One of the Guys

My first book was a psychological thriller I wrote shortly after I graduated high school. To this date, Whispers of Insanity is my shortest novel and the only novel that has only a male main lead. I didn't purposely choose to do it that way, I just knew the story belonged to Codey Mathews, no one else. I really confused agents with that one because apparently I wrote him very convincingly for being a *gasp* woman. I also did something they didn't like. I gave the antagonist his own viewpoint scenes. To please interested publishers, I tried to ditch those scenes.  Didn't work. The story lost heart and I lost interest in it until I took the plunge and threw it out there. Funny, readers loved my antagonist as much as Codey in some aspects.

Then I wrote my second book, a horror suspense. I was Mom at that point and the book grew from a nightmare I had. If you read the prologue of the book, that's built on details from the nightmare. What can I say, I dreamed very vividly back then. It turned out to be just a tad longer than Whispers of Insanity and had my first no-nonsense, don't mess with her, female. She was a mom fighting to save her children from old black magic. She had to be so.

And then the Manipulated Trilogy sprouted in my mind.  Funny, it started from two characters I had developed for another psychological thriller I thought I wanted to write. I developed the characters more and BAM - Ravyn didn't want to be merely human or from Earth. She also wasn't some alien life form. She also got impossible if I tried to direct her story. So I let her lead it all along with Kyle, Kyle, the college man who kept Ravyn grounded - who actually starts out the story and shares the stage with Ravyn and a few others through the trilogy. Again I apparently pulled off writing a male convincingly because readers loved it too. And Ravyn, well, she didn't much care what anyone thought, including me. She did a fine job driving the entire trilogy, though, and I have to give her credit for the surprise ending everyone adored.  She ran with the guys, that's for sure.

And then came Desire. A hundred years into our future, her people and world star in Rise of the Arcadians. She's stubborn, but a tad uncertain too. Still, she accomplishes everything she sets out to do and she does so with the support of the male lead, but with her own stubbornness, smarts, and determination.

Among the Ancients was more of a challenge for me because Kynly is more timid and uncertain than any of the other females I wrote. She grows into her own though and takes on the responsibilities she doesn't want but ended up with anyway.

The Disillusionment Series was a whole other beast. Seven books, a fantasy family saga that included a war with the gods of old and spans hundreds of years. Tryn Brye Annis was a warrior from the start but frail until being reborn. Then she's a force to fear if anyone threatens her or her family. I have to admit her life story surprised me a bit, as did her daughter Kira. But it was Tarenek, her son and his descendants who were the funnest to write. Tarenek, yes, another male main character.

The thing is, I never saw the male or female. The characters came to me naturally, the females maybe a little softer, but in no way push-overs. I read other books where the females must be taken care of by their men and, honestly, I can't relate to those women. I don't think badly of them, I just can't relate.

For me, my female characters take care of themselves and those around them, sometimes entire worlds. They usually need support, but can also stand alone. Those are the female characters I also like to read and watch in movies. And they are the females I will continue to craft into my stories because I know not how to do it any other way.  

Time to breathe life into new faces

I've spent a good deal of the last few weeks quietly pondering how to jumpstart the WIP that's been sitting patiently in my electronic device, waiting for me to jump on board again. Somewhere along the line with all that went on the last couple of years, I lost the connection I needed for it to take life. But it's beginning to spark again. The more I remind myself who the characters are, the better the plotting in my head is going.

For some crazy reason, though, I decided when I started this new book to skip a step I've done with my books from the beginning--drawing the main characters and having their portraits on the wall till I finished the novel. Part of that had to do with time restraints. Part of it had to do with the removal of character faces that had been on the wall for several years while I wrote the seven books of the Disillusionment Series. Maybe it seemed wrong to replace them so soon, I don't remember now. I did sketch out the world, however. And now I'm going to sketch the people.

Time is still a little tight with family, job, household, yard work (it is still summer) but by fall, I'll have things ready to go again. And I hope I'll have time to finish some more dragon paintings among other planned pieces of artwork too.

No words are enough

There's been a long stretch of silence for this blog again. But I'm still here. A little older, a little different.  I simply don't know what it is I have to say that is interesting enough to chatter on about. Many things that drift through my mind each day would work well, but they are gone before I can toss up the mental net to grab them.  Some return, others don't.

It's been a rough few years for me and my muse. My dad, a young man in my eyes (early 60s) fell very ill. He escaped his failing body in January and is free, though I and my family will forever miss him, his well thought out advice, his laughter and silliness. There's a missing part now, an emptiness that won't be filled. But we also welcomed another to our family just a little over a month later. The first boy in our family for two generations on my side. He's growing so fast and smiles all the time and I wonder if he'll be just as silly and fun as his great grandfather.

Sometimes I think I just have too much all bottled up in my head trying to get out at once either in my writing or my art. I'm having trouble making sense of it all. Too much to take care of in the real world right now, I suppose.

