JD Robb, aka Nora Roberts, has been pumping out this series since 1995 and Echoes in Death is the latest in a long line of excellently crafted murder mysteries. When I began reading this series (22 years ago) with book #1, Naked in Death, the futuristic setting seemed far, far away. Today the vertical capability of vehicles, the stun guns, the ‘autochefs’ in her stories don’t seem very far fetched. While entertaining it never gets in the way of a solid cop versus killer story.
NYPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas, a veteran murder cop, and her billionaire husband, Roarke, stumble upon a naked, dazed woman wandering incoherently down a Manhattan street. After identifying her Dallas soon discovers her husband has fared much worse. A pattern soon evolves when similar cases begin to pop up. But what could connect these bizarre cases?
Most people know I’m all about the writing! I’m not fond of ‘spoilers’ (when reading or reviewing) and am very careful not to give my readers cliff notes on the whole story. Fans of JD Robb already know that this book will be just the latest in a saga of solid mysteries. Set in New York City, and woven with great characters that fill Dallas’ life and job, it’s a foregone conclusion that Echoes in Death is more like the ‘next chapter’ of the ‘.…in Death‘ BIG book. No question readers will find the plot intricate, the characters fascinating and growing with each book, and the story compelling. Each book/story stands alone but you must consider, after reading “Echoes…”, to start at the beginning. Highly recommended I give it five quills!
Nora Roberts/JD Robb
Here’s a bit of trivia for you: 27 Nora Roberts/JD Robb books have sold every minute of every day. We writers of lesser fame (tongue in cheek) can only dream of this kind of popularity. But it’s well deserved; this author has honed her craft to a razor sharp tool, especially for the “....in Death” series.
MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss? July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August Cheryl Hollon. September’s author will be Dylan Callens and October, Donna Kauffman.
TS. Cheryl Hollon writes a charming series entitled Webb’s Glass Shop mysteries. I particularly like her well-developed characters. Let’s follow her around in her writing processes in this entertaining interview.
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? (please provid
my writing shed
e a photo/s of your shed, room, closet, barn….) Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
CH. I have a little writing shack behind the house. It’s an ordinary wooden storage shed that used to contain husband’s woodworking tools. He sacrificed that to my writing addiction by emptying it out, painting the inside white, and installing a lot of shelfs. Since we live in St. Petersburg, Florida, he also installed a small window air conditioner. It looks out over the bird feeder and is shaded by an old oak tree.
Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write? (a neat work space, sharpened #2 pencils, legal pad, cup of tea, glass of brandy, favorite pajamas, etc.)
CH. I have a well-established and reliable morning routine that gets me writing every day. My alarm goes off at 6:30 am and I get dressed, grab coffee, then walk out to my writing shed. I power up my laptop to post a Facebook comment by 7:00 am to a group of writers who start their day with a sprint. This focusing technique is hosted by Ramona DeFelice Long. In short, we each sign in and then write for an hour with no interruptions. She puts up the Sprint Thread every morning. It’s a way to get those fingers moving and ensures that I have accomplished a good bit of my writing target for the day.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
CH. I spent a few years as a card-carrying Boy Scout Leader. First as a Den Mother, then as a Committee Chairman, and finally as a member of the Training Council. My husband was and still is basically allergic to nature, so I stepped up in his place when our two boys wanted to join the local troop. It was a terrific experience – I received the best leadership skills training I’ve ever experienced. It was simple, direct and actionable.
Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?
CH. In the early morning, the words just fly from my fingers onto the page like eager ducklings. After that, if I haven’t met my word target, I must hunt those words down, grab them by the scruff of the neck, then stab them to the page. I really try to finish my new words before eleven in the morning.
Q.What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
CH. I’m getting to be an expert in confronting and defeating procrastination. In fact, I’ll be presenting a workshop on that topic at SleuthFest 2018. I basically trick myself into working for little rewards during my writing sessions. One of my tricks is to use an hourglass to write for a continuous thirty minutes with no breaks for e-mail, social media or any breaks at all. I also line up a series of rewards for successfully achieving the sprint. The rewards are a combination of candy treats, on-line crossword puzzles, social media time and reading intervals.
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
CH. When I have a need for a new character, a waiter for example, I’ll take several distinctive features from recent restaurant experiences and Frankenstein them together into one person. To make that character come alive, I free-write dialogue to discover their personality in how they use language. It’s a method that works for me – your mileage may vary.
Q. What first inspired you to write your stories?
CH. In my previous career as a project engineer and program manager for foreign military sales of flight simulators, there were many long-haul flights to Singapore, Taiwan and even India. I started scribbling ideas then as well as during the several months the team was on site for delivery and acceptance testing. Taking advantage of a corporate downsizing incentive, I left to write full time and haven’t regretted it for a second.
Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?
