Who doesn’t like a rousing, shoot-em-up western? I haven’t read a good, (or for that matter any), western in several decades. I stumbled upon Larry Sweazy as I stalked Amazon, looking for unique writers to possibly read/review/interview. Larry has written a series around a Texas Ranger, Josiah Wolfe. And he lives up to the old classic western writers, Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, and Larry McMurtry.
I happen to choose The Cougar’s Prey which falls in the middle of the series. I am happy to report that it stands alone and nothing is missed. The author deftly brings the reader up to speed (on Josiah’s story) without belaboring his past.
Josiah Wolfe, an old Texas Ranger is sucked back into service and sent away. He is not a happy man. To be separated from his son in such perilous times. Corpus Christi, Texas is literally lawless and terrorized by Mexican bandits; the early days of Mexican cartels and Josiah is sent there on basically a suicide mission.
It was surreal, at times, riding (with Josiah) north, up the Gulf Coast from Corpus to Ingleside, Tx in 1874. I lived and worked there in the early 2000’s and my veterinary was in Ingleside. Funny. It is beautifully written and the reader cares about Josiah almost immediately. I highly recommend this book.
Looking forward to reviewing his upcoming mystery, See Also Proof: A Marjorie Trumaine Mystery, coming May 1st.
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: International adventurer, writer, Tal Gur. To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
6 out of 5 quills The White Rhino Hotel ~~ A Review
A sweeping epic reminiscent of Hemingway, Steinbeck and Kipling. But, none of these…a unique voice that will touch you deeply if Africa touches you.
The setup for the legion of characters and the landscape of Africa took about 100 pages. By then I was hooked by the richly developed people that fill Bull’s story. The writing is pure prose.
“Remember these stories, Tlaga. My people live inside them. When a tale is told, everyone who ever heard that story is alive again….”
“An alphabet makes the words that keep a people together….”
The story is dusty, hot, dangerous and violent. But so is Africa. Just when the new settlers think they’ve domesticated the continent, warrior ants, a herd of elephants and floods storm through. Bull’s characters populate Africa but never effect it, much less conquer it. Olivio, the grotesque dwarf. The reader can’t help themselves, they love and hate him at the same time. The star-crossed lovers, Anton and Gwenn. Hugo von Decken and his son, Ernst. German pioneers homesteading their piece of Africa. The list goes on and on.
The story begins in (literally) the last days of World War I as a German unit traverses the plains of Africa, toting along their prisoners of war, some severely wounded. I don’t write spoilers so that’s about all I will tell of the story. I adore fiction that teaches me history. I had no idea of a Soldiers Lottery for land in West Africa after the world war ended. Whereby soldiers who fought in Africa could enter a lottery and homestead land that belonged only to the African native.
This is their story. But it’s also Africa’s story; how it was fought over and then the land was passed out as booty after the war. Given away even though none of it belonged to any white man.
I highly recommend this book. Take your time, savor each word, taste the air of Africa. That’s what I did!
To Purchase
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes. To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks!
LS. As a kid I played with Hot Wheels cars like a lot of little boys. I liked making up stories about where the cars were going and why. It started there. On the floor as a six year old boy, under the feet of adults, listening to their stories, and to the voices in my head.
Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?
LS. Characters. Always.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?
LS. Yes. Those are the good days. When the world and time disappears. I hope the writing does the same thing for readers.
Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment?
LS. My muse has always been my desire to become a better writer.
Q. Tell us about writing westerns.
LS. I have always loved westerns. I grew in the 1960s and there were a lot westerns on television. Bonanza, The Wild, Wild West, The Rifleman,
cowboy larry 1968
etc. And we could only get three channels on our little black and white TV in small town in Indiana. Add in that I grew up in a house without a father, those cowboys became my heroes, the good guys who stood up to the bad guys, and showed me who the bad guys were. I needed that. I learned a lot from those westerns.
Time went by, and westerns kind of fell out of favor. Detective stories took over. I grew up and went about my life. After I started writing seriously, an editor asked me to write a mystery short story with a modern-day Texas Ranger as the main character. I’d published in the small press, and this was my first chance to publish professionally in an anthology, Texas Rangers, to be published by Berkley (Penguin Random House). The editor, the venerable Ed Gorman, liked the story, “The Promotion,” and bought it. What I didn’t know was that story was going to be published in a western anthology, not a mystery anthology. And then the magic happened. My first professionally published short story went on to win the WWA (Western Writers of America) Spur Award that year. I was floored. I went to the convention in Spokane, Washington and met a lot of great writers; Elmer Kelton, Don Coldsmith,
Larry is part of ‘and others’
Robert Conley, and Loren Estleman to name a few. Westerns felt like home. I knew the stories and the characters, so I started writing westerns in hopes of getting one published. Three years later, my agent, who I met at that first WWA convention, sold the first two books in the Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger series. I went on to write six books in that series, and I’m happy to say the series is still gaining readers today, almost ten years after the first book, The Rattlesnake Season, was published.
The demise of the western has long been forecast, but I don’t believe it. Westerns are mortality tales, crime stories, and the only all-American genre we have. Westerns are like jazz, an American contribution to world of literature. Hollywood still makes westerns and they seem surprised when one of them draws a big audience. But I’m not surprised. Western characters are our people. We know their struggles of their stories. All readers ask is that westerns are authentic and honest. And that’s the kind of novels, and stories in general, that I try to write.
The conclusion to this Interview with Larry will appear March 16th.
