4 Tips to Writing a Better Novel

 

 

by Lisette Brodey

Tip #1

KEEP A TIME CHART: Even if you never mention particular dates in your novels, it’s important that you know the day and date of every scene. You may ask, “Why do I need to know that if it’s not part of my novel?” I’ll tell you why.

When you’re in the thick of writing your book, it’s very easy to lose track of how much time has elapsed between events. In some of my novels, my characters have had such long, complicated days that it’s taken me chapters to describe the action. Conversely, I may skip ahead two weeks, a month, or even years. It all depends on the story.

Every time I begin a novel, I pull out a calendar, and I choose a date. Sometimes it has everything to do with the story and what time of year it is, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s still important. Let’s say your character is an unhappy wife who is keeping tabs on her husband’s whereabouts because she is convinced he’s cheating. In Chapter 7, she’s having lunch with her best friend and telling her everything that she has just found out. Can you accurately have your character tell her friend what happened five days ago, what happened three days ago, and what happened two weeks ago if you don’t have it noted? I sure can’t.

If you keep a dated time chart with a simple synopsis of what happens when, it will save you lots of headaches down the road.

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Tip #2

KEEP IT TIGHT: Let’s stay with our story of the woman who thinks her husband is cheating on her. There’s a twist in this story. She finds out that he’s not cheating at all but wants her to think he is because he’s being blackmailed and is actually trying to protect her by letting her assume the lesser of two evils. Ah, the plot is thickening. Let’s say that in Chapter 10, the woman makes a major discovery that changes her perspective on what is going on. Before you create a brand-new character to deliver that information to her, make sure there are no existing characters that can do the job. Don’t introduce your reader to new people if they serve no real purpose and will do nothing more than clutter or dilute your prose. When you use established characters, you may just come up with even better plot twists than you imagined. You may very well need a new character, but take the time to think about it. Keep it tight.

Tip #3

LISTEN TO YOUR NOVEL: Most of us know that it’s very difficult to proof your own work. Your eyes tend to see what is supposed to be there, not what is there. If you have spent an hour reworking a paragraph or speech, you may have become so immersed in getting it right that when you read it back, you don’t notice that you’ve used a particular word three times in two sentences. Unless it’s intentional, it’s not good. Most computers have text-to-speech functions. To review your work, highlight the part you want to hear, place it in a new document, and highlight it again. Then, sit back and listen to your words. If there are words missing, misspelled, or repeated, you will hear them. Listening gives you a different perspective than reading.

You may wonder why I suggested putting your text into a new document. You ask, “Why can’t I just highlight it in the document I’m using?” You can, but as you know, highlighted text can disappear instantly if a wrong button is touched on your keyboard and you can’t quickly hit Control Z (PCs) or Command Z (Macs) to undo. That’s all. It’s just a safety measure to protect what you’ve written.

WomanComputerTipsBlog

Tip #4

USE YOUR FIND COMMAND: Do you have pet words or phrases that you tend to overuse? I know that’s always a worry for me. When I’m immersed in telling a story, my brain is focused on the action and sometimes I’m merely serving as a transcriptionist for my characters. Sometimes my editor will catch these repetitions and just as often, I’ll catch them myself. If you’re able to identify words or phrases you might overuse, use the FIND command in Word (or other software). Then, change them or rewrite sentences to avoid them. Just get ’em outta there. And remember, the more unusual the word, the more obvious the repetition.

What are your favorite writing tips?

 

 

 

CHAT WITH ACE ANTONIO HALL

AceAntonioHallAce Antonio Hall graduated from Long Island University with a BFA. He is a former NYC middle school English teacher who can’t get enough of zombies and Spider-Man comic books. When he’s not in the gym working off the extra calories from eating way too many donuts, Ace writes young adult horror fiction. His YA zombie novel, Confessions of Sylva Slasher was released by Montag Press on April 14, 2013. 

Time to chat with Ace!

I hear you have some very exciting news! Can you share it with us?

Yes! I was so honored to have taught an intensive 3-day writing workshop at the Los Angeles Science Fiction Convention (LOSCON 40) at the LAX Marriott at the end of last month, November. Each day was three-hours, and marked the first time I worked in the capacity as a teacher since 2006, when I was an Associate Director of Education at the Sylvan Learning Center in Northridge. I hope it was the best LOSCON had ever seen and they will ask me back for 2014. Fingers crossed.

Is your recent book part of a series?

Well, Lisette, I’m so glad you asked me that question. As a matter of fact, yes! My publisher came up with the moniker/sub-genre ZOMBIE POP, really by mistake, to describe to the new illustrator how the artwork should ‘pop’ off the cover for the second edition, and Emilio, who did an incredible job capturing the essence of how I envisioned Sylva Slasher, latched onto the name and used it on the cover.

It opened my imagination to tap into the cultural world of the youth for my young adult series. My first novel, which was recently released, Confessions of Sylva Slasher is Zombie Pop, Volume 1, and the next book, which I’m half-way done with, Sk8board Xombies, or Skateboard Xombies, will be the next in a four-part Sylva Slasher series.

Being that Sylva rides BMX bikes and skateboards, the second book is going to be one heck of a roller coaster ride with plenty of twists, turns and cliff-hangers—even more than Confessions.

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If you were to advertise your book on a bumper sticker, what would it say?

Got Zombies? Sylva Slasher does. Teen for Hire or Zombies Love A Girl With Brains! My publisher is working on tee shirts to market, right now, as you read this.

What part of writing a novel do you enjoy the most? The least?

I can say that I love character building, world building and creating visual scenes the most. I get a real kick out of seeing all of that come together when the characters walk out of the page and speak to me in vivid language and imagery. Add Christmas, Halloween, German Chocolate cake and falling in love together in one big bowl of excitement and that would pretty much summarize how I feel developing those aspects of my story!

The least? Editing sucks. I spent fifteen hours straight reading my entire novel and cleaning up edits to turn the manuscript into the publisher to meet the deadline. My butt and back were mad at me for weeks after that … but I’d do it all again, because it was part of my dream becoming reality, and the end result of my feelings from seeing my book published can’t even be put into words. If I did it would sound something like, “Yesssyesssyesssahhomigodexpialidociousbooyahzzzzzmmtt eyemmsoolovingituh!”

… See? Can’t be put into words.

How much research was involved in writing your book? How did you go about it?

Tons. The funny thing about research is that I can have two pages of research that will show up in only one or maybe two sentences of the novel. I love to use experts and specialists as consultants to make sure that I’m providing sound logic and intelligent continuity. It’s important to me that, even though it may be fiction, it has a basis for reality.

Some authors, like me, always write scenes in order. But I know some people write scenes out of order. How about you?

For the most part, I write them in order. I will usually lay out some kind of skeleton, or structure from beginning-to-end of the story, and then change it, as my imagination flows freely. Alexandra Sokoloff and Christopher Vogler’s ideologies have been the backbone of my structural processes.

Is it important for you to know the ending of a book before you write it? The title?

Yes, because I come up with so many ideas, I’m all over the place. Knowing the ending of the book keeps me focused, and the title, which usually changes by the time I’m halfway finished with the book, or have gone through a few rewrites gives me direction.

How would you define your style of writing?

Fun, fast-paced and spine-tingling. I am a very visual person, so I try to bring my set pieces to life so that no matter what age-level of the reader, they can see what I paint on the page. Since I am obsessed with the Twilight Zone (one year, on my birthday, which is July 4th, I stayed in bed and watched fifteen hours of a TZ marathon), I love speculative fiction, as well as psychological thriller and infused elements of each into my stories.

How important is the choosing of character names to you? Have you ever decided on a name and then changed it because it wasn’t right for the character?

I am obsessed with words—love to write, read and recite them over and over. I believe they have such great power! Names, to me, are just as powerful! They dictate invisible energy that can be received and processed in so many ways. Many cultures believe names to have spiritual significance, and I share that same thought process. If you look at how powerful pseudonyms, stage or pen names are, you will begin to see how important they can influence success. Have you ever noticed how many very successful celebrities have names that are so uncommon or unique that if anyone else decides to use that same name, they seem unoriginal, at best?

I go to great lengths to find names that bind the character spiritually, mentally and physically to create a persona that is unique to their experiences in my novels. For example, Sylva’s first name is because simply, her mother fell in love with her gray, or silver eyes at birth. Her last name, Fleischer, means butcher, which of course is synonymous with Slasher. Being that I’m a huge comic book fan, Sylva Slasher rolled off the tongue as easily as Silver Surfer. It just felt right, and I went with it.

I think my favorite character names are Luke Skywalker, Hannibal Lecter and Cruella de Vil. Magnificent names. Don’t you think?

(Yes, I do! Fantastic, legendary names!)

