Tag: new fiction

FREE BOOK Give-a-way!! This weekend!

fiction, women, flappers, prohibition, San Francisco, roaring twentiesIt’s easy to win a copy of my novel, “WILD VIOLETS” this weekend.   Just  1) LIKE my page at www.facebook.com/writeratplay  2)  start FOLLOWING me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/writeratplay4.  and 3) SHARE this Post.      Tweet me or ‘message’ me with your entry.

The (5) prize books are available, to the winners,  in audio or a signed paperback.  Winners will be selected randomly.

 “Wild Violets”   It’s the roaring twenties in San Francisco, a decade famous for hot jazz and bath tub gin. 

After  documenting my mother’s colorful childhood in the primordial forests of Washington State, I went on to write about Violet as a grown woman with children of her own.  She has left her small home town in the Pacific Northwest to pursue a successful basketball career and with her earnings, she bought a bar and grill.   She is a ‘flapper’ in every sense of the word; working all day and playing all night.  While her teenage daughter raises her seven year old son, Violet is out on the town with her latest man de’jour. Dressed in her signature red dress, she is the toast of the town and owner of a speakeasy where she hosts the cream of San Francisco’s society, city politicians, bishops, and Hollywood celebrities.

But there is an underbelly of corruption, grifters, the mob, excess, and neglect in Violet’s life.  Her two children are an afterthought and she chooses her men over their well being time and time again.  Their childhood needs are always trumped by her self-indulgent desires.   The two children are possessions that she can put down or pick up again on a whim, showing them off to her current beau or friends and then forgotten.  And when they get in her way, she gets rid of them.
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Wild Violets- Prologue   Sample AUDIO
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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!    Dean Koontz is my June author.

To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  On the home page, enter your email address.  Thanks!

Writers Must be Multi-Taskers!

Like so many other prolific writers (that I’ve interviewed) we are multi-taskers. And if we aren’t naturally, we learn pretty quick that we Cover.Angel - Copyshould be. As I finished writing the last few pages of ‘The Angel of Murder’, the story line for the next book was rattling around in my head. I edited book 4 one last time and published it. I then immediately sent it to my narrator/producer to begin the audio-book. This also requires my time as I listen to and edit each chapter.

‘Sugarek had barely released her newest book in the World of Murder series entitled ‘The Angel of Murder’ when she was already deeply into the plot of her next one. A famous chef-judge on a successful cooking show has been murdered. Detectives O’Roarke and Garcia have a cold case dumped on them in spite of O’Roarke’s vehement insistence, “We don’t do cold cases!”

Follow the two murder cops behind the scenes and onto the TV set of a wildly popular cooking competition where the suspects are plentiful and the case is three years cold.’
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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 blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  On the home page, enter your email address.  Thanks!

Part 2 of Interview with author, Sherryl Woods

Part 2 of my time with Sherryl Woods.  COMING SOON!!  August, 2014  Swan Point, A Sweet Magnolia Novel

Q. What makes a writer great?

A. For me what makes any writer great is the ability to tell a story that resonates with readers and touches them in some way. A book that can make a reader laugh or cry or even close the book with a deep sigh of satisfaction is the absolute best. I always aim for that. If I hit the mark even sometimes, it’s a wonderful feeling.

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

View out my window of the Bay and Miami
View out my window of the Bay and Miami

A. Once I know which series a book will be in and which character will “star”, I always start out mulling for a few days, jotting down a few notes about key plot points, motivations, conflicts and so on. I am mostly a right-brain writer, so I don’t make a list of details about character descriptions or history. Once I understand the basics of the story I want to tell, I start writing scenes for a synopsis.
Continue reading “Part 2 of Interview with author, Sherryl Woods”

Interview with best selling author, Sherryl Woods

   I think I have read every book Sherryl has written….  Author, Sherryl Woods           spanning two or three decades.  It is such a pleasure to have this opportunity to interview her; hearing about her rituals, her work space and what keeps her writing over the years.

Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?

A. I have two spaces for writing, since I split my life between two states. In Florida, I have an official office in a condo separate from the one in which I live. I actually walk to work…across a parking garage, which isn’t exactly scenic, but gets me there under the “shortest distance” theory. My view includes a tiny glimpse of the ocean, a slightly better view of Biscayne Bay and a snippet of the Miami skyline. That said, I rarely look up from my computer long enough to see any of it!
Continue reading “Interview with best selling author, Sherryl Woods”

Trisha Sugarek, Guest Blogger on FreshFiction.com TODAY!

This author is a guest blogger on FreshFiction.com TODAY! Telling the story behind “The Art of Murder” and how it went from an idea to a book to a series.  Trish is currently working on book 2, “The Dance of Murder”  in the series The World of Murder.

Click here:   http://freshfiction.com/page.php?id=5447

Murder mysteries, gift ideas, New York, crime
Book 1 of The World of Murder series

Win a chance to receive, FREE, one of Trisha’s latest novels.

In a special ‘give away’ 10 visitors to FreshFiction.com  will win a book, “Wild Violets” or “The Art of Murder”.

 

fiction, women, flappers, prohibition, San Francisco, roaring twenties“Wild Violets” is also available in Audio Books!

 

Pull the Covers Up Over your Head…an Interview with author, Robert McCammon (part 2)

interviews, author quotesPart II…… an interview with Robert McCammon authors, best sellers, writers, interviews(part I)

Robert McCammon, born July 17, 1952 in Birmingham, Alabama, have written nineteen books, working on his twentieth now. Some titles are SWAN SONG, MINE, MYSTERY WALK, BOY’S LIFE, STINGER, SPEAKS THE NIGHTBIRD, MISTER SLAUGHTER, THE PROVIDENCE RIDER.

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

A. I start work about 10 or so at night and work until 2 or 3. When I’m finishing up a book, I “double up” and work in the daytime as well.

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

A. “Lost” in the writing? Well…I guess it’s a matter of concentration. The harder you concentrate, the more you become “lost” in the writing, I suppose. Doesn’t happen all the time, but it does happen.

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

A. When I was about 25 and realized my job at a newspaper was a dead-end.author interviews, best sellers, writers, interviews

Q. How long after that were you published?

A. About two years later.

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

A. What does it look like? Well, it looks like extreme concentration, hard work and problem solving.  Also sticking with it until it’s done. Does that answer your question, sorta kinda, or have I misunderstood it?

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

A. In my mind. I’m doing a series right now where some of the characters are ongoing, but others have to be made up from whole cloth. Still…are any characters made up totally from “whole cloth”? Probably not. They’re probably put together by the writer’s attitude and impressions of the world, people he or she have met…many influences there in creating characters.

Q. What inspired your story/stories ?

A. I like to read. I don’t write with an outline, so it’s like I’m reading my own work as it goes along. I want to know what happens. Also, I want to create a world the reader will enjoy living in for a little while.Robert McCammon, best selling author, writing

Q. Have you? Or do you want to write in another genre`?

A. I’ve written in horror/suspense/mystery/historical. I’d like to do some “science fiction” writing, as well…whatever the definition of that might be.

Q. Anything else you’d like to share with us?

A.  I was pleased to do this, and thank you for the questions.                     http://www.robertmccammon.com/

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Come back May 23rd when I review McCammon’s newest book,  ‘I Travel the Night’

Don’t forget to sign up to receive my BLOG!  It offers advice, encouragement and support to other writers.
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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS.  The NEW SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner” INTERVIEWS with other  best-selling AUTHORS!

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and plan on featuring an interview once a month .  I have invited such luminaries as:  Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Mark Childress, Robert McCammon, Rhys Bowen,Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, Amber Winckler, Jeffrey Deaver and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!  Mark Childress is our April author.  Caroline Leavitt is June‘s author.  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August‘s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander.  Slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter.
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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”.  You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ .  Thanks!

