writing Archives - Page 60 of 82 - Trisha Sugarek, Author, Playwright & Poet

Interview (part 2) with best selling author, Barbara Delinsky

Part 2: Continuing with this look into best selling author, Barbara Delinsky’s world:

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.

Q. What inspires your story/stories ? Continue reading “Interview (part 2) with best selling author, Barbara Delinsky”

An Interview with author, Barbara Delinsky (part 1)

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.

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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.

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REVIEW~~With Mother’s Approval by Mike Wells

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!

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Getting Ready to Audition?

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.

Available at https://www.writeratplay.com/monologues-for-women/ Add one more book of your choice and get FREE Shipping!!
OR

http://www.amazon.com/Monologues-Women-Original-monologues-character/dp/1480150711/ref=sr_1_128?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411910013&sr=1-128&keywords=monologues+for+women
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS!

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Self-published Authors! We are in Good Company!

It was just a few short years ago that being self published was a dirty word. People would call your work a ‘vanity book’ or a ‘one book wonder’. You would have to warehouse 10’s of thousands of inventory for your book and then schlep it around as far as you could. All of that is in the past! We can hold our heads up high, write our work and get it in the hands of our readers for, sometimes, as little as a few hundred bucks. If you don’t hire a graphic designer for the cover, then publishing is literally FREE.

Now here’s the “Good Company” I claimed………….

How Beatrix Potter self-published Peter Rabbit
The aspiring children’s writer was fed up of receiving rejection letters – so on this day in 1901 she self-published a certain book about a naughty rabbit

So you think self-publishing is a 21st-century phenomenon? Continue reading “Self-published Authors! We are in Good Company!”

Everything but the Kitchen Sink~~(new series) Diary of a Mad Writer!

So many of you have asked how I can be so prolific in my fiction, how I maintain a blog twice a week and interview ot writing, process, writers, style her authors too. So maybe it would be fun for you if I wrote once in awhile about what I’m doing…..I’m calling it Everything but the KITCHEN SINK because I’m throwing everything into the pot ……..no rhyme or reason.

This week I have the great pleasure to review Peter May’s latest book “The Lewis Man” during his book tour in the US.Saturday my blog will begin my interview with him and he has been so generous with his time and writing processes.

One of my favorite posts coming is how the (; ) smiley face was created back in 1982. After some research I found the original email that first featured these emoticons.

Don’t know if you remember or not, but a few years ago I spent 10 days in Argentina at the invitation of two young professors and their university, National University of Villa María . They teach English (through action) there. The families of Mariana, Marta, and Fiorella hosted me in their homes with dinners, lunches, and Continue reading “Everything but the Kitchen Sink~~(new series) Diary of a Mad Writer!”

My Interview with international best selling author, Peter May (part 3)

CANADA! Peter May is headed your way. Don’t miss it! http://www.ur-web.net/PeterMayMain/tour2014.htm

Q. How do you get from ‘finished’ book from ‘no book’? (continued)

A. When I am happy with my outline, I can see what and where I still need to research. I make a list of all the locations in the story and I make a point of visiting every one of them. A sense of place is very important in my books, whether it is France, China, or the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. I never write about a place if I haven’t been there. I like to go and take video of the locations, making notes about what sort of things strike you when you are there – the heat, or cold, the smells etc.
When I get back from my location research I will make a short video of each location that I can replay when I am writing the scenes that are set there. Sometimes visiting the locations will cause me to have to change the story outline. I make any changes necessary, then I am ready to write.
Writing the actual book is probably the most difficult and least enjoyable part of the process. I want to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. I adopt a very strict routine that absolutely nothing is allowed to interfere with.
I get up at 6 am, take my breakfast to my desk, Continue reading “My Interview with international best selling author, Peter May (part 3)”

Part 2 of my Interview with Peter May, best selling Author

Q. When did you begin to write seriously? (con’t.)

I wrote stories all through my teenage years and at the age of 18 I finished my first serious attempt at a novel. I sent it off to Collins Publishers and of course received a rejection letter. The editor who wrote to me took trouble and care to reply to me, saying of my writing: “…we do like it. It has a direct and emphatic narrative style and has an oddly memorable – even idyllic flavour about it. We feel you ought to go on writing, and would like to see anything you write in future – which may not sound very much, but is, I can assure you, a great deal more than we say to 95% of the people who send in their typescripts!”