Would you like to write a short poem for us?

Aw, Lisette, I would absolutely love to:

 

One day the moonlight said to me

To make my mark before I leave …

Was more her faith in me to be.

 

She said be a significance

In someone’s life beyond my kids;

I have been doing ever since.

 

For life gives us a choice to make

To play the rules and some to break …

The daring brave do choose their fate.

 

I choose to think out of a box

And sometimes do what some will not …

And some place go where some cannot.

 

Better to be significant

Than leave a stench of a vial scent

And face an end of poor time spent.

 

For there are those who leave a mark

Only to die without a heart

And left on stage without a part.

 

Better to leave a mark today

And touch a life in special way

Through pen, and voice, and character, create.

 

Let’s call that poem … let’s see … um, I think … THE WRITER’S CREE … yeah, that’s it!

Where do you live now? If you had to move to another city/state/country, where might that be?

I live in South Pasadena, but would love to live part of the year in Hawaii, and the other part in Venice, Italy!

If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?

I would spend the mornings watching Stephen King’s process and absorb as much as I possibly could whenever he spoke to Tabitha, or anyone he communicated with. I’d follow Jackie Chan around, hoping to catch him working out, or practicing, and video tape every single one of his moves so I could translate it into Sylva’s martial arts technique. And lastly, I’d spend the evening skinny-dipping in the island waters of Hawaii, floating, chillaxing and watching the moon, breathing in the air of imagination and fantasy.

If you could duplicate the knowledge from any single person’s head and have it magically put into your own brain, whose knowledge would you like to have? And why.

Stephen Spielberg. He understands how to capture magic, fill our hearts with wonder, and drive the world into fascination. I’d love to be able to master that.

Have you ever walked out of a movie? If so, what was it?

The South Park movie. Wasn’t my cup of tea.

Do you have any guilty pleasures?

Indeed! Donuts. I love donuts. Especially, the big fluffy ones sold in Mom & Pop stores in Los Angeles. My Nana used to make them from scratch when I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and there wasn’t anything that could match the taste of those donuts, hot off the stove … except the donuts in Cali. I’ve had them all up and down the east coast, but will work out six days a week, and run six miles a day, just so I can eat as many Los Angeles pink-boxed baker’s dozen donuts as I can eat without the added tires to my waistline.

What are three things you think we can all do to make the world a better place?

Ride flying skateboards, vote for a lifetime supply of free beer for all Dallas Cowboys fans, and lobby at Marvel Studios for Stan Lee and the studio executives to contract Sylva Slasher to become an animated/anime series, comic book line, and hit television series featuring Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a mentor and guest star. Okay, so I’m a big dreamer. Never, ever quit, and always dream big!

 

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CHAT WITH A.T. RUSSELL

AT_RussellA.T. Russell is a retired Navy Chief currently residing near Chicago with his wife of 25 years. A lifelong reader, the passion of writing came to him midlife. A.T. writes Urban Fantasy and aspires to write across many genres.

“History is a point of reference, not an anchor.” ~A.T.

 Time to chat with A.T.!

What is your latest book?

My latest book is Apex. As for writing and the other stories I’ve written, this one is probably the most challenging, and for me that makes this one the most exciting to write.

 

Is your recent book part of a series?

It is. In fact, Apex is the first of four planned books. I’m actually franchising the series, and I’m very excited to report that Dawn Kirby and Frantiska Oliver will be writing two of the volumes. The last position will be decided by a process that Twisted Core Press is designing and I think it’ll be a trendsetting model for years to come.

What else have you written?

 As some may know, I’m a member of 7DS Books, a short story platform and imprint of Twisted Core Press. I’ve had the great opportunity to write Greed for Seven Deadly Sins, Sleepy for Seven Dwarf Stories, Eddie’s Ring for Seven Dress Sizes, and No Man for A Man’s Promise. Above all, however, my greatest pleasure came from writing my first two books, New Alpha Rising: Ascension Parts I & II

 

 

 

How often do your characters surprise you by doing or saying something totally unexpected?

You know, I have one character that has been the most thrilling challenge I’ve faced in storytelling. Little Wolf says what she wants when she wants to, and no one can stop her, not even me. Thing is, she’s the only character I’ve written that has had that effect on me, and writing around her, even in scenes I didn’t want her to be a part of, is where the challenge lies. She’s a main character in New Alpha Rising Saga and I look forward to sharing her madness with the world in the third book.

How important is the choosing of character names to you? Have you ever decided on a name and then changed it because it wasn’t right for the character?

I believe choosing a character’s name is critical to any story. From my perspective, names should be memorable, respective of the character’s personality, and above all, brand-able.

Were you “born to write” or did you discover your passion for writing later in life?

This is a great question for me, because the answer is, I have no idea. All I know is that I have to write. The passion came along in 1994 and words began to hit the page in 2009, totaling over three million that year. Ever since, I’ve been head down and punching keys.

Having our work out there to be judged by strangers is often daunting for writers. Do you have any tips on handling a negative review?

My best advice to handling a negative review is simply remembering that your imagination belongs to you. When you share it with others, their imaginations may not be a good match. If and when that is the case, remember that stories written by the historical greats were ripped worse than yours, and that was by people who really mattered in the literary industry. Nowadays everybody is a critic, and tearing others down is a sad truth about our overall culture today. After all, isn’t that what reality tv is all about? Judge this and judge that, then let’s see who can rip the hardest. Seems like a lot of people channel Simon Cowell these days.

Every day brings forth new changes and shifts in the world of publishing. Any predictions about the future?

I think Amazon will become the BIG ONE.

Have you ever wished that you could bring a character to life? If so, which one and why?

I would love to bring Little Wolf to life. She’s a doctor, a killer, and an Omega Wolf. She loves hanging out with puppies and watching cartoons, and world peace would piss her off. Other than those things, she’s about as cool as any creature I can, did actually, imagine. If I could wish, though, the whole world would know Little Wolf as well as I do.

What genre have you never written in that you’d like to try?

I typically have a romantic element in every story I write, but I really want to tackle a full-on romance. Trouble is, every time I write, the theme of the story pervades many aspects of my daily life. With my luck, pouring my passion into romance, my wife of 25 years might think I’m flipping the script on the second half of my life and have me committed or something … or worse.

Please, tell us about your experiences with social media. What are your favorite and least-favorite parts of it?

Social media is a wide open expanse, a tremendous pool of laughs and thoughts, though sometimes myopic and quite scary. You see, some authors use their platforms for their family members and personal friends to interact with them. That’s cool, but when their profile is supportive of their books, services, etc… they shouldn’t complain when a fan or interested customer comes along and steps across a line they’ve blurred. I’ve seen a number of people trip over that line and get burned in the process. No, it hasn’t happened to me.

What might we be surprised to know about you?

I’m very humble and I don’t say much on social media platforms. I think, maybe it’s shyness on my part. Heck, it could be fear of the unknown. I mean, I am shading 50, so it’s possible I have old school hesitancy. I’m getting better at interacting with others, though.

What’s your favorite film of all times? Favorite book?

My favorite film is Something The Lord Made. The best I can say is, watch it. It’ll open your heart and mind to a truth that affects every human being on the face of the earth. As for my favorite book; I love J.R. Ward’s Dark Lover. It is the only book I’ve ever read (thoroughly enjoyed the entire series, by the way) that made me want to scream at the author…violently. In less than five chapters, she managed to kill my favorite character, and that was the first book of the series! George R.R. Martin wasn’t able to have that kind of impact on me, and he kills everybody off!

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CHAT WITH SUSAN BUCHANAN

 

Susan Buchanan lives in Central Scotland with her partner, Tony and their baby daughter, Antonia. She has written three novels in the women’s fiction/chicklit genres and is currently writing her fourth.

Time to chat with Susan!

What is your latest book?

The Christmas Spirit. It’s a short novel, of just over 50,000 words which tells the story of four people who are not looking forward to Christmas, for various reasons, and a fifth person who comes into each of their lives to try to enrich their lives and instil in them the magic of Christmas again.

Here’s the blurb as a little taster:

Christmas is coming, but not everyone is looking forward to it. Rebecca has just been dumped and the prospect of spending the holiday period with her parents is less than appealing.

Eighty-two year old Stanley lost his beloved wife, Edie, to cancer. How will he cope with his first Christmas without her?

Jacob’s university degree hasn’t helped him get a job, and it looks like he’ll still be signing on come New Year.

Workaholic Meredith would rather spend December 25th at home alone with a ready meal and a DVD box set. Can anything make her embrace the spirit of the season?

The enigmatic Natalie Hope takes over the reins at the Sugar and Spice bakery and cafe in an attempt to spread some festive cheer and restore Christmas spirit, but will she succeed?