It's crazy how tenuous the muse can be. For years while I was raising my girls, my oldest throwing challenges at me at every turn, I wrote. I wrote my first two books in the early 1990s using nothing more than an electric typewriter on the kitchen table next to the baby food and highchair, and later a word processor. The first computer came to this house in 2000. It was amazing to work on compared to what I had been doing. Then it crashed one day taking a rewrite of my second book with it. That's when I became a crazy saver and backer-upper. I had it backed up on a floppy disk, but everything had somehow gotten corrupted. I had an old version of that book in hard copy and typed that in, but I never did build it up better like I had in the file I lost.

I wrote Rise of the Arcadians, Among the Ancients, and the first of my seven book Disillusionment Series on a laptop that crashed more often than not, but by then, CDs and then travel drives existed, so I backed up all the time. And then I invested in a MacBook and got lazy again because it was so stable. I finished the series on it.

Now, I'm toying with going back to a smaller screen, a small and easily portable tablet with a small keyboard, but maybe I need to make friends with my dinosaur (it's 6 years old now) Macbook again. It saw me through some of my most complicated story creations.  Or maybe I need to find my muse again, maybe a wiser more subtle muse than before, I don't know for sure. But I'll have to find some solution soon before I can't even stand to be in the same room with myself.  A mind full of too many ideas stuck in a rut tends to make a cranky creator lol.

How Our Small Family Dog Became a Dire Wolf

Yes, a seventeen pound Cocker Spaniel Poodle mix can become a Dire Wolf. Sounds completely crazy, right? But the transformation was painless and I'm sure our Bambi was totally unaware of it.

It started sometime between 2010 and 2011. Her little black nose grew larger, fur shorter and more wiry. But she stayed just as lovable as ever.

The biggest changes were the ears and her height and weight. Her ears were no longer the floppy fluffy tufts around her adorable face and instead of tripping over her, it was possible that she would run me down.  Dire wolves are very tall and powerful after all, and I'm very short.  Oh, and she turned more gray than brown. She needed to blend into nature and her new world.

She had to get so big and rugged. Why? A little dog, despite being able to keep up to us with all our hiking, camping, and what not, couldn't survive very well in the future world during war time with the gods. I needed her to be able to cover miles and miles very quickly, keep a full grown man from freezing to death in a dark, ancient forest, and search out survivors in war torn cities during the battles with the gods.

I also gave her a new name, Shiva, and while our little Bambi is best buds with my middle and youngest daughters, Shiva became the most loyal and forgiving friend Kira, a demigod, could have.

If you'd like to read about Shiva, she first shows up in Revenge of the Gods: Disillusionment Book Two and also stars side by side with Kira in Starlight and Judgment: Disillusionment Book Three.

You Can't Force Words to Cooperate

I watched a live interview yesterday with an author I've liked for a while now. His writing is smooth and entertaining (in my opinion) and I enjoy the world he built for his stories.  Mr. Brooks said something during his interview that made me "A-Ha!"  Basically it was that a good story can't be forced. It needs to be allowed to grow.

As a writer, one must put their fingers to the keyboard regularly, no doubt about that, but I think too many writers get frustrated when session after session of fingers on the keyboard doesn't carry their story ahead at lightning speed. I've seen good authors get frustrated and figure they mustn't be good enough since their efforts weren't working like they thought they should. I find that sad.

I've had the experience of having a story take off at lightning speed and become a full novel written in just a couple of months. It was amazing. I absolutely loved the characters and events.

I've also had the experience of writing a story that felt more like pulling out each of my teeth with a pair of pliers.

I finished all the stories, or morphed it into a new story. But the important part was that I finished them, no matter how long it took.

How did I make it through with pulling my teeth (figuratively speaking, of course)?  I wrote each day that I could, but I didn't always write in the difficult book. Sometimes I had to let it stew while I focused on doing research or writing something completely different.

Most writing advice is adamant that a writer write and write and write the story until they reach the end, and they should be able to write pages of good stuff every day. Some even hint to the fact that if you don't do that, you can't be a "real" author.

Don't get me wrong, the writing profession is anything but easy. It is painstaking work to wrangle words into a perfect order to create your world and your characters. My point with writing this blog is that sometimes it doesn't happen like all the writing advice articles and books and even creative writing professors say. Sometimes a writer just has to let a certain work grow at its own pace and let it bloom all on its own.  That is the magic of writing, watching something take shape on the paper as it pours through your fingertips. The key is not to get frustrated or disheartened when creating that magic becomes a marathon up a mountain.

Remember that each writer is different. Despite the multitudes of articles and writing lessons out there stating what schedule or technique is best, only you will know what schedule or technique works for you. Once you find it, that's the perfect one for you, even if it goes against all the rules.

