Pebbles is a rescue dog, golden retriever/collie mix
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?
SO. Often. I can sit at an airport with my laptop and write, lost in the story—aka ‘the zone.’ Very irritating for anyone who tries to talk to me.
Q. Are you working on something now or have a new release coming up? If so tell us about it.
New Release
SO. I am currently working on part 10 in the Sandy Cove series, or maybe I should call it part 4 in the Starlight Cottages series, which is a series within a series,
set in a coastguard station just outside the fictional village of Sandy Cove. The Lost Promise of Ireland, book 9 (Starlight Cottage #3) will be published in mid-December this year.
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
SO. When I started writing fiction.
Q. Do you think we will see, in our lifetime, the total demise of paper books?
SO. No. I think we’ll always have both. A lot of readers love to hold a ‘real’ book in their hand.
Q. What makes a writer great?
SO. A great writer is someone who can pull the reader into the story from the very first page and hold his/her attention right through to the end.
Work space in Tipperary
Q. and the all-important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like for you?
SO. It’s quite a long, complicated process. First, I write the first draft from start to finish, then I go over it and chop and change quite a bit before I send it to my editor. After that there are four different rounds of edits: structural, line edit, copy edit and proofreading. The final stage is checking through the different formats, Kindle, e-book and PDF (for paperback). In all, three different editors work on the book. All this can take up to two months before publication.
Q. How has your life experiences influenced your writing?
SO. Mostly in the settings (I have lived in quite a few different countries and travelled a lot) and things that have happened to me through my life that have touched my heart and my emotions. Love, tragedies, illness and so on.
Q. What’s your down time look like?
SO. If you mean what I do to relax, it’s mostly about the outdoors. I love hiking in the beautiful mountains of Ireland, or walking on the beaches. I also like yoga or any other kind of workout.
Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre`?
Friendly horse on my walk
SO. I have co-written four detective stories and also written two historical novels based on the lives of my great-aunt and her daughter who had fascinating lives.
Q. Note to Self: (a life lesson you’ve learned.)
SO. Count your blessings. And carpe diem.
Did you miss Part 1 of this fascinating Interview?
My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary, December: Mimi Mathews To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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Swedish by birth and Irish by marriage, Susanne O’Leary is the author of 35 novels, mainly in the romantic fiction genre. She has also written four crime novels and two in the historical fiction genre. She’s been the wife of a diplomat (still married to the same man, now retired), a fitness teacher and a translator. Susanne now writes full-time from either of two locations, a big old house in County Tipperary, Ireland or a little cottage overlooking the Atlantic in Dingle, County Kerry. When she is not scaling the mountains of said counties (including MacGillycuddy’s Reeks), or keeping fit in the local gym, she keeps writing, producing a book every six months or so.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? (please provide a photo of you at work in your shed, room, closet, barn, houseboat….) Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
SO. I usually write in my little office in our house in County Tipperary, with views of the green hills and mountains. When I’m in Kerry, I write sitting in an IKEA chair by the fire, looking at the ocean when I take a break.
Q. Do you have any special rituals or quirks when you sit down to write? A neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.?
Work space in Tipperary
SO. I always write in my pajamas and sheepskin slippers, tea in my favourite blue mug with a slice of toast with marmalade that I
nibble on while I read through what I wrote yesterday. Then I write new material for an hour or two, and then I do some yoga (still in my pyjamas) before I get dressed.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
SO. My real first name is Karin. Susanne is my middle name.
Q. What tools do you begin with? Legal pad, spiral notebook, pencils, fountain pen, or do you go right to your keyboard?
SO. Always on the keyboard on my good old Lenovo laptop.
Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?
SO. Early in the morning is my best and brightest time to write!
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
SO. Make a particular time each day your writing hour. If you stick to that, it’ll be easier to get going.
One of the Interviewer’s favs
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
SO. That’s an interesting question. My books always start with a
situation, then I put the characters into that, and then they become stronger and stronger right through the first draft. Then I go back to the beginning and flesh them out, because now I really know them.
