Tag: best sellers

Pull the Covers Up Over your Head…an Interview with author, Robert McCammon (part 2)

interviews, author quotesPart II…… an interview with Robert McCammon authors, best sellers, writers, interviews(part I)

Robert McCammon, born July 17, 1952 in Birmingham, Alabama, have written nineteen books, working on his twentieth now. Some titles are SWAN SONG, MINE, MYSTERY WALK, BOY’S LIFE, STINGER, SPEAKS THE NIGHTBIRD, MISTER SLAUGHTER, THE PROVIDENCE RIDER.

Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?

A. I start work about 10 or so at night and work until 2 or 3. When I’m finishing up a book, I “double up” and work in the daytime as well.

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?

A. “Lost” in the writing? Well…I guess it’s a matter of concentration. The harder you concentrate, the more you become “lost” in the writing, I suppose. Doesn’t happen all the time, but it does happen.

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

A. When I was about 25 and realized my job at a newspaper was a dead-end.author interviews, best sellers, writers, interviews

Q. How long after that were you published?

A. About two years later.

Q. and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?

A. What does it look like? Well, it looks like extreme concentration, hard work and problem solving.  Also sticking with it until it’s done. Does that answer your question, sorta kinda, or have I misunderstood it?

Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters ?

A. In my mind. I’m doing a series right now where some of the characters are ongoing, but others have to be made up from whole cloth. Still…are any characters made up totally from “whole cloth”? Probably not. They’re probably put together by the writer’s attitude and impressions of the world, people he or she have met…many influences there in creating characters.

Q. What inspired your story/stories ?

A. I like to read. I don’t write with an outline, so it’s like I’m reading my own work as it goes along. I want to know what happens. Also, I want to create a world the reader will enjoy living in for a little while.Robert McCammon, best selling author, writing

Q. Have you? Or do you want to write in another genre`?

A. I’ve written in horror/suspense/mystery/historical. I’d like to do some “science fiction” writing, as well…whatever the definition of that might be.

Q. Anything else you’d like to share with us?

A.  I was pleased to do this, and thank you for the questions.                     http://www.robertmccammon.com/

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Come back May 23rd when I review McCammon’s newest book,  ‘I Travel the Night’

Don’t forget to sign up to receive my BLOG!  It offers advice, encouragement and support to other writers.
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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS.  The 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:  Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Mark Childress, Robert McCammon, Rhys Bowen,Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, Amber Winckler, Jeffrey Deaver 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!  Mark Childress is our April author.  Caroline Leavitt is June‘s author.  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August‘s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander.  Slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter.
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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”.  You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ .  Thanks!

You live to write, You stop! You Die!

 

famous authors, Bukowski, writers,    I have been obsessed with Charles Bukowski for weeks now.  I sort of  randomly discovered him, fell in love, ordered his book of poems, ‘The Pleasures of the Damned’ and now I’m his forever!   (March 14th)

   One day, much to my amazement, I found tucked away in my very messy bookcase, a movie based on Bukowski’s life starring Matt Dillon. I’m ashamed to say that a friend had given me the DVD as a gift and I never bothered to watch it. (in my pre-Bukowski days)  “Factotum” is a disturbing and fascinating look into Bukowski’s  early years as an alcoholic, unknown writer who was frequently homeless as he went from job to job, from bar to bar, from woman to woman,  from job to job, from bar to……

Bukowski writes about the raw, and sometimes ugly, world in which he lived.  A world that you and I may never experience, a world of the downtrodden, poor, weak, drunk, and doped up, (and what polite society would call) losers.
The saving grace of this man was the PURE TRUTH in which he wrote!  