Enemies of the Muse

No writer likes talking about the dreaded staring-at-blank-screen moments, especially when those moments stack one upon the other for days or even weeks on end. Some call it writer's block. Others pretend it doesn't exist and still others take it as a sign that they no longer have anything to write about so they stop writing all together.

I usually don't have deadlines to write by, so I basically ignore the dry spells and find other things to do, but I've been writing long enough to know the enemies of my muse.

Sleep

Sleep, or lack thereof, can muddy a muse beyond functioning.  I read an article recently that stated women have more issues with sleep deprivation than men, so my issue with it may not be such a problem for others, but it's my biggest enemy these days. It doesn't help that I'm also a night person. It does not matter what time I go to bed, if I try to make my brain function before nine or ten a.m., I'm useless. My imagination gets blocked out and locked behind the desperate fog of doing anything else that is required of me.  If the muse has vanished, try to respect your natural sleep cycle as much as you can and catch up on any hours lost.

Worry

Life has a way of dumping difficult things on us at random times. We have no control over this, only over how we handle it. If something worrisome arises, I have to work harder to get into my zone and make contact with the muse. For me, it takes good music and some time to block it all out. If worry plagues you, find your coping mechanism, be it music, a favorite meal, a trip to a favorite place, whatever it is that helps you escape the worry for a little while.

Stress

Stress is related to, but not the same thing as, worry. There are different kinds of stress and all of us deal with it at one time or another. Having an unfinished job hanging over our head, a sick family member, household demands, demands of a job, you name it. The typical ways of dealing with it, deep breathing, relaxation techniques, calming music, aromatherapy, all can help. Find what works for you.

There's also a little side note about stress, depending on what it is, it can actually fuel your muse. So only try to escape the stress when it's blocking your muse.

Responsibility

There is no escape from this one. Whether it be walking the dog, running the kids to activities or doctors, or working a day job, it must be done. The key here is carving out time to write when you can. I also work over plots and scenes in my head while in waiting rooms or waiting for the kids to finish an activity or even while grocery shopping. With responsibilities, the key is finding a way to work around it.  I once even worked out the details of characters for a book on the back of a grocery receipt while waiting in the car with my middle daughter. Do what you can when you can.

Time

Time is a precious commodity these days, it seems. There really is no easy fix for this one. As a writer, you have to carve out an hour or two every day - or whatever schedule you can find - and make it work for you.  The important thing here is that you find the determination to make it work for you. So the key to keeping this one from murdering your muse is to carve out those hours anywhere you can.

Illusive ideas

I'm not really a good one to give advice on this. My issue here is the opposite. I have too many ideas all rattling around in my head at any particular time.  But I still have to work to find what one can work for what story. My secret here is to focus on the characters.  Once a character is created, their personality will point to the idea and story they want to star in.  My other advice for this one would be to just write. Pick a persona/character to think in and write down whatever comes to your mind. Then see what commonality all the jottings have and explore what type of tale it would best serve. Give yourself the freedom and permission to write freely without anything like "it has to be done this way or that way."  Just let it be and explore.  Writing so freely will often jolt loose some really fantastic things.

Illusive Motivation

Not all writers need to be motivated to write, but it's been my experience that the best writing comes from motivated writers, not just writers who force words into a computer.  Writing is barely ever topnotch until a lot of blood, sweat, and tears are shed to mold a first draft into gorgeous writing, but the spark that ignites the first draft will catch on better if the writer has the right spark under the muse.  How we each find our motivation is unique to us. For me, it's finding the right music, a dark room, candles lit, and incense burning. I do everything I can to help place myself in my imaginary world and write my characters as true to them as I can.

Fear

This one is also a very personal thing. It does not matter if someone has written no books or twenty books, fear of failing with the next one can leave the muse locked in a deep dark tunnel, unable to shine. Determination is the answer to this one. No one is perfect, no writer will do it all just perfect. All we can hope to do is write the best story for readers we can possibly write. So learn your craft, give it your best effort, and accept that your best is great enough.


In closing, writing is hard work and a writer has to be willing to put in the blood, sweat, and tears to accomplish their tale. It's not an easy get-rich scheme. The creation of a novel takes effort, getting it into print (or electronic print) takes more, and the marketing of it after takes even more. But if it's in you to write, you'll find a way.

Once and for ARRRG!

It's been a while now, but one Sunday we were watching something on television with my mom and one of the characters stated something such as "we'll stop this thing, once and for a_ _ " -- well, you can fill in the blanks, right? My middle child was sitting on the couch beside me and started to pat my knee in sympathy. "It's all right Mom, just plug your ears," she said to me,  and grandma gave us the strangest look.

I can't remember exactly when it started. It was a couple years ago when that four word phrase became torture to me. It's like nails on a chalkboard. What's wrong with: "Once and forever" or "now and for all time"?  Or not adding anything to the end of "we'll stop this thing!" They all generally get the same point across but they aren't as beaten to pulp as the simple "once and for ---" Please don't make me type it.