Q. What first inspired you to write?
Starting the day with an ocean swim
SO. I started my writing career by writing non-fiction and wrote two books about health and fitness (I am a trained fitness teacher). While writing these books, I discovered how much I loved the actual writing process. My then editor gave me the idea to write a fun novel based on my experiences as a diplomat’s wife. This became my debut novel, ‘Diplomatic Incidents’ (now also an e-book with the title Duty Free‘).
Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?
SO. Usually the situation.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?
Part two of this wonderful Interview will be posted Nov. 6th
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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The storyteller was the most respected (and looked forward to) person second only to the Shaman since the time where we scratched images into cave walls. Since time immemorial the storyteller has kept alive the tribe’s history and traditions. The name/word, Storyteller, is alive in most languages today.
We writers keep this age-old tradition alive with our stories, whether we seek the past, write about the present, explore unknown worlds, suggest a fairytale, write our personal (tribe’s) history. In whatever language we choose, we tell a story hoping someone out there will read it and be moved by it.
Irish: Seanachais — storytellers
French: le conteur — storyteller, taleteller, romancer
German: der Erzähler — teller, narrator, storyteller, narrative writer
Spanish: Cuentista — storyteller
Italian: Narratore — storyteller
Hawaiian: Mea haʻi moʻolelo — teller of tales
Icelandic: Sagnhafi — Storyteller
Chinese: Shuō gùshì de rén — storyteller
Russian: сказочник — storyteller, fabler
Scottish: Sgeulaiche — (Gaelic) Tale teller
Swahili: Msimuliaji hadithi — Spinner of yarns
Swedish: Berättare — Storyteller
Vietnamese: Người kể chuyện — Taleteller, teller of stories
Our ‘oral’ storytelling and the passing down of tribe’s history and heroics is becoming obsolete. When I was a girl my mother rarely read me a story. Rather she would tell stories of herself, growing up with 12 siblings in the backwoods of Washington state. There were countless stories of thirteen brothers and sisters and their adventures and misdeeds. I believe it was this story telling by my mother that made me the Seanachais that I am today.
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
The storyteller was the most respected (and looked forward to) person second only to the Shaman since the time where we scratched images into cave walls. Since time immemorial the storyteller has kept alive the tribe’s history and traditions. The name/word, Storyteller, is alive in most languages today.
We writers keep this age-old tradition alive with our stories, whether we seek the past, write about the present, explore unknown worlds, suggest a fairytale, write our personal (tribe’s) history. In whatever language we choose, we tell a story hoping someone out there will read it and be moved by it.
Irish: Seanachais — storytellers
French: le conteur — storyteller, taleteller, romancer
German: der Erzähler — teller, narrator, storyteller, narrative writer
Spanish: Cuentista — storyteller
Italian: Narratore — storyteller
Hawaiian: Mea haʻi moʻolelo — teller of tales
Icelandic: Sagnhafi — Storyteller
Chinese: Shuō gùshì de rén — storyteller
Russian: сказочник — storyteller, fabler
Scottish: Sgeulaiche — (Gaelic) Tale teller
Swahili: Msimuliaji hadithi — Spinner of yarns
Swedish: Berättare — Storyteller
Vietnamese: Người kể chuyện — Taleteller, teller of stories
We writers keep this age-old tradition alive with our stories, whether we seek the past, write about the present, explore
Shaman, charcoal/ink by Trisha
unknown worlds, suggest a fairytale, write our personal (tribe’s) history. In whatever language we choose, we tell a story hoping someone out there will read it and be moved by it.
Our ‘oral’ storytelling and the passing down of tribe’s history and heroics is becoming passé. When I was a girl my mother rarely read me a story. Rather she would tell the stories of growing up with 12 siblings in the backwoods of Washington state. These were countless stories of thirteen brothers and sisters and their adventures and misdeeds. I believe it was this story telling by my mother that made me the story teller I am today.