 This book reads like an autobiography of his life…all in prose.  I was struck by this piece in particular .  Bukowski knew exactly who and what he was.

a clean, well-lighted place  ©

the old fart, he used his literary reputation
to reel them in one at a time,
each younger than the last.
he liked to meet them for luncheon and wine
and he’d talk and listen to them talk.
whatever wife or girlfriend he had at the moment
was made to understand that this sort of thing made him
feel ‘young again’.
and when the luncheons become more than luncheons
the young ladies vied to bed down with
this
literary
genius.
in between he continued to write,
and late at night in his favorite bar
he liked to talk about writing and his amorous adventures.
actually, he was just a drunk who liked young ladies,bukowski, famous authors, writers
writing itself and talking about writing.
it wasn’t a bad life.
it was certainly more interesting than what most men were doing.
at one time he was probably the most famous writer in the world.
many tried to write like he did
drink like he did
act like he did
but he was the original.
then life began to catch up with him.
he began to age quickly
his large bulk began to wither.
he was growing old before his time.
finally it got to where he couldn’t write anymore.
“it just wouldn’t come” and the psychiatrists couldn’t do anything
for him but only made it worse.
then he took his own cure, early one morning,
alone
just as his father had done
many years before.

a writer who can’t write any
more is dead
anyhow.
he knew that.
he knew that what he was killing
was already dead.

and then the criticsbukowski. book
and the hangers-on
and the publicists
and his heirs
moved in like vultures.
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‘Everything you need to know about life are in these pages by Bukowski.   He knew when it was all over.  He was used up; he had given all that he could, he had nothing more to say.  So he left……the screen door slapping softly shut behind him.’  ~~T.Sugarek
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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!      A NEW SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and will feature an interview once a month . I have invited such luminaries as: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal,  Mark Childress, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amber Winckler, Robert McCammon, Sue Grafton, 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!  Mark Childress is our April author.  Robert McCammon is scheduled for May. Caroline Leavitt is June‘s author.  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander. Slick mystery writer, Andrew Grant will join us this winter.
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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”. You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

Don’t miss the final segment with best selling author!

interviews, best selling authors, fiction, new fiction  This coming Tuesday will conclude our interview with Susan.  Her newest book, “His Majesty’s Hope” will be available for sale on May 21st.

This has been a fascinating and funny interview and I know you join me in wishing Susan great success with her new book.Susan_Elia_(c)_Lesley_Semmelhack

‘For fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Laurie R. King, and Anne Perry, whip-smart heroine Maggie Hope returns to embark on a clandestine mission behind enemy lines where no one can be trusted, and even the smallest indiscretion can be deadly.

World War II has finally come home to Britain, but it takes more than nightly air raids to rattle intrepid spy and expert code breaker Maggie Hope. After serving as a secret agent to protect Princess Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, Maggie is now an elite member of the Special Operations Executive—a black ops organization designed to aid the British effort abroad—and her first assignment sends her straight into Nazi-controlled Berlin, the very heart of the German war machine. Relying on her quick wit and keen instincts, Maggie infiltrates the highest level of Berlin society, gathering information to pass on to London headquarters. But the secrets she unveils will expose a darker, more dangerous side of the war—and of her own past.’

MacNeal’s publishers, Random House have asked me to review it so look for that in May.

Coming Soon! April 2nd will start off my interview with Mark Childress whose books were made into movies!
(Crazy in Alabama!)
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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. INTERVIEWS with other best-selling AUTHORS!      A NEW SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner”

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and plan on featuring an interview once a month . I have invited such luminaries as: Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Robert McCammon, Rhys Bowen, Mark Childress, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sue Grafton, 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!  Mark Childress is our April author.  Robert MacCammon is scheduled for May. Caroline Leavitt is June‘s author.  July features Rhys Bowen.  Sue Grafton is August’s author and September will feature Tasha Alexander.
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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction  Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”. You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ . Thanks!

Interview with Author, Susan Elia MacNeal

        interviews, author quotes   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 His_Majesty's[1]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!

Susan_Elia_(c)_Lesley_Semmelhack              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.

http://www.susaneliamacneal.com/

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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!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog”.  You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ .  Thanks!