I'm not perfect, some cliches have slipped into my own work (though not the once and for...)  Cliches do have their place. They appear in dialogue, if a character is sweet on a saying, but be darn sure it shows the reader something about the character before you use it. Ask yourself if the cliche really belongs there or if other words could be woven together to show and give the reader more.

When something is overused like the phrase I so abhor, it becomes weak and meaningless, stirring no emotion or anything more than a thought of "oh, that again," and no author wants to write weak.

When writing, the goal is to work hard and make every word carry the weight of that effort. It's not easy to find those perfect words and stitch them together into a tapestry to show what's alive in your mind in a way that flows easily for readers. Using an overused cliche can ruin all that effort for some readers because, in one blink, the writing got lazy and the author threw what is to be a stunning pronouncement out there with no more effort than brushing a speck of dirt from a fingertip.

Words are powerful things. It's up to us to use them to the maximum efficiency. Let's not continue to beat the same old words or phrases into a boring pulp.

On the same note, let's not create the ridiculous in an effort to be unique. Make sure the words you string together aren't creating something virtually impossible. Keep your imagery precise, possible, and active. That's really all any reader asks. 

My Secret for Plotting Surprises.

When someone first reads one of my books, the first thing I usually hear is how they loved the plot twists.  My books are full of them, as much as I can manage. I dislike cliche or formula plots where everything of the plot is easy to see coming.  I'd like to claim great brilliance in crafting the twists and turns in my books, that I carefully craft each one, knitting it skillfully through each scene.  The truth is much less romantic.

My characters do it. I must confess, they deserve pretty much all the credit.  I show them where things start (sometimes they convince me my first starting point is wrong, I always listen to them) and tell them the ending result and a few key points in between. How they get to those points, and what they do with those points, is all up to them.

It's true, I have very little to do with the twists and turns that happen in my books beyond creating the characters.  I dabble in psychology, finding the human mind fascinating. I'm also a very empathetic person. I can see a person's point of view on anything, even if I don't agree with it at all, including fictional characters.  This, I'm convinced, is partly why my characters get so deeply formed.  And from that, I turn them loose and watch the magic happen.

The rest of the story is a cause and effect ride, and my characters rarely react to things quite the way I plan or hope or even like, or do anything easy, yet they react completely true to themselves. I learned early on that attempting to force one of my characters to walk a planned outline ends in the death of my muse. Some of my characters are even more stubborn than I am.

I sometimes do have revelations about a character deep into the middle of a story, and then go back to weave hints or supporting things into earlier chapters, and strengthen it all when I work through the rewrites. Sometimes whole new scenes pop up, sometimes whole new supporting characters, but it all branches from the characters themselves.

I do work hard to make sure it all works well together. I'm sure I miss some things, but I do my best to make sure ends are tied up (never in a very expected way), and that they make sense.

The other thing I work hard to do is showing readers who my characters are and how emotional each decision they have to make is, along with the settings, but those are two subjects I'll write about at another time.

Till then, I'm again happily creating more characters to work out a new plot...

Changes

I do apologize for my long absence here. It has taken this long for me to find the time to crack the code to reenter my blogging area. A while back, everything changed, for some reason.  I understand security, I do. I appreciate it, but there are times where it is far easier to wait for weeks (or months) before tackling a glitch to open the doors again. Such is the case here. I'm determined to make regular blog posts, but my computer, or blogger, or some other electronic gremlin thinks it's amusing to challenge that, apparently, and test my determination.  I've finally made it back. Took longer than I had hoped, but I still accomplished it.

And then I get a notice that the email I've had since the early 2000s is switching over to a new system. Joy. (Can you hear the sarcasm? It's thick.) I use my email every day, though, so I hope I won't go in one morning to find they don't know me anymore, much like blogger did.  My mail host has already tried to tell me I was an impostor using my own account because I used the word "tracking" in a note I was sending out. I spent three hours jumping through hoops to correct that situation when they slammed down the thick iron doors and electronically blocked me out.  Now, instead of telling people I have a tracking number for their shipment, I have to type "the number for you to follow your package is..."  And I think -- Seriously? Is this for real? Why yes, yes it is. All in the name of my safety. *sigh*

Society seems to be a crazy mishmash of overly secure and overly under-secured things, these days. It's crazy how some things like email and blog hosts act like they guard the doors with cannons and the threat of execution, yet we can wave a card in front of a laser eye to pay for things directly from our life's blood, errr, I mean bank account -- a card that someone with the right small device can walk by and grab all your information from your purse or pocket. I don't have one of those cards, still far too old fashioned. But I'm sure I will eventually have to get one or I won't be able to function.