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
In remembrance of the innocent victims killed in a senseless shooting. Inspired by that horrible day, I wrote a ten minute play for the classroom in the hopes that teens would learn more about the circumstances that led up to that day. Perhaps more teens would open up about their thoughts and fears through performance of this play. The child (and yes he is a child regardless of his heinous actions) was in court yesterday pleading guilty to 17 murders of students, coaches and teachers.
Synopsis:
Mass shootings are a part of our current culture. Not until now did I have something to say (write) about so many mass murders.
This ten minute play for teens in the classroom is to honor and memorialize the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. It focuses on a small class of students hidden away in safety by their English teacher and what happens while they wait for the shooting to stop. But the question begs will they ever be safe again?
The victims:
My Mr. Hale (play) is fashioned after Scott Beigel, 35, a geography teacher and the school’s cross-country coach. He was killed after he unlocked a door to allow students in to hide from the shooter.
Alyssa Alhadeff
Aaron Feis
Martin Duque Anguiano
Nicholas Dworet
Jamie Guttenberg
Chris Hixon
Luke Hoyer
Cara Loughran
Gina Montalto
Joaquin Oliver
Alaina Petty
Meadow Pollack
Helena Ramsay
Carmen Schentrup
Peter Wang
My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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A few weeks ago Jenny Bayliss’ publisher requested a book review from me. I tend to shy away from unknown (to me) authors out of fear of having to write a bad review since my mission is to support and uplift all other writers. But the synopsis intrigued me so I accepted the invitation. And…
…might have missed enjoying a really good book. The writing is superb, the story line rich with detail, the characters charming and engaging. The little surprises of humor had me chuckling and spurting an outright laugh (once in awhile) at the clever writing. The humor is honest and handled with a light hand.
The story speaks to most women who have faced at least a couple of forks in the road of life. I could really relate to Annie’s long marriage fizzling out. The abrupt loss of husband and children. What do we do with ourselves? Is this our ‘chance’ to live a life we’ve only dreamed of? Try some things that we were discouraged to try in our previous (and safe) life?
I love it when a place becomes a character in the book. And Saltwater Nook certainly did that!
Half way through the book I hurried to order Bayliss’ debut novel, The Twelve Dates of Christmas. Which, by the way, has received rave reviews. This is a very talented writer and I hope she continues to crank out the wonderful stories.
Available for sale October 19th.
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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Book #5 in the Fabled Forest series. CHEETS HEADS for TROUBLEsville
Cheets is looking for an adventure! The elf has heard about ‘town’. Emma and her mother go there all the time but no one from the fabled forest has ever been there. Cheets is certain it is a magical place and perfect for him. He decides that he must head for Troublesville. He stows away in the car one day and, at the end of the trip, finds
him-self in busy, noisy streets all alone. He begins his adven-ture by befriend-ing two cats who live in a house with two humans. Then because of his undying curiosity and his obsession with carrots, he is captured in a trap and that’s when his adventure is no longer any fun. How can his friends back in the Fabled Forest help him when they don’t even know he’s in Trouble?
Don’t miss Cheets’ escapade and ultimate rescue!
Beautiful full color illustrations by Jefferson O’Neal.Click here to Purchase
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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Second Chance Grill could have been an engaging, charming and entertaining read but….the writing was clunky and author, Christine Nolfi, did a lot of ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing’. Where she could have put a character’s challenge into the hands of the characters in her book to solve, she elected to get out a small soap box and preach about the issue (real time). It was very distracting.
I will digress from this review and begin a writing lesson. One of the first tenants of writing well is wherever possible, to ‘show don’t tell’. (Example) The employees of the Second Chance Grill need health insurance. This writer tells all about the challenges of a small business owner trying to find an affordable plan for employees. She almost crosses the line and leaves fiction for non-fiction. The author could have easily ‘shown’ the challenge of procuring health insurance by creating a chapter/scene where she meets with some insurance agents. Or she reports back to her employees, Finny and Delia, about her failure to find insurance. But that she isn’t giving up and will continue to pursue it. Maybe Finny reacts with cynicism and disbelief. Maybe Delia has special pre-existing conditions that she’s worried about.