 

Some authors, like me, always write scenes in order. But I know some people write scenes out of order. How about you?

I generally write scenes in order, but in The Christmas Spirit, the opening paragraphs were actually changed to almost the last page. That said, I don’t always know what scenes are going to pop up. I start off with a chapter plan where I write a paragraph of what’s going to happen in that chapter, and sometimes three chapters later I discover that didn’t happen at all. Sometimes the characters develop in a different way to I originally intended them, or I might have a better idea!

Is it important for you to know the ending of a book before you write it? The title?

Not always. As The Christmas Spirit is a feel-good story, yes, I knew the ending with that, but with The Dating Game, I didn’t know who Gill would end up with. In fact I had imagined a character and a scene, which in the end I didn’t create at all! The title is more important for me, as once I know the title, I will write that book! With Sign of the Times I knew that I didn’t want a conventional ending, but that was as far as it went, until I actually was writing the book. I already know the ending for my fourth book, What If.

 

Some writers edit excessively as they write; others wait until a novel is finished to do the bulk of the editing. How about you?

Hmm, well, for Sign of the Times and most of The Dating Game, I redrafted and had my work edited by my editor Fi Broon. However, due to Fi’s other commitments, this time I wrote the whole novel from start to finish and then redrafted it five or six times, before letting my beta reader read it.

In hindsight, although we had a lot of fun doing it the way we did for the first two books, it was too labour-intensive and with all the books in my head that I want to write (I already have another seven planned) economy of time is very important. I think the more you write and the more you edit, the better you get at it, and, in theory, the better you write, so you shouldn’t have to do quite as heavy edits. I know many writers add a lot in the edits, but I tend to take away. You reach a stage where you are simply only changing the words and not making any major changes. Sometimes you have to know when to stop, otherwise you could be changing great to something good!

 

How important is the choosing of character names to you? Have you ever decided on a name and then changed it because it wasn’t right for the character?

To be honest, when I am writing a new book, sometimes the names just jump into my head, as happened with The Christmas Spirit. In the past, I have always been very careful to ensure those names were plausible for Scotland around the time the characters were born, but in The Christmas Spirit, I’ve gone off piste a little with the names!

I’ve twice changed names. In The Dating Game, one of my beta readers found the fact that two of the four girlfriends’ names began with L, confusing. So, I changed Laura to Debbie, and retained Lisa. In The Christmas Spirit I kept writing Sophie instead of Sylvie, so by the time I was three-quarters of the way through, I decided she was more of a Sophie than a Sylvie and changed it. By the way, the name Sylvie came from a new beautician, Sylvia, I used the week before!

I used up all the good names with Sign of the Times! I didn’t know I was going to have a baby at that point, so I started calling all my characters names that I liked. As it turns out, there is an Antonia in the novel, who, I hasten to add, bears no resemblance to my cherub! But, Holly for example, a name I love, and Lucy, these were just names I really liked.

Do you dread writing a synopsis for your novel as much as most writers do? Do you think writing a synopsis is inherently evil? Why?

Ugh! Yes, it’s the spawn of the devil. When I was submitting Sign of the Times to publishers, I drove myself round the bend trying to fit the lowdown of the twelve characters and what tied them together into a few pages. Plus, publishers and agents don’t agree on length of synopsis, or even what it should include, which I find bloomin’ annoying, so you have to write several. I need to do one soon for The Dating Game, which I have never tried to go down the traditional publishing route with. I’m not looking forward to it.

Are you an early bird writer or night owl? And do you have any must haves like coffee, chocolates, wine, music or something else?

Now that I have an 8-month-old baby, I am a ‘write whenever she is asleep’ writer, so even though I am a morning person (not 4am though!) I am now writing at all sorts of strange times. Basically, as soon as baby Antonia naps, I down tools, sod the housework, make myself a coffee and start writing! I’m going to have to try and get better at writing in the evening. It’s not my thing. I had to go to a coffee shop at the weekend whilst my other half watched Antonia and I rattled out parts of The Christmas Spirit. No distractions. Usually I need silence to write, although I have discovered I can write, if pressed, with the TV on, and I feel tired or in need of inspiration, I put Classic FM on.  I love classical music!

How would you define your style of writing?

Humorous, chatty, relatively informal, international. I favour dialogue over lengthy descriptions. I studied Balzac at university and he makes Dickens look frugal. I take great pains to ensure my facts are correct. I was surprised to discover many authors don’t, even traditionally published ones and I know a few who have admitted serious mistakes because of this. I had always just taken it as a given before that facts were corroborated.

Apart from The Christmas Spirit, my books all have a travel theme. Sign of the Times was partly set in Italy and Switzerland; The Dating Game – Barcelona, and What If will feature chapters in Hong Kong. There is however a nod to the international even in The Christmas Spirit.

Do you miss spending time with your characters when you finish writing them?

Most of them, yes. I am really looking forward to writing the continuation to Sign of the Times, which I hope will be out for Christmas 2014, otherwise Spring 2015.  I miss a few of the guys from The Dating Game and Lisa, funnily enough, who is not the main character.

Have you ever started out to write one book and ended up with something completely different?

Well, not completely different, but What If has taken on a bit of a life of its own. It should be out in Spring/Summer 2014. The first paragraph introduces us to a whole new major theme, which I hadn’t envisaged when I originally conceived the book.

What’s your favorite comfort food? Least favorite food?

Sorry to be clichéd, but it’s chocolate and I’m a big fan of Green & Blacks, especially the ginger one – I bought two bars today! And I love Cadbury’s chocolate buttons.

That aside, it would have to be pasta. I think I must have been Italian in a previous life. I have Italian friends who eat pasta as a starter every day and I envy them!

Least fave without a doubt is celery – it is disgusting – unless it’s in soup and hidden by all the other ingredients. But, come across a piece of raw celery in a salad? Makes me want to scream for my mummy!

If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?

Ha ha, that would be telling. But let’s just say I’d pay actor Rupert-Penry Jones a visit, for starters!

What’s the coolest surprise you’ve ever had?

When The Dating Game launched last November, I was busy tweeting away like a mad thing, five months pregnant, and the doorbell rang. It was a delivery of the most enormous bouquet of flowers, and equally gigantic box of chocolates, to celebrate my launch from my Other Half, Tony. He’s a typical Scotsman and not known for doing the hearts and flowers thing, so I actually cried!

What are the most important traits you look for in a friend?

Honesty, reliability and they need to be a good listener as I talk a lot(!). Oh, and punctuality ( I hate people being late, it drives me nuts. I am having to reassess this now, though, as having a baby in tow makes you late regularly, even when you plan to leave 15-30 minutes earlier than you need to!)

Care to brag about your family?

Of course, but now with the arrival of baby Antonia, I have two families to brag about! I could write an entire book on how amazing Antonia is and I am sure most mums are the same.  I never tire of complete strangers coming up to me in the street and telling me how beautiful she is, or how her wee smile just lights up the world. Today I discovered she has a determined chin when concentrating. She almost makes it jut out – had me in stitches. Watching your baby grow every day is pretty special.

Tony works in Medicine and he ‘saves lives’ for a living. Well, he is instrumental.

My parents and siblings are very down-to-earth, we all live within twenty miles of each other, although I’ve lived abroad a few times. Growing up my two sisters were closest to each other and my brother and I were the same. He’s the baby. My little sister has three boys, so the arrival of baby Antonia meant the first granddaughter in the family. My nephews are fantastic – funny, gorgeous and cheeky as hell! I am sure my daughter will end up a tomboy with three boy cousins!

What makes you angry?

This list could take some time! – people with no manners, people swearing around children, smoking around children, drivers not signalling thank you when you let them into a lane, when you hold a door open for someone and they don’t say thank you, those who park in Mother and Child only spaces, but are interestingly without any vestige of a child or car seat. Poor customer service – actually, that should be top, it riles me so much! Liars. Thieves and rogue tradesmen (like those who scammed my elderly uncle in Glasgow a few weeks ago)

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CHAT WITH MARGOT KINBERG

-2Margot Kinberg is the author of the Joel Williams mystery novels and a university educator. She blogs daily at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist.

Time to chat with Margot!

I hear you have some very exciting news! Can you share it with us?

I do indeed. In a Word: Murder, a charity anthology I had the honor of editing, has just been released. It’s a great collection of short stories, all having to do with crime in the world of writing, editing, publishing, reviewing and blogging.

The proceeds from the book will go in aid of Princess Alice Hospice in memory of Maxine Clarke. Maxine was a true friend to the world of crime fiction. Her loss last year was a blow to us all and this project is a way to remember her.

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What else have you written?

I’m also the author of the Joel Williams mystery novels. So far, Publish or Perish and B-Very Flat have been published. I’ve got the third in the series under review by a publisher now, and the fourth in my computer being revised.