I remember when things used to be much simpler. For now, I'll just appreciate being back in my blog and move on. There is laundry to fold and a scene to work out in my head before I can type it all out in the book, hopefully at some point this week.

What's makes an author?

I recently downloaded an ebook I thought sounded interesting. The story indeed is interesting, but the errors, stilted dialogue, and predictable events leave me cringing at times. And the whole of it got me thinking. I would love the tale if the author had studied the craft of writing enough to construct good dialogue and had someone edit it, even just a little.

Writers can get published in today's world so easily, the ebook rush, the ease for someone to become their own publisher. That does not mean that all self-published folks are hack jobs, though.

I've studied writing since the early 1990s, spent my every waking moment juggling kids and one lesson book or another. I worked with instructors and then editors and if they had a suggestion or complaint, I studied until I understood what they were saying. I studied it until I knew it all inside and out. I even got bites from publishers and worked with more editors. But the changes they wanted in the characters and story lines, I just couldn't do. My books are not about the blood and gore (they have it, but I don't focus on it), they are about the characters and their hopes and dreams. I didn't want to turn the stories into every other book out there. Since I had the opportunity to learn publishing, I went out on my own. 

So are my books worth less than those published by Random House or Penguin? Some would still say yes, for certain. I say read one of my latest books before you make a judgment.

Coping

I haven't always loved books. I remember being read bedtime stories and the ones I wanted to hear over and over again. But there were quite a few years when I was younger that books weren't an every day thing, they were a luxury. My first chapter book that I can remember came from a flea market. I probably still have it here somewhere in one of the two totes that store everything I have from my childhood. It was a mystery, an old one with Trixie Belden as the main character. Every time we visited the flea market or anywhere that had books, I would look for more. From there I was hooked.

I had a beautiful childhood, lots of extended family, an aunt I considered my big sister, cousins galore. But on the day to day basis of a work week during the summer, I was basically on my own, having to occupy myself. Not hard when I spent those days on my grandparents' farm. I dug clay out of the dam my grandfather had built and shaped it into all kinds of animals. Birds were the easiest. I fished a lot. Got really good at playing pool by myself. And when I discovered books, I spent a lot of time on the porch swing going on adventures with other kids my age. My reading and comprehension improved quickly and my wild and crazy imagination found a purpose. It wasn't long before I started dreaming up adventures for my own characters.

Books still save me from the harshness of reality sometimes. They've rescued me many times over the years, both reading and writing them. It's an escape I think too few people use. Life can get downright nasty at times. It can't be ignored. Unpleasant things need to be taken care of and dealt with. It's refreshing, though, to open the cover of a book and leave life behind for a half hour or so a day. And sometimes what can be learned inside those covers can help you get a good perspective on a bad situation in life. Books aren't only for vacations where everything is great. Take refuge in them sometimes even when things aren't.

Titles - Oh, the Terror

Titles. It's something writers stress over, possibly even more than the dreaded synopsis, for if you can't create a stunning title for your written gem, it might not ever get noticed. The title is important for marketing, for recognition (so readers know it's the one their friends were going on about last week at lunch), for grabbing attention in that giant sea of titles out there.

So what's the best way to create a fantastic title?

Here's some tips:

1. Think about what the story is about - the ideas behind it, the plot, the characters. Write down any and all words that relate to anything tied to the tale. Fill the page, or pages, with as many nouns and verbs as you can.
2. Cross out ones that are too cumbersome, bland, overused, or otherwise not pleasant. 
3. What's left? It might seem like a jumbled mess, but start rearranging those darling words anyway, add conjunctions, prepositions, adjectives - don't be afraid to get wild with it. Keep it simple, keep it catchy, keep it connected to something in your story. 
4. You'll be left with a list of a few groups of words, some you'll cross off just because they don't click, others might be so-so. If you can't pick out one with a "That's it!" kind of feeling, hold on to a few good ones while you write, chances are, as the story and characters unfold, one of those options will get stronger, or change a bit to reach that point. 

A bonus step is to Google your choices to see if any other book, blog, movie, painting, or other artistic expression out there has a similar title, or the same. If so, ask yourself if you need to adjust your title or if it's good to have it similar to the other book, blog, movie - well, you get the point.

The title is often your book's first impression (its cover the second), so great care needs to be given to those first few words the world will see. It can seem like an impossible task, but if you do the steps above, use a thesaurus to make your choices more vast, have fun playing with words, you can create just the right one for the job. 

Attention spans

Attention spans. Now there is something I know a little about. Having raised my three girls, I can remember times where I struggled to grab and then hold their attention either for school work or chores or what not. "Stay on task" was something not easily done. Yet my middle girl would sit in the middle of the chaos with a book in her hand, completely absorbed and oblivious to anything around her. A book.

So when I saw another blog making comments about today's youth not being interested in books due to addictions to cell phones, Ipads, email, facebook, twitter and the like, I'm afraid I can't fully agree. I've been immersed in the younger crowd with my kids, their friends, and my nieces and nephews. What impresses me is the number of kids nowadays who love books.