Those words stayed with me all my life. And there’s an amazing coda to this story, because that very editor, a writer named Philip Ziegler, recently wrote the definitive biography of Lawrence Olivier which was published by Quercus, the publisher of my own books. My editor at Quercus was able to arrange a meeting for me with him, and 42 years later I came face to face with the person whose words of encouragement all those years ago, gave me the incentive to stick with my writing and keep trying.

Q. How long after that were you published? Continue reading “Part 2 of my Interview with Peter May, best selling Author”

World of Murder True Crime Series, The Reviews are In!!

‘Beneath the Bridge of Murder (Book 6 in the ‘World of Murder’ series) just goes to prove
several things: that a series of murder mysteries can each successfully hone very different settings, characters, and circumstances that join neatly together under a universal theme; and that an ability to build tight,
unpredictable characters is possible across a number of series titles, if the author is as skilled as Trisha Sugarek.

This mystery opens on the seedier side of life, with a homeless man who approaches an affluent couple on
the streets of New York and a civilian militia company member who rescues them from his unwanted attentions.

A prelude to the story then changes in the first chapter, which presents a closer inspection of homeless life under a
bridge; a setting which quickly evolves to a senseless murder that’s tied to the prologue.

Enter detectives O’Roarke and Garcia. Cops called upon to investigate the murder of a homeless man. Beneath the Bridge of Murder uses many of the satisfying devices of Trisha Sugarek’s previous murder mysteries: solid characters, twisting stories,motivations that are anything but cut-and-dried, and a plot that, here,involves vigilante purposes and homeless issues. It’s is a powerful true crime mystery that creates many disparate threads at first, but succeeds in weaving them together with the story of detectives O’Roarke and Garcia’s personal lives and concerns. The series just keeps evolving and, cemented by these detectives’ personalities and approaches, keeps on getting better and better.It’s not easy creating book after book that both stand alone and interact well as a series. The ‘World of Murder’ series does just that, and its latest addition is a winning recommendation for both newcomers and prior Sugarek fans.‘ Midwest Book Review
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‘Taste of Murder is Book 5 in Sugarek’s ‘World of Murder’ series (previously acclaimed by this reviewer as a tight, compelling series that builds powerful scenarios and believable protagonists) and is especially recommended for prior fans of the books who want a continuation of the same successful devices employed in the previous titles: emotion-driven protagonists and a whodunit scenario that puzzles readers as much as the characters doing the investigating.

With its dash of romance, culinary-based intrigue, and a New York City setting, The Taste of Murder is as riveting as its predecessors and offers much to newcomers as well as prior fans. And having the subject be a culinary competition mystery is perfect timing, by the way, given current TV viewer interest in cooking show competitions

Fans of mysteries in general will find Taste of Murder holds all the trappings of a good yarn, tightly bound with the personalities and motivations of the two investigators themselves. While old fans will find O’Roarke and Garcia’s methods familiar (and just as engrossing as in prior books), newcomers will find this book also stands well alone and assumes no prior knowledge of protagonists and past events to prove a satisfying, compelling mystery read.’ ~Diane Donovan, Senior Book Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
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REVIEW~~The Angel of Murder, Book 4 in the series, The World of Murder
Midwest Book Review~~ “…It takes a tightrope artist of a writer to create chapters that successfully delve into a killer’s thoughts without revealing his identity in the process, but Sugarek achieves this with a dance of introspection that reveals a killer’s …”

The Angel of Murder is Book Four in the ‘World of Murder’ sequence, and though it can easily be picked up by those with no prior familiarity with the series, it is (ideally) a choice for former fans of cops O’Roarke and Garcia, who face yet another puzzling murderer. This serial killer is after children and leaves their bodies around New York, dressed up for communion.

If it’s one thing you can say about the murder mystery genre, it’s that it tends toward redundancy. It’s always about the crime, there are savvy investigators (either professional or unprofessional), motives tend to become clear as the plot thickens… and most of this is about as predictable as can be. In terms of a dance, it’s the type of ballet where the art lies more in conventional movement than surprising leaps of faith.