Write what you know…..or..

…or research ’till your eye balls fall out.

flappers, roaring 20's, Wild Violets, new fiction, I am working on my second novel, “Wild Violets”. It takes place during a period in roaring 20's, flappers, new fiction, Wild VioletsAmerica’s history that I am somewhat familiar with but not nearly enough as it turns out.

The story is going well, I am happy with the development of my characters.  Suddenly I realized my (sketchy) heroine had a bar during the years of prohibition.  Ops! So I quickly changed it to a speakeasy with illegal booze, which made the story even more interesting. Now Violet had to dodge the coppers and the Mob!

I have two photographs of Violet in the fashion of the day.  Not nearly enough information to write an entire story.  With a few clicks, using the Internet, I can research time lines, facts and fashion.

The fashion of the roaring twenties is fascinating. Women were just coming out of being laced up, tied up, strapped up and cinched up so tight that they often fainted from lack of air!  The tiny waists (even if you didn’t have one naturally)  and the huge bell sleeves were gone.  Suddenly fashion dictated sexy, loose soft fabrics, with a suggestion of revealing more, but still covering up the female form.

The feminist women of the 20’s were called ‘flappers‘.  They worked all day and danced all night! And Violet certainly did that!  Worked a twelve-hour day in her bar and grill, ran upstairs to her apartment, refreshed her makeup, donned her bright red dress with the fringe and piled into a town car to hit her favorite road house.  Seeking the coldest gin and the hottest jazz!

When was the last time you were behind bars? No, seriously!

This has been an incredible journey for me as a playwright turned novelist. In play writing you must tell your story in 100 pages or less, definitely in less than two hours and everything you want to relate to the audience must be conveyed through the dialogue.  In the theatre world there’s a term: “method acting” which means you get as close to your character as you can.  If the character you are going to portray is a prostitute, you follow and talk to whores. (been there, done that. Honolulu, 1992 ) If your character is a woman who’s husband has been in prison for the past 13 years, you get inside her head.

I’m a ‘method’ writer, (every chance I get.) 

In 1999 I had reason to visit a men’s DOC facility. (prison).  I was visiting a confessed murderer as research for one of my earlier scripts.  My writing has taken me to some unexpected places to say the least.  On a Sunday morning I found myself sitting in the reception area with three dozen other women.  Wives, sisters, mothers, daughters of convicted felons.  As I waited, I wondered how long they had been coming to visit; how long would a woman wait for her man behind bars; and what a terrible impact this must have on the children, visiting their fathers in this place.  Sitting there I was suddenly compelled to write their stories.  I tried to interview as many women as I could and this was no easy task.

Their closed society is cloaked in guilt and shame. But they finally let me in and I discovered, for the most part, incredibly brave and strong women.  They would tell their friends and neighbors, “my husband travels with his work” to explain the man’s absence.  Always appearing cheerful and strong while visiting their men, the women I spoke with, had a pull off down the highway where they would congregate (after leaving the prison) where they could cry, scream, and moan and be comforted.  Where they could share, with other women who understood, what their lives were really like outside the walls.  Away from the eyes of their men and the prison officials.

Fast forward to 2011: My heart had been nagging me for years that my stage play,(by the same name) had MORE to say. And it wouldn’t let up!!  The message was, “you have to tell the rest of these women’s stories. GET BUSY!!”

For someone who was so comfortable writing in the genre of ‘scripts’ this was a scary prospect. Yikes! I thought, a novel was at the very least 70,000 words and over 300 pages long. What could I possibly have to say?  One year and four months later I had a 335 page novel in my hands. Evidently my characters had plenty to say!  At times I was surprised and delighted with my women and their stories. At other times appalled. As many writers will tell you, at some point, the characters sort’a….no…they definitely take over and you become simply the typist.

I am hoping that my readers enjoy this journey and find some empathy for those women doing hard time outside the walls.