CH. The situation comes to me first. Since I write for a series, the characters are already known. First, I pick the site for the discovery of the victim. Then I concentrate on how someone could be driven to make a violent fatal choice as a reaction to difficult circumstances.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?
CH. I get completely immersed in my writing world. I’m a visual writer and play the scenes in my head as if I’m watching a movie. I’ve also been told that my writing is heavy in dialogue. I like that – that’s how I hear what my characters are feeling and what they’re thinking about doing next.
Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment?
CH. My muse is Lujoye Barnes who lives in a woodland cottage near Gainesville, Florida. We have been friends for more years than I care to count. We have always shared a love of books and especially mysteries. When I get stuck in a plot, I always ask myself, “What would Joye like to see happen next?” It works every time. She has been my number one inspiration since I first confessed to her that I would like to write.
Join us for Part II of this fascinating Interview on Aug. 25th
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months?
A real cliff hanger! To the last page (especially the last page) MacNeal’s new book keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. This series is a delight. Beginning when a ‘math-o-holic’ girl gets hired in Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s office as a typist. WWII is just gearing up. With an aptitude for numbers and codes Maggie Hope quickly rises, for a woman, in the war offices. In this latest offering, we catch up with her as she ‘wrangles’ her way into war-torn and occupied France. Searching for her sister, she is thrown into the deep end of espionage.
The Maggie Hope Mystery series offers intrigue, twists and turns and great characters. Woven expertly through world history the reader is treated to the workings and intrigues of 10 Downing Street and M16 (the CIA of England) . This reviewer strongly urges the reader to start at the beginning with Mr. Churchill’s Secretary and read the books in order. But, of course, The Paris Spy stands very well on its own. With each book Susan MacNeal gives the reader a complete story, albeit a dangler most likely leaving the reader in a most delicious sort of suspense.
Available at www.amazon.com or your favorite book store.
Did you miss my Interview with this Author??
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? Johan Thompson (South African author) joined us in April. June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
JT. I think that’s very subjective –we don’t all like the same books. But I suppose the writers I admire most are the ones who create a world so vivid that you remember the characters and places long afterwards – they can change the way you see the world. Books that have done this for me that spring to mind are, The Great Gatsby (Scott Fitzgerald), Passage to India (E.M. Forster), Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) and The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver).
Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like for you?
JT. This can vary! I usually do about 6 months of research and gathering material before mapping out a storyline. Then I write a synopsis so I know where the story is going and how it will be resolved. This isn’t always strictly followed but it’s the blue-print for building the story, allowing for variations along the way. I write character profiles which are added to as I write the novel (these are really important when writing a series as I record their physical features, dates of significant events, relationships etc. that can be referred to when writing the follow-on books).
It takes about another 6 months to write the novel. My technique is to edit as I go along. Each day I begin by going over what I have written the day before and re-write it, before moving on to the next scene. When it’s all written, I’ll put it aside for a week or so and then go back to it and re-edit the whole manuscript. After this it will go to an editor and be given further edits as well as being copy edited and proofread. I make sure this happens for my independently published novels too – everything must be professionally done.
In search of family home in India
Q. How has your life experiences influenced your writing?
JT. I hope it has enriched my writing. As a writer you may not use actual incidents from your own life but you certainly use your own emotional response to make a novel realistic. How else can you feel your way into the inner life of your characters? More directly, I have used the experience of my younger self going on the overland trail to India. I used the diary I kept as an 18-year-old for the background to my mystery novel, THE VANISHING OF RUTH. I was writing it 30 years after the event so wanted the setting to be authentic – I certainly wouldn’t have remembered half of it without the prompt of my diary!
The one big traumatic event that I did use in an early novel was my experience of a stillborn baby. I did so partly as therapy for me and partly to make others aware of how deeply it can affect people. At the time, 30 years ago, society tended not to acknowledge such losses or encourage bereft parents to talk about it. Now, things are handled much more sensitively. THE HUNGRY HILLS is dedicated to our firstborn son.
Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre`?
I have written a couple of mysteries which I greatly enjoyed, and I’ve also written a childhood memoirs. But my default setting is historical novels!
Q. Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
Writing is a very solitary way of life and to produce anything a writer must put in hours and hours of work. So I just want readers to know that if you’ve ever taken the time and trouble to contact an author and let them know you’ve enjoyed their book, you have done a wonderful thing! I get giddy with gratitude if a complete stranger gets in touch and thanks me for giving them a good read. You have no idea how much pleasure that gives in return – and the inspiration to carry on!
Did you miss Part I and Part II of this wonderful Interview with Janet?
MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? Johan Thompson (South African author) joined us in April. June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon. September: Dylan Callens
I published these volumes beginning in 2009 and they are very popular with teachers, directors, and drama departments. It was time now to add new plays to this volume. Retaining the tried and true, popular short plays, I have added many that I have written since 2009.