What part of writing a novel do you enjoy the most? The least?

I most enjoy figuring out how the plot will move along and how the characters will interact. That’s where the creative part of writing comes in. Even when I have to go back and revise to make it a better story, figuring out the plot and character elements lets me use my imagination and my sense of logic at the same time.

The least enjoyable part about writing is the physical exhaustion. Writers only have a finite amount of energy for creating and writing. I wish I had bigger “battery” sometimes.

Do you have any advice for first-time authors?

One piece of advice I have is to keep writing. Writing is a passion, but it is also a craft. You hone your skills and get better as you do it more. So write every day, even if it’s only a sentence or two.

I’d also say it’s important to read. And then read some more. And then keep reading. Find out what other authors are doing and learn from it. You can’t find that out if you don’t read.

Please, tell us about your experiences with social media. What are your favorite and least-favorite parts of it?

I’ve actually had some great experiences with social media. I’ve met some wonderful people (like yourself), made good friends and learned a lot. And that’s the best part of social media for me. I also like the way it expands horizons. For instance, I’m in an online book club that wouldn’t be possible without social media.

To be pragmatic, social media is also a very effective way to market oneself. It’s free or inexpensive, doesn’t have to be hard to use, and it reaches lots of people.

But social media is best seen (I think) as a good servant but a bad master. It’s time-consuming and distracting unless you have a lot of self-discipline.

Do you allow others to read your work in progress, or do you keep it a secret until you’ve finished your first draft? Can you elaborate?

I like to finish drafts of my work before I let others read it. I’d rather go through a draft myself and try to make it organized and clear and (at least sort of) proofread before I ask anyone to put in the time to read and comment.

Were you “born to write” or did you discover your passion for writing later in life? 

I’ve written since I was a child. It started innocently enough with school essays and stories. My first one was when I was about eleven years old Then it moved on to more serious things like some short stories and some (forgettable!!!) poems. After that, there was no hope for me. I honestly couldn’t imagine myself not writing.  I know it sounds cliché but writing is part of me.

Are you an early bird writer or night owl? And do you have any must haves like coffee, chocolates, wine, music or something else?

I’m definitely an early bird writer. I love the peace and quiet of the early morning and that’s when I can focus best. And coffee is an absolute requirement (black, no sugar). Not that a glass of wine in the evening goes amiss… 😉

Have you ever started out to write one book and ended up with something completely different?

That actually happened to me with my fourth Joel Williams novel. I’d written the first several chapters and then had a terrible hard drive failure. My novel couldn’t be saved, so I had to start over. And I ended up with a different (and I’d like to think better) novel. It wasn’t fun, but the end result was a good one I think.

If you could have one skill that you don’t currently have, what would it be?

I wish I were better at painting and drawing. I can use photo editing and graphics software well enough for my own needs, but I would love to be able to express things in hand-made paintings and drawings. I have an immense amount of respect for artists.

What was the most valuable class you ever took in school? Why?

Honestly, I’ve had several valuable classes. I was lucky not to have very many “waste-of-my-time” courses. One that I remember really being helpful was a computer programming class I had at university. Now that was a long time ago, so of course everything has changed technologically. But I learned really important things about how computers work and what they actually do. And that has made things a lot easier for me now that computers are such a big part of my daily life. It’s like understanding how different ingredients work before you follow a recipe.

What are three things you think we can all do to make the world a better place?

Hmmmm…. I’m afraid I’ll probably sound preachy here, but I’ll try not to. One thing I think would help a lot is if we tried to see everyone (other drivers, cashiers, waitstaff and clients, you get the idea) as humans – as real people just like us. Keeping that in mind would probably mean we’d treat each other more kindly and with more respect. There’s too much rudeness, hatred and tearing others down in the world.

Along with that, I think we can all make the world better by remembering who’s going to have stewardship of it when we’re gone. Children learn the “rules of life” from the adults they interact with, and they watch us closely. I think we can make a big difference by raising our children and grandchildren with love, by teaching them both overtly and by example how to treat others, and by respecting and supporting them so that they can make the most of their talents. And you don’t have to be a (grand)parent to do that.

I also think the world would be a better place if we were a little more respectful of it. And we can do that without taking a lot of time or spending a lot of money. Just small things like recycling, using trash bins instead of the sidewalk, taking public transportation and donating clothes and furniture instead of throwing them away can make a big difference.

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Email: margotkinberg@gmail.com

 

CHAT WITH CHRISTINA JAMES

ChristinaJames

Christina James was born in Spalding, Lincolnshire (UK) and sets her novels in the evocative Fenland countryside of South Lincolnshire. She has worked as a bookseller, researcher and teacher.  She has a lifelong fascination with crime fiction and its history. She is a well-established non-fiction writer, under a separate name.

Time to chat with Christina!

What is your latest book?

My latest book is Almost Love; like its predecessor, In the Family, it is set in and around Spalding, a market town in Lincolnshire, England. An elderly and very eminent female archaeologist disappears, leaving nothing to suggest what has happened to her except a grisly smear of blood on the wall of her hall, which turns out not to be hers. Much to his annoyance, DI Yates is assigned to the case, even though he suspects that there is a drugs ring operating in Spalding and he would much prefer to work on catching the drugs traffickers instead. However, it becomes evident that the two cases are linked. The pivotal connection is Alex Tarrant, secretary of the Spalding Archaeological Society, who inadvertently becomes involved in both crimes by embarking upon an ill-judged love affair with a colleague.

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I hear you have some very exciting news! Can you share it with us?

My publisher has just been contacted by a television company asking whether it is possible to take out options on both the DI Yates books.

Is your recent book part of a series?

Yes, it is the second in the DI Yates series. I’m now working on the third title.

What are the special challenges in writing a series?

Undoubtedly remembering the attributes you’ve given your characters: their likes and dislikes, quirks and foibles. Readers spot it straight away if you contradict yourself!

What else have you written?

In the Family was my first DI Yates novel. I’ve also written a business handbook and several industry reports. I’m a frequent contributor to newsletters , magazines and journals and I try to write for my blog as often as possible – if not daily, then at least several times a week.

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What part of writing a novel do you enjoy the most? The least?

I enjoy all of it, but perhaps writing the opening chapter of a new book is best of all. It gives a feeling of great adventure, of entering uncharted territory.

Some authors, like me, always write scenes in order. But I know some people write scenes out of order. How about you?

I don’t write scenes in order: I tend to write clusters of chapters about the same set of characters – i.e., those that feature in the main plot – followed by clusters of chapters about characters mainly in the sub-plot. But I consider this to be a bad habit. For a crime writer, particularly, this approach can sometimes cause errors in plot development, so I have to check the sequence of events in my books very carefully when I’ve completed the first draft. I’m trying to cultivate what I consider the better practice of writing in order.

Is it important for you to know the ending of a book before you write it? The title?

I think that it’s difficult to begin work on a crime novel before you have a pretty clear idea of the plot, including the ending, though you may tweak it during the course of writing. The titles of both the DI Yates novels came to me quite early on, but not before I’d started writing.

Some writers edit excessively as they write; others wait until a novel is finished to do the bulk of the editing. How about you?

I wouldn’t say that I edit ‘excessively’, but I’m a firm believer in revision as an essential part of the writing process. I revise each chapter immediately after I’ve written it, then groups of chapters every hundred pages or so. Finally, I revise the whole first draft from beginning to end after it is completed.

After working for a very long time on a novel, many authors get to a point where they lose their objectivity and feel unable to judge their own work. Has this ever happened to you? If so, what have you done about it?

I think that I’m quite a harsh self-critic. As someone who’s worked in the book industry for many years, I have a lot of experience of spotting ‘good’ and ‘bad’ books. However, I very much value the opinion of others. Both my editor and my publisher are kind enough to offer me advice, which I often take, and I’m always grateful for the reviews that I receive from readers. I take these into account when working on the next book.

How important is the choosing of character names to you?

I think characters’ names in novels, and also the names of places, are very important indeed.  I think carefully about naming my characters and usually like the names that I have given them, though, bizarrely I sometimes get the name slightly wrong when I am writing – I might change Lyle to Kyle, for example. I’ve met other writers who also make this mistake – apparently it’s quite common. I did once change a character’s name after the book was in proof, but because it was too similar to the name of a real person – the character wasn’t based on that person, but I didn’t want to risk causing offence. In In the Family, I used three names that are very similar – Doris, Dorothy and Doreen. Some readers said that they found this confusing, so I shall take care not to do it again.

Have you ever wished that you could bring a character to life? If so, which one and why?

I’d like to meet Peter Prance (from In the Family). He is outrageously camp and I think would be a very entertaining dinner companion. And I’d like Alex Tarrant, from Almost Love, as a friend.