As my middle daughter, and now my youngest say, books can take you somewhere nothing else can. I had a technology addict (my oldest), but even she is more interested in living life now. The arrival of technology for books (Kindle, Nook etc) has blended the two, but I still hear from so many how reading a book in actual print is so much better.

Being an author and an editor, I've known there is a difference between reading on screen and reading print for me, at least. Recently I read an article bringing up the question of how our brains take in print words differently than electronic ones. No studies that I know of are complete on the actual differences, but there are many opinions on the subject. Read this article from The Chronicles of Higher Education here  just to get you started.

For me, growing up in the '80s, and raising my girls through the 90s and 2000s, I'm seeing a trend that encourages kids to read. Some won't, we can't all love books, but in my opinion, the percentage of those who know the value of a good, print book has gone up from when I was a kid. Electronic for some does the same. Either way, we all still love a good story to whisk us away and give us an escape like nothing else can. That, I hope, will never change.

Writers Never Stop Learning

I remember when my writing grew from something more than a kid jotting in notebooks to something I  might actually be good at. It was a wild and crazy thought, just out of high school with no great grades in any English (now called Language Arts) class. And I sure wasn't brave enough to let many people ever even look at a page I'd written.

I credit my parents really. I had the opportunity to take a creative writing course, one I couldn't afford, yet my enrollment happened anyway - didn't take me long to figure out who made that happen. My mom has always been my biggest fan, and my biggest critic when I needed someone to point out when something was bad.  I learned a lot in that two year course. But it wasn't enough. I gobbled up "How-To" books on all topics related to writing. Articles and stories from Ray Bradbury, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark and many others taught me how to improve my techniques for suspense, horror, and fantasy weekly. And I wrote nearly every night after tucking my girls into bed.

I worked with editors for my first book and got some bites from publishers, but things just didn't sit right with me, the changes they wanted, the things they demanded. I kept studying, kept writing.

I published my first book in 2002. I had people coming to me for advice shortly after, got invited to offer novel writing workshops for Long Story Short School of Writing, workshops I still teach. I keep writing.

And I'm still learning. I've made mistakes in my writing, but I'm learning from them and fixing them. The biggest lesson I had to learn was that my voice, just the way it is, is fine -- readers like it. I have a couple titles where I tried to listen to editors or the well meant advice of other writers, but I did not do myself any favors by letting my style and voice get muddled. I've worked that out now, but I'm still learning.

If I live to be ninety years-old and write fifty novels, I'll still be learning. And I wouldn't want it any other way.

Once Upon a Time

Okay, so Specters of the Lawless doesn't really start like the title of this blog post, it has started. Here's a little sampling of the first draft:

Prologue

The snap of the woman’s neck dropped the crowd into silence, all but the three youngsters tied and standing below the gallows. A scream broke louder than the youngest’s sobs. A bellowed promise that they would all pay.

“You hear that?” Uncle asked, his face painted with lines of anger and contempt.

Eagan peered up into his father’s much gentler eyes, eyes that mirrored the will for mercy.

“Brother, they’re just children,” Father said.

A sneer angled Uncle’s jaw strangely. “Every enemy began as a child,” he said.  He turned and descended the stairs, shouting out to the young girl, then ordering her instant death.

Eagan dashed to the left, following the twin set of stairs out the opposite side, ignoring his father’s shout.

The girl was not much older than he, maybe thirteen, but she was slighter, small and thin like all the woods people. Her hair was dark and tangled, as dark as her eyes. Uncle said their eyes were black like their souls, but Eagan had gotten close enough to see the irises, which appeared black, were truly a rich deep brown. When he asked his father, he learned it was a very normal eye color in some areas, not at all indicative of the soul like Uncle claimed.

He ran faster than his uncle walked, shouted at the unsheathed swords and raised rifles, and leaped from the lowest landing to take a stance before the girl who shepherded her two younger siblings behind her despite her bound hands and being trapped between the weapons and the gallows where their mother still hung.

His young legs were not fast enough. The air was still heated from the laser blasts when he whirled to face the girl. Her expression had softened to a wince of pain. Tears still dripped from her lashes and beautiful eyes so deep and full. Instinct had him clutching her shoulders when she faltered. The two youngest lay dead behind her, their souls already lost, but she remained standing, her hands clamped around his wrists. He sank to the ground with her, nothing else existing but her. He didn’t even know her name.

Her tears dried, her full attention only on him.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “Please, don’t go.” He wanted to help, wanted to take the pain away, wanted to stop the leaking of her life. He held her, gripped her more tightly when she could no longer stay upright, willed her life to remain even as her gaze wavered, locked on his, but then went blank with no light within. He clenched his eyes against the sight of it, but even in the darkness he saw her.