But the avid murder mystery fan keeps searching for those gems that offer something different, such as emotionally compelling and involving characters, events that don’t form linear patterns or move in logical, predictable paths, and conclusions that are satisfyingly unexpected. For this reader, The Angel of Murder is a winner.’ Midwest Book Review
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‘Time for Cozie mysteries to move over and make room for another writer who should also become a
Queen of the Cozies;Trisha Sugarek.’ N. Grainger~Saylingaway.com

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Act of Murder~~ Act of Murder is Book 3 of ‘The World of Murder’ series, and continues to explore the partnership and investigative skills of Detectives O’Roarke and Garcia, who once again have a healthy list of suspects to choose from in a murder case: this one revolving around a much-hated Hollywood director. Now, one might expect that it’s better to have too many possibilities than not enough; but as with their past cases, the detectives find this isn’t true. The theater world is simply packed with suspects who not only have good motives for murder, but more than enough resources to pull it off.

As chapters progress, murder mystery fans are drawn into an ever-complex, changing story that holds not just too many perps, but many twists and turns of plot; especially when an attempted suicide reveals even more dubious connections. It’s a convoluted web of intrigue that emerges as Act of Murder becomes darker and darker and the investigators draw ever closer to a deadly truth that may in fact wind up fingering the wrong perp.
The story marches deftly to a gripping, unpredictable conclusion, involving murder mystery fans every step of the way.’ Midwest Book Review
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DANCE OF MURDER ~~~~ Midwest Book Review

‘Dance of Murder is Book 2 of ‘The World of Murder’ series and is recommended for fans of murder mysteries. It opens with murder cop Stella Garcia at her desk contemplating cleaning up another case in time to make her quota of resolved cases. She’s solved many murder cases in her seven years on the job, and she and her partner O’Roarke, make a good team.

Some murder mysteries focus primarily on personalities and psychology while others focus nearly exclusively on sleuthing tactics. Much like a crossword puzzle, Dance of Murder focuses on clues that successfully pair readers with Stella and O’Rourke’s thought processes as they work through a range of possibilities in their case.

Dance of Murder offers a strong focus on problem-solving and sleuthing. This allows readers to test their own skills in piecing together the puzzle, and to become involved in a story line that focuses on eliminating suspects and arriving at truth. With its swift assessments of possibilities and motivations, it’s a satisfying murder mystery that deftly captures the interactions between murder detectives and their professional and political challenges in solving crimes. Any murder mystery reader will find Dance of Murder a fast-paced, involving read.’
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‘Brush with Murder is Book One in ‘The World of Murder’ series and tells of ‘Ben, a struggling, shy artist in Soho who admires his beautiful neighbor from afar, painting her image and dreaming about her. It all seems so innocent … until she’s murdered and the police turn up at his door, asking about his ‘obsession’ with his dream woman. Now Ben is caught in a dangerous game he never asked for: one that involves proving his innocence against impossible odds.

Brush with Murder is replete with emotionally-charged writing capturing not just the process of a murder investigation, but the emotions of all involved. This focus differentiates Brush with Murder from other murder mystery approaches, adding a human element which, after all, is always a part of any murder scenario – but is too often under-explored in traditional murder mysteries.

Billed as a ‘cozy’, this is a short, quick read; but don’t let that fool you. It’s also steeped in emotion, with a sensational cast of characters and interconnected circumstances that weave together to form a neat, involving story line with a tidy finish. The Art of Murder represents a satisfyingly rich story.’ ~~Midwest Book Review

Who is that Actor? The Not-so-Famous, Obscure Actors..

‘I love that actor! Wasn’t he on Boston Legal? What’s his name? Didn’t she used to have her own show? Can you name him/her? (Answers below if you get stumped.)

Just last week he had a guest appearance in the wildly popular “Manhattan” (Manhattan Project was the code word for the development of the A-bomb) In 1999, He appeared in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Bad Girls” as a morbidly obese demon named Balthazar. He wore a large padded suit and extensive make-up for the role, and the character’s repulsive, villainous nature contradicted many of his earlier roles. Recently, He has become known for his role as Jerry “Hands” Espenson on the television series Boston Legal. For playing Espenson, he won an Emmy Award for Best Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2006 and was nominated for the same award in 2007. He remained with the series through to its finale in 2008. In 2009, He joined CSI: Miami as the new medical examiner, Dr. Tom Loman. He appeared throughout the show’s eighth, ninth and tenth seasons as a recurring character. 2013, also he appeared as guest star in Harry’s Law. Answer: (nosnemelC, naitsirhC) Continue reading “Who is that Actor? The Not-so-Famous, Obscure Actors..”

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