Do you have any advice for first-time authors?

Revise, revise, revise. Be sure that the MS that you send to publishers is as good as you can make it: check like a hawk for inconsistencies. Get all the verbs in the right tense: if you’re unsure, ask someone reliable to check for you. Write regularly – if you can’t manage daily, at least several times a week. Have faith in yourself as a writer. Most writers, even well-known ones, receive rejections, so don’t give up.

Can you tell us about your road to publication?

I’ve written several ‘literary’ novels. I’ve tried to get only one of these published. I sent it to Liz Calder, an editor well-known in the UK, who told me that I could write, but that my work was not commercial enough. I myself also thought that my plot construction could be stronger. I thought that if I moved to crime writing, I might be able to address both of these issues.I asked my publisher, whom I knew because we’d both worked in a user group together, to mentor me while I was writing In the Family. He agreed to do this, but it was not a foregone conclusion that he would like the book. Fortunately, he did like it, and made me an offer for it.

Please, tell us about your experiences with social media. What are your favorite and least-favorite parts of it?

I very much enjoy writing the blog, and it gives me a thrill when people post comments on it, opening dialogue. I like connecting with other writers and readers through Twitter and Facebook and appreciate the feeling of community that this gives; real conversational engagement is worth a lot – the lively banter is as enjoyable as when meeting people in the flesh. I’ve also received some good tips and some very generous reviews… and had a lot of fun! It saddens me when writers are unkind to each other, or display obvious signs of jealousy. I don’t think that there is any place for unpleasant comment in social media. If I don’t like a writer’s work, or feel offended by a comment on social media, my policy is not to comment. I love to use the social media to celebrate the great work of others and to share the tweets and posts that have real quality.

What do you like best about the books you read? What do you like least?

I read so many books that this is a tough question! What unites all the books that I like, whether fiction or non-fiction, is the quality of the writing. In crime fiction, I particularly value good plot construction, realistic characterization and skilful psychological portrayal. I dislike plots that stretch credibility and clichéd protagonists (especially the stereotypical detective, the jaded middle-aged semi-alcoholic man with a string of broken relationships behind him and nothing to look forward to except his obsession with his work).

How much research was involved in writing your book? How did you go about it?

I carried out quite a lot of research for Almost Love. I now have quite an extensive collection of local history books about South Lincolnshire, and consulted these. I also checked (using libraries and the Internet) that the archaeological details in the book were accurate. I read about the archaeological digs that took place in Scotland before the Second World War, and about Norway’s part in the war. I checked that it would have been possible for a ‘Northern Rosetta’ stone to have been discovered, even though, to my knowledge, such a stone does not exist; and I established that it would have been possible for an eminent archaeologist to have travelled from Scotland to Norway on a troopship.

Do you allow others to read your work in progress, or do you keep it a secret until you’ve finished your first draft? Can you elaborate?

I don’t usually let anyone see my work until the first draft is completed. Although I value the opinion of others, particularly that of my husband and my publisher, I’m wary about letting them see my work too early – I feel as if showing people the writing when it is still work-in-progress saps its energy, somehow. That sounds a bit superstitious, I know!

If you were to write a non-fiction book, what might it be about?

I’d like to write a historical biography.

What have you done to market your novel and what did you find the most effective? The least effective?

Appearing at events in bookshops and libraries has undoubtedly been the most effective way of promoting Almost Love, along with maintaining the blog, which has a page dedicated to the DI Yates books, but I rarely use the blog posts to promote my books. I simply try to write posts that I hope people will want to read. I really don’t see the point of repetitive plugs of your own books on Twitter, though it’s fair enough to draw attention to particular events, highlights or successes related to them. I do my best to be inventive in the way I tweet, whether about my own books or those of others. Promotion should be engaging and fun… for both the author and the people who read it!

Having our work out there to be judged by strangers is often daunting for writers. Do you have any tips on handling a negative review?

I think all feedback should be respected and learnt from, not brooded upon.

Are you an early bird writer or night owl? And do you have any must-haves like coffee, chocolates, wine, music or something else?

I like to write early in the morning when I can. I drink coffee in the mornings, tea in the afternoons. I never eat when I’m writing, or drink wine – I think the effect of the latter might be disastrous! Wine is for unwinding when the day’s writing is done. I prefer to work in a silent room (though I have on occasion been quite productive on trains).

We all know the old saying; you can’t judge a book by its cover. This is true. However, how much importance do you place on your book cover design?

I think cover design is very important indeed. Fortunately, Chris Hamilton-Emery, my publisher, is a trained artist and a very distinguished cover designer.

Every day brings forth new changes and shifts in the world of publishing. Any predictions about the future?

I think that e-book sales will level off. Even readers who buy e-books will continue to buy print books as well.

What’s your favorite comfort food? Least favorite food?

I like bread, especially if it’s home-made; I do make ours regularly – it’s wholemeal. Although I’m not a vegetarian, I’m not big on meat. I dislike anything that’s made with offal.

What are the most important traits you look for in a friend?

Honesty, loyalty and genuine concern for others.

If you could have one skill that you don’t currently have, what would it be?

I’d like to be much better at Maths than I am.

What’s your favorite film of all time?

That’s hard, because they do tend to date, but I love those that are beautifully filmed and The English Patient is one such, as well as being quite faithful to the book.

Favorite book?

I re-read lots of books, but the one I come back to again and again is Jane Austen’s Emma.

What simple pleasure makes you smile?

Walking our English Pointer dog in beautiful countryside.

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Email: christina.james.writer@gmail.com

CHAT WITH MICHAEL RADCLIFFE

MichaelRadcliffe

An avid reader of science fiction and fantasy all his life, Michael Radcliffe published his first book The Guardian’s Apprentice in 2010. He lives in rural Kentucky with his family and their six feline companions. His writing is supervised by Idris, a temperamental dragon sculpture that sits in a place of honor next to his computer.

Time to chat with Michael!

What is your latest book?

My current work in process is tentatively titled Touch of Darkness, and takes place after the events in Rise of the Shadow. I had actually intended to end the Beyond the Veil series with the third book, but one of the main characters kept hanging about in my imagination. When I mentioned this to my friend and fellow writer, Maria Savva, she encouraged me to write the story. She also enlisted the aid of my dragon, Idris, which was decidedly not fair!

Without giving too much away, Touch of Darkness explores the story of a main character from Rise of the Shadow. At the end of Shadow, this character is on the run, having murdered two innocent people while possessed by an evil spirit. In Darkness, he struggles with the realization of what he did, and he will face a choice of redemption or temptation.

What else have you written?

Oddly enough, I thought I would only ever write one book, but the story kept evolving and the characters just won’t leave me alone!

To date I have written three books:

The Guardian’s Apprentice

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Bloodstone – The Guardian’s Curse

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Rise of the Shadow

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And seven short stories:

Tears for Hesh

Forsaken

Scale of a Dragon

Inner Daemon

Legend of the Pumpkin King

Frostbite – The Dragon that Saved Christmas

The Amaranthine Flask

All of them except for Legend of the Pumpkin King are set in the same world and contribute to the overall series. I like to use short stories as a way to further develop the background of characters from the novels. I must admit, I enjoy writing short stories as I like the challenge of developing and telling a complete story in just one or two thousand words.

What part of writing a novel do you enjoy the most? The least?

I absolutely love the world-building aspect of fantasy, where you can create a completely new setting populated with everything your imagination can conjure up. I also enjoy developing the backgrounds of my characters. For example, after writing The Guardian’s Apprentice, I went back and wrote the short story, Forsaken, which tells the story of Nisha, one of the supporting characters. Forsaken gives the reader insight about how she became the person she was in TGA, and it let me explore her character.

There are actually two things I strongly dislike about writing. The first and most frightful is writing a synopsis or a query letter. I hate, hate, HATE writing either one of those dreadful things. I would much rather face down a dragon than be forced to write a synopsis or a query letter. The second thing I dislike is editing, simply because it NEVER ends! Even today, I can go back and read my first book, which I published in 2010, and I will invariably find a typo that I missed, or a section I would word differently.

Some authors, like me, always write scenes in order. But I know some people write scenes out of order. How about you?

I will confess to being an oddball on this question. In Bloodstone – The Guardian’s Curse, I actually wrote the last two chapters first, then went back and wrote the rest. In book three, Rise of the Shadow, I wrote about five chapters, skipped ahead and wrote two middle chapters, then filled in the gaps and wrote the end. In contrast, with The Guardian’s Apprentice I wrote the story straight through, from beginning to end. I think my process depends largely on how the story is flowing in my mind – sometimes I’ll have a sudden insight and think “Oh, this would be the perfect way to end…” so I will write that particular scene or chapter while it is fresh.