Same for Blossom’s leukemia. Nolfi writes a couple of pages about leukemia in teens, percentages of poor diagnoses, bone marrow transplants. That’s ‘telling’. It would have been a better story if she’d let her characters show the grim percentages of death, tell of Blossom’s struggle with the side effects of chemotherapy.
And then Nolfi barrels into a fund drive to raise money for the transplant. This is where the writing gets particularly clunky and chopped up, and frankly, unbelievable. The rhythm of the writing goes off the rails so, sadly, I can’t give it a good review.
My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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‘ Trisha Sugarek’s Emma and the Lady Aardvarks is both whimsical and thought-provoking and will delight and attract fiction and nonfiction young readers alike, as a new mandate to save the planet emerges. A time travel adventure about climate change and a mystical forest that features sister Aardvarks, who arrive in the mystical forest quite by accident when their time travel adventure goes awry.
Emma and the Lady Aardvarks adds another book to Trisha Sugarek’s Fabled Forest series for advanced elementary to early middle grade readers. The aardvarks meet friendly elves, fairies, farm girl Emma, and a host of creatures who inhabit a rare habitat, indeed. Annie is the shy one. Her braver sister Agnes has always protected her young sister, but even she quakes at the strange creatures and dialogues that emerge at the beginning of their new adventure.
Trisha Sugarek’s dialogue and setting is anything but predictable, from a Spanish-speaking spider to a host of characters who greet the skittish sisters Aardvarks: “Patsy, where are your manners?” Donald strolled over to Patsy. “Everyone is welcome in the fabled forest, as long as they come in peace.” “Dios mio, how do we know they come in peace, pequeño? Se ven como bandidos!” Donald laughed, “No they are not bandits, Patsy. Don’t be silly.”
Colorful drawings bring the forest and its creatures to life as Sugarek spins a colorful yarn, from a magical portal that discharges a posse of puppies to the injection of facts about extinction, global warming, and threats to wildlife. While Sugarek’s Fabled Forest milieu has been explored previously in five prior adventures, it should be noted that newcomers need have no prior familiarity with its creatures or history in order to appreciate this warm fantasy of a magical place and a mandate to try to stop climate change’s impact.
Young readers just past the picture book stage will find the peppering of colorful drawings a fine embellishment to a tale that weaves elements of fantasy and reality into a thought-provoking adventure.’ D. Donovan, Midwest Book Review
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! March: Lee Matthew Goldberg, May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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Jennifer’s first home in Guatemala ; a one room hut.
My plan was to stay in El Remate for three months, visit several Mayan sites, and write my second book. In that time, I was “adopted” by a local family, made a bunch of friends, connected with Guatemalan shamans (and participated in several traditional ceremonies) and began sponsoring the education of a couple of the local girls. El Remate quickly became more “home” than “vacation spot.” I extended my rental by another two months, and, just as I was getting ready to leave, bought a piece of land, drew out plans on graph paper, and gave them to one of my new Guatemalan friends to build my house.
While my house was being built, I traveled to Japan, Cambodia, and Thailand, and then loaded all my belongings on a cargo ship and moved to Guatemala. I had taken a few trips to Guatemala during the construction process to pick out materials and see how the house was coming along, but it was an entirely different experience walking into my completed house for the first time. I felt as if I were truly home since every aspect of the house is a reflection of me. Unlike most houses in this area of Guatemala, my house was a two-story home with lots of windows. Painted off-white, it had a terra cotta red Spanish-style roof and a small, secluded patio in front. A handmade wooden door painted slate blue with black iron decorations
Participating in a Mayan shamanic ceremony for rain in Chuarrancho.
opened up into a small foyer from which you could see the entire first floor – kitchen, dining room, living room and an office that was defined by some half walls to give it structure. Tucked in the back corner off the kitchen was a half bath. The Spanish feel continued in the house, with terra cotta ceramic tiles in the kitchen and bathroom and ceramic wood tiles in the other spaces. I had selected a sage-green color for the kitchen cabinets and black concrete for the countertops and island that separated the kitchen from the dining room.