Anger grew through him, worming deep to his gut, fraying his young mind. The vicious grip of a large hand around his collar, yanking him away from her, snapped him back to reality. He shuddered at the hateful expression on his uncle's round face.

“Put him down, Amras.”

Eagan pulled his head to the left, startled by the stern look on his father’s face. Whispers rose up from all around.

“Of course,” Uncle said.

Air rushed down Eagan’s throat so quickly it nearly choked him. He fell to his hands and knees only to be pulled upright a second later to peer up at his father and away from the dead girl.

“Never falter,” his father said. “Keep your feet, keep your head.” Then Eagan was gently nudged behind him.

Other things were said between the brothers, none of which Eagan heard. Father guided him back up the stairs with an apology for subjecting him to such an event. It was just to be a lesson in law and consequences. Father had no idea the woman had children or that they would be involved.

Eagan snuffed out the bedside lamp that night a different boy with new understanding and the memory of the girl with beautiful brown eyes.

I am a writer

I was a writer before I was an author. I was a writer before I was an artist. I was a writer before I started editing, teaching, publishing, and all that. I've been a writer for more than twenty years with twelve published novels. I recently finished a 7 book series -- big relief. Then something happened. While I had a little success a few weeks ago with starting my next book, it was mostly because I know the writing tricks now to force it. Problem is, forcing it only happens for so long and there is no passion in it, nothing to carry it forward. Each word feels like the yanking of a tooth. That doesn't make for promising results.

I have to chase away the naysayer comments erupting from the back of my mind. Saying I'm not good enough, saying no one wants to see the world like I do or read a story my imagination creates.

I am a writer, and I am very good at what I do. My stories are deep, crafted, and not predictable. My characters are developed, real, with heart and soul. I know this. Now I have to work on truly believing it.

Specters of the Lawless will be no different in those respects despite it being a different kind of tale for me. I'm actually looking forward to the unique aspects of it now. If only I can find the time to devote to it. Hopefully soon.

Introverts can have fun too

I am wholly an introvert, this I've always known. I'm more at ease in my office alone pouring over words I've written, words I'm editing, or words I'm reading just for fun. Words I understand. Using my fingers to create words or art either on screen or on paper is how I best communicate. Words do not travel from my mind to my mouth very well at all. Still, I was determined to get out into the world this year. To let others know my books and my art exist. Everything was starting to feel pointless. What was I writing and painting for?

This was a wild and dangerous thing for me, but I had to do something.  It started with the Pittsburgh Comicon. I've gone to the show for a couple years and found the artwork and all so inspiring. I couldn't hope to even compare to any there with my art, but my books, my stories maybe had a place there. I enjoyed meeting Star author D. Benfer in person, and artist Byron Winton and many others. I loved talking with so many new people immensely but  have to admit it was tiring to constantly eat out and sleep on a strange bed. And, I'm sorry to say, I spent a great deal of time in my hotel room behind the closed door.

This past weekend, I had a table at the first Sci-Fi convention which just happened to be only a few minutes away from my home. I had a phenomenal time at this smaller convention, finding it easier to talk to my booth neighbors this time. I had the pleasure of getting to know author J. Powell Ogden from Ohio and author Kelly Martin from West Virginia just to name two. I also had vast opportunities to talk to so many people about my books and a little about my art, but the best part was hearing about them, what they liked, seeing their costumes, discovering from where they traveled.

I must thank all those who stopped by my booth and showed interest in my work. I do hope those who purchased one of my titles find an escape in an enjoyable adventure within the pages. And I look forward to doing this again soon.

The only downfall of being home every night - the dishes pile up along with the clutter. But this time the office doesn't look like a wild animal was turned loose within the walls. I was back to work with words again today, and I do think I may even be able to start on my new story, Specters of the Lawless. After I catch up on my sleep, Star work, and housework, that is :-)

A Tribute...

I remember my grandfather well. His waves of snowy white hair and crystal blue eyes behind dark framed glasses, the blue-jean overalls he wore and the pickup he drove to work. I remember him doing plumbing and fixing furnaces, tending the cattle and barn work, and farming the fields. I also remember the evenings after the meal we in my family call supper. His chair at the table had arm rests and he would lean back, prop his stocking feet up on the nearby empty chair and rub them together. All the while the adults (usually just him, my mom, and my grandmother) discussed current topics, local, and national. He always had a distinct opinion of what was right and wrong, of how people should be treated, what things would make circumstances better for all, not just great for a few. I saw and heard it all.

I remember his struggle with the illness that took him from our family when I was just a teen, the rock, the strength. Cancer is so cruel. The man who loved us all and knew what should and shouldn't be done. I remember feeling a shattering of all, a distinct undercurrent of massive change. I also remember my early twenties when I finally found peace with what had happened to this man who was so much to so many. And I swore I would live up to his beliefs, his honor.