Fifteen 10 minutes plays in one volume. A variety of real life issues that teens face today with a couple of fun, silly ones just because. Teachers tell me that often doing the play, the students open up about their challenges each day.
Contents:
The Bullies…………………………………………..9 Boys at school bully a kid different from them-
selves. 4m Pan of Potatoes………………………………………………21 A sassy little tale about greed and a pan of
potatoes. 5f The Run-Away…………………………….…….31
Running away is not the solution to a teen’s problems
and can be very dangerous. 3f 1m The ‘D’ Word……………………………………………….45
Two teens face the fact that their parents
are divorcing. 2f, 2m
The Postcard…………………………………………………57 The mother of the bride receives a postcard from
the daughter that she gave up for adoption
twenty years ago. How does a devoted
mother tell her child, about a sister she never
knew about. 2f, 1m Cyber-Hate…………………………………..…..65
Bullying has reached sophisticated levels, sometimes
ending in tragic situations. 4f 1m The Art of Murder………………………………81
A reclusive artist watches his neighbor and paints
her over and over until she ends up dead. 2m 1f Song of the Yukon …………….………………….95 A teenager is inspired by the poetry of Robert
Service and strikes out for Alaska. 3f, 1m
You’re Not the Boss of Me…………………….105 The journey of decision making as a
teenager grows up. 3f Love Doesn’t Leave Bruises…………………………115 Violence among teens dating is nationally on the
rise and is becoming a genuine concern among
parents and educators. How one family deals with
it. 2f, 1m The Waltz……………………………………………………127
Falling in love during their first waltz until her
underpants fall down around her ankles. 1f, 1m Trans-G Kid…………………………………….133
Trapped in the wrong body a teen tries to find a
way out. 3f 1m
Trans-G Parents……………………………………147
A support group for parents trying to understand
and support their transgender child. 6f 5m The Perfume Bottle……………………………………………157 Two youngsters leave a perfume bottle for
the mean old lady next door. Is it perfume or a
far more lethal smell? 3f Ivah the Terrible……………………………………………….163 A rich client visits the house at dinner time while
the wife hides in the kitchen; but does she stay
there? 1f, 3m
I hope you enjoy these plays. More importantly I hope that your student/actors are inspired to navigate the troubled waters in their lives with good sense and wisdom.
Remember, when the plays are used in a classroom environment they are royalty-free!!
MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
This is just one class of adults wanting to learn to speak and write English, in Argentina! The professor is a long time friend, Mariana Falco. She and her colleagues graciously hosted me, when I traveled to their University several years ago. We keep a vibrant friendship going.
She expressed a wish to use my newest book, How To Write Creatively, as a toolin her classes. I was honored to comply.
These Argentinians are some of the most gracious and warm people on the planet. Once in a while one of the students will send me something that they have written. I always respond. Like recently, someone from the class (pictured here) sent me a letter about wandering along a stream in the autumn. It read like poetry so I tweaked it and returned it back (via Mariana) in poetry form. That spurred a young 7 yr.old from next door to draw a picture for me of how the ‘poem’ spoke to him.
And so the river of creativity flows!
Argentina Special Dinner
Autumn
leaves fall, carpet of colors
i walk by the river,
lazy with autumn’s ebb
a tree in silhouette shade,
creates a six legged creature
creeping along
its branches move
on the breeze
Mariana…second from the right. During my trip to Argentina!
of a cold day
Mariana in center. Fulbright teaching assistant at St. Mary´s College
MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? Johan Thompson (South African author) joined us in April. June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
Definition: the conversational element of literary or dramatic composition
I’ve often wondered if authors whom I’ve read, like Edna Ferber, wrote pages and pages of narrative/description because they never mastered the art of dialogue. Hmmm.
I got lucky because I began my writing career writing stage plays. And they are nothing but dialogue. So early on I learned from, not only writing plays but, reading plays…thousands of them over the years.
To be good at it, I think one of the tricks is to write more and more dialogue and then write some more. You have to be able to get in that character’s head. What do they ‘sound‘ like? Is their grammar messy? The character who hails from the Bronx, for example, is going to cut off words such as: walkin’, talkin’, eatin’, and so forth. There will be more idioms (such as ‘grill’, ‘to front’, ‘rachet’, ‘na’mean, and ‘spaz’) than a person who was raised in a household where grammar and diction were more valued. You have to be able to switch characters and write ‘flavor’ into their speech. How would an eastern Indian, whose first language is not English, ‘sound‘? Now write it that way. How would a southern ‘sound’? Be careful, people from Charleston, S.C. sound totally different from people in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Now, go back over your story and focus on how each character sounds. Is one character’s grammatical habits spilling over into another? Once in awhile I will read over my dialogue and suddenly one of my characters ‘sounds’ like me but they’re not anything like me. I let my own idioms slide right into my character’s mouth. It’s disconcerting because it’s so easy to do. When you’re out and about listen to other people’s speech patterns, idioms and speech habits.