Some writers edit excessively as they write; others wait until a novel is finished to do the bulk of the editing. How about you?

Both. I edit as I write, and will often stop and re-read several chapters to make sure the story flows properly. Once I am finished, I read, re-read, and re-re-read, editing each time. With my last two books, I also sought beta-readers, which I found to be incredibly helpful.

How important is the choosing of character names to you? Have you ever decided on a name and then changed it because it wasn’t right for the character?

Names, in my opinion, are almost as important as the plot. Sometimes I struggle with names, sometimes they just come to me in a flash of inspiration (sadly, struggling is much more common than those rare flashes…). I will also admit to keeping a file of names and words I have come across that I consider to be odd or just plain cool – that file has come in very handy when trying to name a character. I think the toughest time was in my first book, The Guardian’s Apprentice, when I renamed one of the characters three times before I found the right one.

Do you have any advice for first-time authors?

Write. Write a LOT. The more you write, the better you will become. I would also strongly urge a new writer to join a critique group such as critters.org. This allows you to interact with others, critiquing their work and having yours critiqued in return. You also need to keep an open mind about criticism. Use criticism, no matter how hard it may be to hear, to make your work better. Also, before you publish something, make certain it is polished and as error-free as possible! No matter how much you hated Freshman English in college, grammar counts, and nothing turns a reader off quicker than poor grammar.

Finally, join a writers group such as BestsellerBound.com where you can network and share experiences with other writers.

Please, tell us about your experiences with social media. What are your favorite and least-favorite parts of it?

I have used Facebook and Twitter since 2010, and I am also on Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Klout. I am particularly fond of Twitter, as it keeps me connected to my Indie friends. Social media has been a wonderful tool for authors to connect with readers and other authors, and I shudder to think where we would be without it. Social media has allowed me to connect with so many wonderful people. Ironically some of my best friends are those I have never actually met in person!

That being said, I have frequently found myself sucked into a time warp thanks to social media. I will log into Facebook or Twitter, glance at the clock, and an hour has vanished – one that could have otherwise been spent writing! (for the record, I am NOT addicted to CandyCrush – I can stop any time I want…)

Do you allow others to read your work in progress, or do you keep it a secret until you’ve finished your first draft? Can you elaborate?

I am very fortunate in that my sister is a writer as well. She writes paranormal romances under the pen name Maeve Greyson, and we have on occasion each sought the opinion of the other, even though we inhabit different genres.

I especially like to seek the opinions of other writers if I am exploring new territory. For example in my current work in process, Touch of Darkness, a critical part of the story is the romance that blossoms between the two main characters. While there has been a little bit of romance in previous stories, it has never been so central to the theme. I was very concerned about setting the right tone, so I asked my friend, Maria Savva, if she would mind reading a sample. She was kind enough to read the first few chapters and give me her opinion, which reassured me I was on the right track. That type of feedback is invaluable when writing, in my opinion.

Do you have complete control over your characters or do they ever control you?

Sadly, they have complete control. When I am writing, I can almost hear the characters and their dialogue in my head (yes, I know I just admitted to hearing voices…). So far in each book I have written, the story has taken a twist, when the characters did something I did not expect. I certainly never thought I would write a fourth book, but one of the characters kept rattling about in my imagination and simply would not leave me alone until I told his story!

What music soothes your soul?

The music of Enya always helps me relax. Especially when I am writing, her music helps transport me to another world. I also enjoy listening to classical music while I write, preferably Vivaldi, Mozart, or Beethoven.

If you are a TV watcher, would you share the names of your favorite shows with us?

As I spend the majority of my time at work reading banking regulations, conducting audits, and answering legal questions, I prefer to watch comedies – to drag me back from the depths of seriousness. My favorites include Mike & Molly and The Big Bang Theory. I will confess however, I do love a good mystery. I particularly enjoy Midsomer Murders and Agatha Christie’s Poirot performed by British actor David Suchet.

What simple pleasure makes you smile?

Sipping coffee on a Saturday morning, while sitting in the porch swing with my wife. A very close second is sitting in front of a warm fire in December, when everything is decorated for Christmas.

What are three things you think we can all do to make the world a better place?

Live simply, love deeply, and laugh often.

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CHAT WITH ROBBIE COX

RobbieCoxRobbie Cox is the author of Reaping the Harvest as well as the blog The Mess That Is Me. His blog is all about family and the quirks of going through this journey called Life. Residing in the sunny state of Florida, he can usually be found on his back porch with a cigar and a glass of scotch, surrounded by great friends and his family.

Time to chat with Robbie!

What is your latest book?

Reaping the Harvest was published last year. It’s an urban fantasy where an unwilling hero is entrusted with a sword and tossed into a battle between the Way and the Void. He is teamed up with a 2 1.2 foot ellyll and a 300-pound coshey in order to stop the demon, Vargas, from getting the best of unsuspecting humans.

The next book to come out is A Confused Life: the Mess on Steroids, which will be out in the next month. It’s a collection of essays along the theme of those found on the blog. Some have actually appeared on the blog, but have been expanded upon.

ReapingTheHarvest

How often do your characters surprise you by doing or saying something totally unexpected?

All the time. I remember one storyline I was working on and as one character was heading off to find a wizard to assist their cause, he stumbled upon a body in the middle of the road. I had never intended for him to find anything of the kind and as I was typing I was totally baffled as to who it was and what to do next. It caused some major reworking of the future storyline over the next couple of days. I like to be surprised by the characters, because it keeps me on my toes and makes the book more alive. If they can surprise me, they will be able to surprise the reader.

ConfusedLife

Some authors, like me, always write scenes in order. But I know some people write scenes out of order. How about you?

I prefer to write everything in order. I rarely have an outline, preferring to just allow the story to flow as it comes. I have an idea of where I want to go and a few scenes I want to include along the way, but for the most part, I allow the characters to tell their story.

Some writers edit excessively as they write; others wait until a novel is finished to do the bulk of the editing. How about you?

I prefer to get the entire story down first, then edit like crazy. In the novel I am working on now, Losing Faith, the story changed toward the end, which caused some major editing of the beginning. If I had done my edits along the way, I would have wasted quite a bit of ink as it still would have needed to be changed. To me, the first draft is the creative part. The second draft is the real work.

Please, tell us about your experiences with social media. What are your favorite and least-favorite parts of it?

Social media has its ups and downs; its good points and its bad. I have met several fantastic people through networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, which I never would have met before and made some great friendships. I have learned quite a bit about my craft and platform building by the people I have come across. Mt least-favorite part of social media would be how it has turned into a rolling billboard for the most part. I understand tweeting your links and products, but that seems to be all it is now. I prefer the communication with the people I meet. Tweet your books, by all means, but also stop and make a connection.

Were you “born to write” or did you discover your passion for writing later in life?

I was born to be a storyteller, I think, and that transformed into a writer. It could have very well gone the way of musician or artist, but telling the story is the main thing. I used to create elaborate storylines with my action figures when I was a child long before I thought of writing it out. From there I drew the worse cartoons ever to act out my tales of heroics and then by ninth grade it was a way to tune out my teachers. Now, it’s the first thing I do when an idea starts to form. I simply start writing it out as I see it in my head.

Having our work out there to be judged by strangers is often daunting for writers. Do you have any tips on handling a negative review?

Don’t take it personally, which I know is hard because it’s like they are saying nasty things about our children. When someone criticizes my writing, I try to read their words without emotion, looking for those nuggets that might help me make the next piece of work better. Someone once said, we can learn things even from our enemies, and the same is true with negative reviews. People see things differently, so not everyone is going to agree with the negative or the positive. The idea is to take what you see and grow from it without allowing it to make you bitter.

Are you an early bird writer or night owl? And do you have any must haves like coffee, chocolates, wine, music or something else?

I’m both. What I am not is an afternoon writer. At that time, I am only ready for a nap. I love writing with classical music playing in the background and I almost always have coffee or whisky close at hand and sometimes a cigar.

Do you have complete control over your characters or do they ever control you?

I like to think I start out in control. I have an idea of where I want the story to go, but once they get on paper they tend to take over the story. That is when they have the control and I’m not sure I ever get it back.

What do you know now that you wish you’d known five years ago?

To just do it. Write. I hemmed and hawed so much and wasted so many years because of my fear or the myriad of excuses that I came up with for not writing that if I had just sat down and put pen to paper, I would be well ahead of the game by now. The only way you become a writer is by writing. Don’t listen to the naysayers, even when that person is you.

Have you ever played a practical joke on a friend? Ever had one played on you?

