Now I landed an interview with one of my favorites.

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.

JL. This is my current office, however I’ve just invested in a treadmill desk and am about to change the London.3way I spend my day, as in upright and not hunched over. But where is that sucker going to go? I haven’t figured that out yet.

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.)

JL. I can’t sit down and write until I’ve exercised in some way. I have a variety of activities to start the day: either taking my dog out for a jog (rather, he trots happily along, while I wheeze through a jog), yoga, biking or Pilates. It clears my head and gets the creative juices flowing. I’ve worked out a lot of plots while sweating profusely.

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

JL. I majored in political science with an emphasis on Middle Eastern Studies. Mainly because I paid my own way through college with a patchwork of jobs and scholarships. The best was a National Defense Education Act scholarship for which all I had to do was study a critical language for three years. The deal was that if the country needed your language skills within some specified time frame after graduation, they could call on you. So I studied Arabic (I know, right?) and took some classes in Middle Eastern religion, economics, and culture. I should point out that I have forgotten most of it. As it turned out, there wasn’t a big call for that expertise. Continue reading “Interview with Julia London, best selling author of Regency Romances”

A Day In The Life Of A Writer

anxnst.mouseIt’s time once again to share with other writers, my hopes, my fears, my successes, my setbacks. My days as a writer look very much like a pizza loaded with toppings.

My time at my keyboard, has been filled feverishly working with an editor on The Art of Murder because a publisher is sniffing around my campfire.  That is to say, the senior editor for a publishing co. said my mystery series had ‘tremendous potential‘ but wasn’t quite there yet.  Now we wait and see if my editor and I were able to do what they needed in order to offer me a contract.

Yes, even though I am moderately successful as an indie author, I am still chasing a traditional publisher when I stumble across one.  Continue reading “A Day In The Life Of A Writer”

Successor to Tom Clancy, an Interview with Grant Blackwood (part 2)

Part Two of my Interview with best selling author, Grant Blackwood, successor to Tom Clancy

blackwood-portrait-253x300Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment ?

A. I don’t have a muse, per se. If anything, my muse is the drive to write stories that entertain readers. That’s the little voice that sits on my shoulder. Too often writers fall into the muse trap — believing that they’re creativity and productivity is at the whim of something “out there”, something fleeting. Start writing. The muse will be there.

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

A. July of 1987, two months after I got out of the Navy. I’d been thinking about writing a book since I was eight or nine. That morning in July I caught myself on a good day. Instead of saying, “maybe tomorrow”, Continue reading “Successor to Tom Clancy, an Interview with Grant Blackwood (part 2)”

Interview with Grant Blackwood, writing for Tom Clancy

While I was reading and reviewing Under Fire by Grant Blackwood (Tom Clancy) my burning question was:  ‘how do you write so well that we believe the iconic Tom Clancy is really the one putting pen to paper?’  These authors who write after the death of a beloved writer, like Ludlum, Parker, Fleming or Clancy, are really talented.  To be able to put their own unique ‘voice’ on the shelf and write so successfully for another author?  It boggles this writer’s mind!

Grant at work on his latest vampire/romance/thriller joined by his two consultants.”
Grant at work on his latest vampire/romance/thriller joined by his two consultants.”

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.

A. I have an office in our house. As we’ve recently moved, I’m still in the process of getting things decorated. That said, here’s the view I have when I work in the morning…The wall behind my computer is intentionally barren; when I’m writing Continue reading “Interview with Grant Blackwood, writing for Tom Clancy”

Coming Soon! Interview with a comic book writer legend…

Big Bang Theory
Comic Store – The Big Bang Theory

I want to run into Stuart’s comic book store and yell, ‘I’m interviewing Chuck Dixon!’

COMING IN SEPTEMBER! My Interview with iconic, comic book writer, Chuck Dixon. Writer for Batman, the Avenger, and many more legendary characters. He also wrote for many years for the TV hit animation, The Simpsons.

a.Dixon.BATman.CoverWhen I asked him,  Chuck, you are such an icon in the comic book and animated TV world. What inspired you to switch from that genre to writing fiction?