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” E.L.Doctorow
“People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.” Logan Pearsall Smith
~~‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’ Trisha Sugarek ~~
MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? February’s author was Sheryl Steines. Johan Thompson (South African author) joined us in April. June: Mehreen Ahmed. July: Janet Macleod Trotter, author of Tea Planter’s Daughter and in August we say ‘hello’ to Cheryl Hollon.
For several years I’ve been writing posts for my Blog entitled, ‘Motivational Moments...for Writers!’ I got to thinking that I should compile all 41 posts into one place. This new, exciting, instructional book is my sharing of over twenty+ years of my experience honing my craft of creative writing.
That first, all important, sentence.
How to develop rich characters. Writer’s Block. Procrastination and how to get out of it.
What does it Mean to be an ‘Indie‘ author?
How to handle constructive criticism
…and many more words of encouragement and tips
…including quotes from successful writers such as yourself AVAILABLE : amazon.com
Do other writers find themselves at 4 in the afternoon, still in their pajamas, lost in their writing ? Hopefully it only happens at home and not at the corner coffee shop…
My readers are enjoying hearing about other authors‘ writing processes. I created a Question & Answer-type Interview and then began contacting some of my favorite authors to ask them to participate. It turns out that not only do these other writers want to share their writing life with us, but they are equally interested in the stories from other authors.
In this three-part post, my interview is with Susan Elia MacNeal. I am especially honored as Susan and her publicist have asked me to review her next book, “His Majesty’s Hope”, to be released in May of this year. Please sit back and enjoy a chat with Susan……..
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?
A. I work in my beautiful library, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, overstuffed velvet sofas, a fireplace, two cats, and a handsome young manservant to fetch me tea and coffee. Okay, that’s not true. But I do have two cats. I live in New York, and space is definitely at a premium. Before our son was born, my husband and I used our guest bedroom as an office. After it became a kid’s room, I started working at the kitchen table, or sometimes cross-legged on the living room sofa.
I joined the New York Writers Room in the West Village for a while and had many happy days there with a view of the Empire State building, but I’m not currently working there. (My son has asthma, and I like being closer to his school in case of emergencies.) I also love a little café near us—best coffee in the world, plus big tables full of other writers. I also like to work at our local public library, which is one of the old Carnegie libraries.
I’ve also written at a lot of friends’ homes, while they’ve been on vacation – some of them famous. So, parts of my books have been written at actor/writer John Hodgman’s apartment (I also looked after their cat), composer Kristin Andersen Lopez and Robert Lopez’s apartment (yes, of course I picked up his Tony award for Avenue Q and pretended to make an acceptance speech), and Ron Lieber and Jodi Kantor’s apartment. (They’re both journalists for the New York Times, and Jodi’s the author of The Obamas.)
I’ve also written with Josh Axelrad, the author of Repeat Until Rich, which was fun, because we’d break for bourbon at six p.m. But he was always saying, “I’m afraid you’re listening to me not typing and thinking I’m lazy!” I tried to tell him I have too many of my own issues to even thinking about listening to his typing or not typing!
The most amazing place I’ve ever written was just recently at Arisaig House, which is a former manor house, now a bed and breakfast, on the west coast of Scotland. It was also used as an SOE spy training camp during World War II. I was talking to a lot of people alive and living in the area during that period of time, and doing research, but I also wrote in a beautiful room with oriental rugs, a crackling fire, a view of the grounds and shoreline, and three big napping golden labs. Heaven!
But I’ve also written on trains planes and waiting rooms. Basically, I’ve learned to write anywhere and everywhere.
Join us to read part two of this wonderful interview(March 7th.) with best-seller author Susan Elia MacNeal .
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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. A NEW SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner” INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!
I have had a wonderful response from other authors and plan on featuring an interview once a month . I have invited such luminaries as: Anne Purser, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Robert McCammon, Susan Elia MacNeal, Mark Childress, Sue Grafton, Jeffrey Deaver, Rhys Bowen, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.
So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!
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racters that fill Dallas’ life and job, it’s a foregone conclusion that Echoes in Death is more like the ‘next chapter’ of the ‘.…in Death‘ BIG book. No question readers will find the plot intricate, the characters fascinating and growing with each book, and the story compelling. Each book/story stands alone but you must consider, after reading “Echoes…”, to start at the beginning. Highly recommended I give it five quills!
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For several years I’ve been writing posts for my Blog entitled, ‘
![His_Majesty's[1]](https://i0.wp.com/www.writeratplay.com/wp-content/uploads/His_Majestys1.jpg?resize=120%2C185&ssl=1)