I used to work for a pizza delivery company and we were playing jokes on each other all of the time. I even did a blog post about it on the Mess a few months ago entitled the Practical Joke Goes On. We keep playing them, because we don’t want to be the last person it was played on. We want to laugh at someone else the way everyone laughed at us. It kept us from going crazy, I think. We do it within the family, as well, and our closest friends. You have to have a sense of humor to make it through life and sometimes those practical jokes remind you to laugh, even at yourself.

What are the most important traits you look for in a friend?

Honesty and loyalty, which I suppose you could sum up as trust. Furthermore, they need the ability to laugh and relax. I want someone who will stand by me as I stand by them. We have a close-knit group of friends who believe in living life and allowing the drama to remain in my stories. We support each other in their dreams and keep a positive outlook no matter what. It’s important to surround yourself with people who are going to encourage you to be the best person you can be and not discourage you as you press forward.

Care to brag about your family?

I could always brag about my family. We are a unique bunch, the girls and I and all of our kids. We have the greatest group of children, each successful and strong in their life pursuits and character. Two are at college, one is doing awesome in his career and teaching at a college, one is married and active in his church, another is about to begin school while working here in town, and the 8 year-old is active enough to keep me in shape and on my toes. The girls are all leaders in their workplaces and careers and have done a great job at keeping me from looking like a fool on paper as they fill the role of editors-in-residence. We have been blessed with an abundance of love that seems to surround all who come around us. We take trips together and enjoy being around each other. My family is my Heaven on Earth and I wouldn’t be able to accomplish half of what I have without them.

Do you have any guilty pleasures?

I never feel guilty about my pleasures. I think I’ve earned them. However, some of the things I enjoy that others may rail about would be my enjoyment of cigars and scotch. I also love a strong cup of coffee. Oh, and Reese’s Cups. Those are my absolute favorite and I cannot settle for just the two in a pack. I need more. Lots more.

What are three things you think we can all do to make the world a better place?

First would be to allow people to live the way they want to live, whether you believe in it or not. As long as they aren’t doing anything to hurt you, why would it matter how they choose to love or live? Second, everyone needs to do their part. This goes back to my answer about lazy people. We can all do something and we should each do what we can. And finally, see the heart of people and not the exterior. See beyond race, culture and gender; beyond sexual orientation and lifestyle, to the genuine nature of each individual and judge them by that. Sounds like I’m running for Miss America, huh? I just think if people focused on their own lives instead of other people’s, the world would be a much happier place.

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CHAT WITH JENNIFER KATHLEEN GIBBONS

picture-3409Time to chat with Jennifer!

Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons is the author of Ella Bella, Take What You Got And Fly With It, and I Woke Up In Love This Morning. She lives in Lafayette, California. 

What is your latest book?

My latest e-book is Ella Bella, a YA novel that tells the story of Ella Drake, a girl whose father dies (I’m not giving anything away; this happens in the first pages!) then her mother loses her job a month later. I know it’s a lot for a girl to handle, but I always want to read about people who have survived the worst yet somehow manages to survive—maybe even thrive—when the world is against you.

EllaBella

What else have you written?

I’ve written a mini short story collection for Middle Grade/YA readers called I Woke Up In Love This Morning, which has done quite well on Amazon. I call it my “Babies, Blood and Boobs” book, because the short stories deal with those issues. My other ebook is Take What You Got and Fly With It, a collection of essays. The title is a quote of Jim Henson’s that I just love.

What was the most valuable class you ever took in school? Why?

In high school, I LOVED all my English classes. I also took Creative Writing my last two years. My teacher was Jane Juska, who wrote the bestselling memoir A Round Heeled Woman. She was very honest and held me to the fire when I wasn’t writing. At the time I resented it, now I’m glad she did it. My freshman year I took a Human Relations class which was one of the most popular classes at my high school. No topic was off limits, which was great.

In college I took many many lit classes, and of course writing workshops. All of them helped me become a better writer.

What do you think some of the greatest misconceptions about indie authors are?

That we’re no talents. Or we’re lazy. One of the best YA ebooks I read last year was How To Repair A Mechanical Heart by J.C. Lillis, who’d been through the query cycle with agents and was burned out by it. It’s incredibly funny and daring, but some might dismiss it because she’s an indie writer. The sad thing is they’re missing out on a wonderful story. That’s not saying I’ve read some bad indie books, but I’ve read bad traditionally published books, so it’s all the same.

Some authors, like me, always write scenes in order. But I know some people write scenes out of order. How about you?

It depends on the story! Ella Bella was written in order. It was my senior project for college and I was required to write an outline for the story. However the WIP I’m working on now deals with a tragic time in Bay Area/American history, and every time I tried writing it in order I froze. I simply couldn’t do it. However this summer I decided to write from the end and go in reverse. When I started doing that, I became unfrozen. It’s far from perfect but it’s better than before.

Do you have any advice for first-time authors?

The best advice I heard when I was a teenager was from Anne Tyler: Read read read and revise revise revise. Keep going. Do the best you can. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Most of all, keep going.

What’s your favorite film of all times? Favorite book?

Fave book is a three way tie: East of Eden by John Steinbeck, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I loved all the movies based on the novels as well. Favorite movie? Nashville directed by Robert Altman comes to mind, along with Auntie Mame. All of John Hughes’ films.

What music soothes your soul?

All types! All my writing has music connected with it; my characters are like me in the fact they love music. With Ella Bella her dad loved the Beatles, so I listened to them as I wrote, or Beatles covers. The WIP I’m doing right now has flashbacks to the seventies, so I’ve been listening to the Bay City Rollers! They had such energy when they sang; it was obvious they received energy from their young fans.

If you are a TV watcher, would you share the names of your favorite with us?

Having a DVR helps a lot; I get all my TV watching done within a couple of hours. Current shows I love are: Big Bang Theory, Call the Midwife, Downton Abbey, Mad Men, Major Crimes and Project Runway. I love vintage shows way too much. I just got a new channel that shows the old Bea Arthur show Maude. I’ve been known to binge watch the show and sing the theme song. It’s not pretty.

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CHAT WITH MICHAEL JECKS

MIchaelJeck
Michael Jecks is the author of the best-selling Templar Series, as well as other titles. As well as writing thirty four novels, he has been chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association, the founder of Medieval Murderers, helped set up the Historical Writers’ Association, and is a keen supporter of new writers and writing. He is a regular speaker and panelist at festivals and other events worldwide.

 

What is your latest book?

My most recent book is also the first.

I’ve been writing my Templar Series for the last twenty years, and there are over thirty titles in the series. But this latest book is a prequel, because I wanted to show how my leading character came to be the man he grew into. So I wrote Templar’s Acre, which is a book about a boy growing into a man in medieval times – it’s a story of love and loss, battle and defeat, and shows how a siege and the catastrophe of war affects the people of a major town.

TemplarsAcre

What are the special challenges in writing a series?

Some time ago I formed the performance group Medieval Murderers. The great thing is, we are five professional writers who love history, but who conduct our research, our writing and every other aspect of our work in very different ways. I love having a series because it takes away reinvention, while friends like Karen Maitland detest the very idea. The thought of being tied to the same characters for a series drives her to distraction. Personally, I love the fact that I can start a book already knowing my characters and their families. I can get straight into the plot.

In the last year I’ve written two books out of series – Fields of Glory, out in 2014 about the Hundred Years War, and Act of Vengeance, a modern day spy thriller, so both books that are out of series, and I found them enormously challenging. The task of finding new people is not  so easy, I find. It’s rather like trying to find new friends. So I reckon I will stick to writing series novels. It’s easier.

What part of writing a novel you enjoy the most?

The real pleasure for me is when I’m well into the book. I love the process of sitting back and imagining other people, other times, other lives. For me, it’s as good as a holiday. I am getting into the mindsets of people I could never usually meet, and learning how they behave and react. It’s the most wonderful feeling to live three or four different lives in a week.

Please, tell us about your experiences with social media. What are your favorite and least-favorite parts of it?

I am no youngster, but I am lucky to have been involved with computers really since before the appearance of PCs. I was a computer salesman for thirteen years before starting to write. But social media is, I think, frankly terrifying.

People are getting more and more used to communicating purely in short bursts, either in texts or Twitter messages. That’s fine, but it is decreasing the attention span of some people. There has been research that shows people are less able to cope with holding concepts and thoughts over a longer period, which is due to receiving brief articles and shorter lumps of information.

Personally I see all social media as simple marketing tools. I do not contact friends and family on them, because I prefer to phone them! I like hearing someone’s voice. However, social media have given me a great way of communicating with my readers, with booksellers, and with other people who may not otherwise have bothered to read my books.

My biggest problem with it is, that it takes up so much time. In the past I could write a book for hours a day, and be totally immersed in my story. I’m getting there again, but only because I work very hard to be focused.

Do you allow others to read your work in progress, or do you keep it a secret until you’ve finished your first draft? Can you elaborate?