Chuck:  “I simply got tired of waiting for someone else’s permission to write. The possibilities offered by digital publishing are endless. Continue reading “Coming Soon! Interview with a comic book writer legend…”

Two Authors, One Book…(part 2) My Interview with Thorne and Cross

Thorne.pic.2 TS: This is one of the most entertaining and humorous interviews that’s been my pleasure to do.  Enjoy!

Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?

A. We work 8-to-10 hours per day six days a week. We start in the morning even though we both hate mornings, and work until we’re called for dinner. Writing is a full-time job. If we only worked when the mood struck, we’d never get anything done. Discipline is everything for a serious writer. No excuses.

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

A. Give it up or just buckle down and do it. You wouldn’t procrastinate going to a job where you worked for someone else – when you are your own boss, you must be even more disciplined.

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?

A. It’s a bad day if we don’t get lost in our work. Getting lost means it’s going great. It can last for a couple hours to all day. We never know.

Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment ? Continue reading “Two Authors, One Book…(part 2) My Interview with Thorne and Cross”

Interview with a Writing Duo…Authors:Tamara Thorne & Allistair Cross

31l6DU3VVVL 61ZHnam-LQL._SX150_TS: What a compliment!  This dynamic duo’s publicist requested an interview!  ‘How fascinating, to interview co-authors’, I said to myself,  ‘how does it all work? Two people writing the same story.‘

Q. Where/when did you two meet?

A. Alistair had just been published when he started doing author interviews on his personal blog. As a fan of Tamara Thorne’s since the 1990s, he was eager to have her on. He contacted her through Facebook, she agreed to the interview and they instantly hit it off.

Q. How did you start to write together?

A.Accidentally. Normally we both hate telephones, but this was the exception and our daily conversations and texts would end up turning into brainstorming sessions. In the following months, we naturally transitioned into an official collaboration, Continue reading “Interview with a Writing Duo…Authors:Tamara Thorne & Allistair Cross”

Interview with Dorothea Benton Frank * Blockbuster best Selling author

Long before I moved to Savannah which is just a hop and skip down the road from Dorothea’s ‘low country’ I was reading her extraordinary stories of women in the south.   This author draws you in, seduces you with her heroines’ triumphs and challenges that any woman can relate to.  That’s why I was particularly pleased and honored when she granted me this interview. 

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 write in my office in my home in NJ or in my office in my home in SC. My dream work space would be to occupy my little office in SC full time. This cruelty of this past winter’s plummeting temps, deep snow and black ice has cured me of any desire I may have had to remain in NJ. It’s not that I have anything against NJ. I have had many wonderful years here. It’s that I’m trapped indoors for months. But check back with me in a few years when I finally do reside in SC and hurricanes have me Continue reading “Interview with Dorothea Benton Frank * Blockbuster best Selling author”

An Interview with Sue Monk-Kidd

While Sue was too busy to give me an interview, they did send along this fascinating narrative of how she came to write The Invention of Wings  (click here to read my review of the book)The Invention of Wings

Q. How did you approach writing an enslaved character? How did Hetty Handful Grimké come about?

SMK. From the moment I decided to write about the historical figure of Sarah Grimké, I was compelled to also create the story of an enslaved character that could be entwined with Sarah’s. In fact, I felt that I couldn’t write the novel otherwise, that both worlds would have to be represented. Then I discovered that at the age of eleven, Sarah was given a ten-year-old slave named Hetty to be her handmaid. According to Sarah, they became close, and she defied the laws of South Carolina by teaching Hetty to read, for which they were both punished. Nothing further is known of Hetty except that she died of an unspecified disease a short while later. I knew immediately that this was the other half of the story. I wanted to try to bring Hetty to life again and imagine what might have been.

There’s an aphorism in writing that says you should write about what you know, Continue reading “An Interview with Sue Monk-Kidd”