True, I didn't know him in his younger years. I've lived long enough now to know he surely made his own mistakes in his early years. He was not a perfect man, but he taught me so much. He taught me that family is everything and that we should respect our differences. If he judged anyone, I was never aware of it. He never picked favorites or blatantly talked bad of anyone. He would dislike decisions, yes, but never looked badly at the one who made the decision. True I was just a child, and children were not involved in adult things back then. The feeling I always got though, from all those hours observing and listening to the adults talk at the supper table, was one that stayed with me. He put you in your place when you needed it how ever harshly he needed to (we are Irish after all), but he was not ever cruel. He was fair and just. He played guitar, raised livestock, farmed fields, respected the land, and created art with wood -  shelves, grandfather clocks, porch gliders. He laughed and he cried, but most of all, he loved us all.

In his memory, during my early twenties, I promised to treat all with respect, stand up for what was right. Do right by anyone I met, never do harm to any or hurt anyone, or cause undo stress on anyone for any reason on purpose. And I have done so and will continue to do so to the best of my abilities.

It saddens me to know I have many cousins who didn't get the chance to make memories with this man. It saddens me just as much that he is not here to give stability to an ever increasing avalanche of bad events ripping apart what once was good, shattering bonds for what? I truly do not know. A twisted and ugly mess. And I wonder how, why (that I will never understand), and I hope and pray he is not watching, that he rests in peace.

I will live to honor his memory, as will my children. There are things you just do not do to anyone, let alone family. I remember even if others do not. I'm sorry grandpap, that I couldn't do more. But I promise I will never be a part of any hate or harm to anyone. And I promise to teach my children the same. In your name, I promise that.

And I will always remember you well....

To Outline or Not to Outline

When I first began studying the writing craft in the early 1990s, everything I heard and read about starting a novel included full blown outlines. Some encouraged plotting out each scene and each chapter. I tried it, but accomplished nothing except a full wastebasket.

I can't say what the best way to write a novel is, only that each writer has to find their own tools. Getting through the sticky middle is the hardest part, and some do need that outline to plod through the swamp. For me, though, if I did a full-blown outline, my characters stopped doing everything except sitting in their interview chair, drumming their fingers and looking at me with a cocked brow and a "are you serious" kind of look in their eyes. My characters don't like being told what to do anymore than I do.

I can still get stuck in the swampy middle though, so I had to find a way to make it all work for me and my pig-headed characters. It's simple really. I get to know the characters inside and out, their dreams, fears, hopes, what they love, what they dislike, what their goals are, what haunts their dreams, what fills their fantasies, clear down to what they like to eat and drink to their habits, all of it. But none of it is set in stone. I always give them room to grow or change their minds. Then I decide on the one pivotal act that sends the characters on their downward slide. That is where the beginning is. And I always know what the ending will be - not how it happens but the end result. I often know a handful of important events that lead to the end, but basically my characters have free rein.

All of that is how my books have come to be reviewed as having the best surprise endings. It's because I don't plan how, just the "what." The characters, in all their individuality and with their choices, drive the "how." Sometimes it's far far away from how I would like things to go. But that's a whole other story :)

Where do ideas come from?

The short answer to the question of where I (and most writers) get their ideas is: everywhere. Then add imagination, sometimes exaggeration, a dash of the author, and it can be magic.

For me, my stories start with a character and a simple element after which I ask "what if" to just about every aspect my imagination can create from those. For my first book, it was a character who felt like an outcast. My second novel, Gone Before Dawn, grew from a nightmare I'd had and was fed by research I did of my local area. Each element of it, the graveyard, the haunted apple tree, the mansion, all of it came from places I knew around my local area.

The Manipulated Evil Trilogy came about after 9/11 and what followed. I felt helpless which gave rise to a character who was anything but and a story that grew into something much bigger than I had ever planned. The jumping off point for Rise of the Arcadians was the dynamics of a big family inside global climate change and how cycles might change the world from what we know today. Among the Ancients started to form as I was researching ancient mysteries - like how did they move the immense stones that make up Stone Henge or the walls of Sacsayhuaman - and what would a man do if he was suddenly face to face with the answers? Or possible answers. :-)

The whole of the seven book Disillusionment Series grew from my constantly asking the question "what if" while researching the beliefs of the ancient Sumerians.

My next book, well, the idea for it started from something my middle daughter once said. A story where the bad guy might be good or the good guy might be bad or... well, you get the point. Pieces of other things are also filtering in.

Ideas can come from personal experiences, the morning newspaper or news report, research of the past, movies, other books, or anything at all. An author's job is to people the idea with unique and complete characters to bring it all to life and keep it as unpredictable as possible. The stronger the characters, the easier that is to do. So, I suppose, knowing a bit about human psychology helps a lot with that. Each personality will react differently to any given circumstance, and there is where the fun really begins...