Jennifer at a Mayan archeological site.
The floating staircase with a metal railing that mimicked a tree with branches and leaves that I had drawn out for the builders was a new concept for them, but they had stepped up to the challenge. Each concrete step with a hardwood top was anchored to the wall, giving the impression that each step was lightly floating above the other. The master builder also happened to be a metal worker, and he crafted the railing himself. At the top of the stairs was a meditation space, and then a short walkway to the master bedroom suite – which took up the rest of the second floor. A large sliding door in the bedroom led to a second-floor balcony that ran the entire length of the back of the house.
Visiting a shop in Lake Atitlan.
Set in an undeveloped area of the jungle, the house was remote enough from the village that I had complete privacy but was close enough that I could easily visit friends or go to the lake. It was also remote enough that there wasn’t any electricity available, although running water was. Solar panels on the roof, connected to storage batteries that were housed in my bodega, provided all of the energy I needed to run my house. I loved that my house was powered by the sun, and therefore green and caring for the jungle that I was living in.
My yard was filled with trees, plants and flowers, and hummed with the energy of the jungle – toucans, parrots and hummingbirds were easily spotted, as was the family of howler monkeys that used the trees as part of their “food highway” through the jungle. A whole host of other animals also made the area their home. One day an ocelot even ran through my yard! Relaxing in my hammock on the second floor balcony off my bedroom quickly became a favorite pastime, since I was at tree-level with the birds and monkeys and could not only watch them, but also feel as if I were part of the jungle.
Jennifer with other shamans after Spring Equinox ceremony at Uaxactun.
I quickly got into a routine and filled my days with consulting and shamanic work; writing; planning for and hosting an online radio show; volunteering at the local library and children’s center; and spending time with friends. To this day, my home in Guatemala is my sanctuary and fills me with peace.
If someone had told me that I would quit my job, build a house, and move to Guatemala prior to my accident, I would have laughed at them. But that’s how these life-changing moments work: they throw you for a loop so that you look at everything differently, and they put you on a different trajectory than you could have imagined. In retrospect, my accident was a gift. It allowed me to truly get to know myself and what I am capable of and gave me the opportunity to experience life in a more authentic way than I ever had before. Oh, and do it while wearing six-inch heels!
About Jennifer B. Monahan Jennifer is a business strategy consultant, shaman and coach who helps people all over the world live purposeful lives that not only bring them more joy and freedom, but also help them make the impact they want on the world. Her first book, “This Trip Will Change Your Life: A Shaman’s Story of Spirit
Jaguar
Evolution,” chronicles her experiences meeting and training with a Mayan shaman in Mexico and has won six literary awards, including two first-place Body, Mind, Spirit Book Awards and a 2017 National Indie Excellence Award. Her second book, “Where To? How I Shed My Baggage and Learned to Live Free,” describers Jennifer’s time living in a thatched-roof hut in Guatemala and then travelling to Cambodia, Thailand and Japan. It has won seven literary awards, including Winner in the 2019 Beverly Hills Books Awards and Silver Winner in the 2019 Nautilus Book Awards.
She is a regular contributor to Medium.com and Sivana East, has had articles published on Inc.com and MindBodyGreen.com and has a podcast, Living A Courageously Authentic Life, on BlogTalkRadio.com. She is in the process of writing her third book, a handbook for people looking to define, create and live their courageously authentic life. When not traveling, Jennifer splits her time between Guatemala and the United States. You can find Jennifer at SpiritEvolution.co.
My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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