Never! Never! My book is my book. To my mind, the only people who should see my work before it’s finished and ready to print are my editor and my agent: no one else at all. Putting a book out for comments before that, to me, is an abrogation of the author’s responsibility to tell the story the best he or she can. It’s not collaborative, with a committee deciding how my characters should behave or speak. That’s my job, and mine alone. No, I would never let someone see rough drafts or work in progress. The thought fills me with horror.

We all know the old saying; you can’t judge a book by its cover. This is true. However, how much importance do you place on your book cover design?

This is true – but now, in the world of ebooks, you can’t judge a book without a cover, I think. I’ve recently tested the water with ebooks. I’ve had collections of short stories put out by me, with a cover I designed, and one designed by a professional. I’ve also written my own modern spy story, Act of Vengeance, which I put out through a publisher to make sure it was edited. The books have done really well, but I’m sure that the professional covers make a vast difference, especially for people looking at thumbnails on Amazon. You need something striking, simple, intriguing and attractive. With so many hundreds of thousands of self-published books on sale now, you have to make your own stand out as being professional in appearance. Otherwise people won’t look inside the cover.

How would you define your style of writing?

I’d say my writing is fluid. It’s not ‘literary” because I think of literary writers as pretentious. Real literary quality is not defined by an author, but by those who read it. Dickens was a hack journalist, and looked down on at first (I’ll bet many authors who saw his success remained sniffy about his writing). I write modern thrillers, effectively, which happen to be based in the past. But I very deliberately do not make the books hard going. I am thrilled and delighted by history, and most of my readers grow to be after reading my works, but a lot come to me without any interest in Medieval English history at first. That, to me, is proof of the merit of my work. If I can entertain and provide a feel for how things were, that’s good enough for me.

A lot of authors are frustrated by readers who don’t understand how important reviews are? What would you say to a reader who doesn’t think his or her review matters?

People who read books and put reviews up have a HUGE responsibility. Let me explain. When my first book came out, the first fan letter opened by my editor listed 21 factual inaccuracies in the novel. She, having commissioned me for three books, was not surprisingly very upset to think that I could wreck her career.

When I saw the inaccuracies listed, they ranged from details – how far could a horse ride in a set period – to aspects of history – the siege of Acre wasn’t 1291 but 1191, with Saracens besieged by Christians, rather than the other way around. Well, the writer was correct about 1191 – but 100 years later, the roles were reversed. The great siege of Acre is accepted generally as being 1291 when a small body of Christians were wiped out by a massive army of Mameluks.

Now that person could easily have destroyed my career, and possibly damaged my editor’s, by his thoughtless comments. Or were they thoughtless? Now we are used to the problem of trolls on the Internet. Some people write disparagingly about novels partly, it seems, because they are frustrated writers themselves. It is more jealousy than valid commentary.

Be that as it may, when people write reviews, they are potentially harming another human’s future. Some may give up writing completely as a result of a poor review.

That case was a salutary lesson for me. On Amazon and other sites you will often see dreadful comments about other people’s work. I don’t think they are ever justified. A bad book in one person’s eyes could well be thought brilliant by someone else. I distinctly recall published authors being sniffy about, in succession, Harry Potter, Da Vinci Code and Shades of Grey. Just because it’s not your cup of tea, there is no need to go and destroy someone else’s career. So, if in doubt, if you really dislike a work, don’t give it a miserable score – just don’t review it.

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, how do you get around it?

I do not suffer from it. There is a theory that writer’s block is the inevitable consequence of thinking up new plots, characters and stories, and if the ‘muse’ departs on holiday, the author’s left bereft.

Twaddle.

I was for a while the Chairman of the Crime Writer’s Association. I know all the really good writers from that organisation – and I do not know a single one who has suffered from the block. All of us, if we’re professional writers, just sit down and get on with it. We have to. If you don’t write, you don’t deserve to call yourself a writer.

However, I do believe that two things are crucial. First, if you are financially solvent, writer’s block is easier to accommodate. It’s noticeable that those who complain of it are usually amongst the wealthier people. The second is, if you work to a routine, the block is far less likely.

I tend to write in one-hour segments. The first forty-five to fifty is actual writing, the rest is off getting coffee, tea, or disposing of the last drink, while thinking through the next scene I have to write. That way, I can put down 1,000 words per hour. After the first work, which is editing the previous day’s work, I can count on 5,000 words a day. There isn’t time for writer’s block with a schedule like that!

Where do you live now? If you had to move to another city/state/country, where might that be?

I was born and raised in Surrey here in England, but from before I was born, every Easter my family would bring me to Devon and I’ve had a feeling of huge affinity for the county all my life. When I was selling computers in the 80s, it was impossible to move to the south-west, but as soon as my sixth book was published, I could move, and my wife and I bought a small house in the north of Dartmoor, where the Hound of the Baskervilles was set. It is extraordinarily atmospheric, with a character all of its own, and I adore it. I don’t think I’d ever be able to move away (unless I was told there was a house for me in the Rockies or in Alaska).

Have you ever played a practical joke on a friend? Ever had one played on you?

Many times. I tend to be a rather amiable buffoon, and it’s easy to make me look a complete twerp. When I was very young, in my last year at school, I used to have a Mini. They were great little cars, but they were designed for simplicity, so, if you needed to pop the bonnet (the hood to Americans), there was a release catch outside the car. Not a release inside. That meant anyone could break into the engine compartment.

Well, I have a great friend, now a very wealthy businessman, who always had an eye for a joke. He used to pop the bonnet every so often, and take off the spark plug caps. I would hop inside, turn the key, and hear the engine whizz round, but not start. After this happened a few times, I got a little irritable. I think it’s because one day it was raining, and I had to get my hands mucky trying to get the plug caps back on while getting soaked. So that weekend, I cut a little tube of plastic, put a cork in one end with two pins sticking into the tube itself, and put in a bubble of mercury from a broken thermometer. I covered the other end and wired this to the airhorns. Next time Nick opened the bonnet, the switch fixed to the bonnet itself tipped the mercury to the two connectors, and the horns blared very loudly in his ears.

He never tried that trick again!

What was your favourite year at school?

It was my last before the O-levels. These were the exams taken by sixteen year olds, and I remember that as a time of real peace. We were left for the first time to study pretty much on our own, revising our work. For once that summer was glorious, and I have memories of sitting out in the garden, with a lovely view across a valley, at the hillside opposite. In those days we had a Bernese Mountain Dog and a Rhodesian Ridgeback, and the two used to sit beside me as I worked. I remember reading Albert Camus’ book The Plague, and discovering Light Cavalry Action by John Harris, still one of my favourite books of all time. So for me that year was one of academic achievement (I did well in the exams), but also one of peace. Life is easy when you don’t have to earn a living.

What makes you angry?

Injustice. I despise Tony Blair for his deplorable behaviour towards any section unable to defend themselves, for example. He removed the House of Lords as an independent system by accusing them of blocking his laws in parliament (they didn’t). He blamed pistol shooters because of police failings which led to a man illegally being granted a pistol licence at Dunblane, and blamed the shooting community, depriving a hundred thousand people of their property and sports. And worst of all, he took the case of a terrorist attack in a foreign country to implement the most draconian laws imposed on the English since the Norman invasion. Like the Templars, arrested without explanation, people were arrested and held in prison without the right to a fair trial in which they could be told why they were arrested, what they were supposed to have done or who had accused them.

He reversed centuries of justice because of what happened in New York in 9/11, when for the previous twenty or thirty years, Irish terrorism causing billions of pounds of damage and killing hundreds, had not justified such extreme measures.

I detest injustice. I don’t care whether it is the injustice of a dog being put down because someone felt threatened by it, or the injustice of Police officers shooting an unarmed man and getting away with it.

I am now kicking away that soapbox …

What music soothes your soul?

All music appeals to me. For different moods, different music works better.

From my youth, Pink Floyd and Neil Young still exert a strong pull. I can be put in mind of Lord of the Rings or Elliot O’Donnell’s Casebook of Ghosts by ‘After the Goldrush’, for example. But although I love rock and (some) pop, I am really a classical music lover, I think, first and foremost. I adore the Russian composers, particularly Shostakovich and Prokofiev, and French such as Ravel and Debussy. Then again, I am very keen on English composers: Walton, Delius, Elgar – and Americans like Barber. Basically, I find all music has something of value.

Except Rap. Sorry, I don’t like the violence and crudeness inherent in the music and the culture.

What simple pleasures make you smile?

Walking my dogs over the moors in bright sunshine, or in the cool, or in the snow. Just walking, really.

Sitting outside a pub on a warm summer’s afternoon with a pint of good ale.

A roast meal with my family and a good bottle of wine.

Reading a book or to sit and paint a view.

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