Did you miss Part 1? Click here
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory. March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes. To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks! To Purchase
About editing and proofing: I see a lot of self published books and sometimes the formatting is so bad I can hardly read the story. Don’t let this happen to your book. Proof the book, then proof it again, then proof it again, before you publish.
Format: you should give the reader’s eye somewhere to ‘rest’. This means you should have adequate ‘white paper’. If margins are not tight enough and too much text is on the page, it’s exhausting. When paragraphs are too long they also exhaust the reader.
Here is a link https://forums.createspace.com/en/community/docs/DOC-1482 and a format I use exclusively. Or you can just go to:
1] page layout in your doc
2] margins
3] custom margins and then put in the numbers.
4] Be certain your ‘gutter’ number is 7.0 minimum
My publishing platform offers templates for whatever book size I am going to use. So I download the template and begin writing, from the very beginning, using that. It saves so much time in formatting later. Or if you have been writing a story for awhile, you cut/paste the manuscript onto the template. But you must proof it and edit it. Each chapter should begin on an odd numbered page. On that page the heading should be consistent; that is, 6 or 7 or 10 spaces down, but consistent. The chapter title should be centered. Don’t be afraid of the even numbered page opposite the new chapter being blank. That’s what your reader expects to see.
The header should be consistent: even-numbered page should have the author’s name and the odd numbered page, the title of the book. The pages leading up to the first chapter should NOT have headers.
Justification: Your ‘alignment’ should be ‘justify’ rather than ‘left’. This gives your document clean crisp edges so it looks more polished. But I frequently find the program will default to ‘justified’ on a line of text that has only a few words and spreads them out inappropriately across the page. When this happens, highlight the text and choose ‘left’ alignment. That will clean it up. There should be NO spacing between paragraphs.
Your copyright ‘Notice’ page: (Always on an even numbered page.) should carry weight. Many amatures list only the year of copyright, Title, ISBN number. Your page should look like this:
Notice (centered)
Copyright (c) 2016 Trisha Sugarek. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written
permission of the Author. Printed in the United States of America. For information contact author at www.writeratplay.com.
The Library of Congress has catalogued the soft cover edition of this book as follows: Sugarek, Trisha, Song of the Yukon, Trisha Sugarek –
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and
any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales in entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1489558206
Cover Design by David White, Illustrator
Song, ‘Swiftly I Go’ by Gary Swindell, Composer
Additional lyrics and poetry by Trisha Sugarek (I believe you should give a credit line to each contributor on the “Notice” page.)
The author should always registering the book with the US Copyright Office $35. Protect yourself!
Questions: I welcome them. You can reach me: click here
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes. To receive my posts sign up for my On the home page, enter your email address. Thanks! To Purchase
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
LS. I have a dedicated office that I’ve worked in for the last seventeen years. It has a desk, books, and comfy places for my dogs (two Rhodesian ridgebacks) to hang out with me. For years, though, I had a little desk in the bedroom, and wrote wherever I could. I’m not sure a space creates any magic, but it can’t hurt to be surrounded by books and dogs…
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.)
LS. No, not really. I usually grab a cup of coffee, sit down, and start writing where I left off the day before. That’s boring, but it’s the truth.
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
LS. I’ve nearly died twice in my life…third time is a charm has me a little worried.
Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?
LS. I usually write in the morning, first thing. I try to stay as close to the dream state as I can. But when I’m really in a story, I’ll write whenever I get a chance.
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
Kassi and Sunny
LS. Just write the story. Don’t worry about agents, or publishing, or getting famous. Just write. You can’t edit a blank page. Quit coming up with excuses. If your dream is to be a writer, then sit down and write only the story that you can write. If what you write sucks, edit it, or delete it, then keep on writing. Writing is a craft. You have to be willing to put in the time into reading and writing over everything else.
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
LS. Characters are everything for me. I usually get a glimpse of them at the start of a story, and my curiosity drives me to find out more about them. Most of my characters are wounded in some way, looking for a way to prevail over their current circumstances. Marjorie Trumaine, the main character in my amateur sleuth mystery series, is a North Dakota farm wife with a quadriplegic husband. She’s trying her best not to lose the farm, and the local extension agent encourages her to take a correspondence course in back-of-the-book indexing to make extra money. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) used to offer courses like this to farmers to generate extra income. Anyway, Marjorie’s well read, so when a murder happens close by, the sheriff asks her for help. But she still has to figure out how to run the farm and take care of her husband. She has a lot of challenges to overcome. I also wrote a stand-alone a few years ago about an aging Texas Ranger who gets into a shoot-out with Bonnie and Clyde and loses his right arm. That novel, A Thousand Falling Crows, concerns the character’s fight to go on living regardless of the difficulty of his new circumstance. What a character goes through and how they come out of it shows who they are as far as I’m concerned. We all have our battles. Characters that have something to fight for are a big draw to me.
Don’t miss Part 2 of this fascinating Interview March 9th
Marjorie Trumaine’s latest mystery, SEE ALSO PROOF will be released May 1st.
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory March: Mystery (and Western) writer, Larry D. Sweazy. April: in60Learning ~ A unique, non-fiction mini-book read in 60 minutes. Check out more Motivational Moments…for Writers!
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5 out of 5 quills ~~ The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen
All writers have a voice. A flavor, a timbre. Some good, some not so good. Rhys Bowen has her own unique essence. Like fine wine her words flow across the page effortlessly. The tale of The Tuscan Child journeys between England and Italy. Within this author’s superb writing she captures the staid, stoic, ‘stiff upper lip’ of the English personality and the extravagant, dramatic over-the-top flamboyance of the Italians. It’s perfection.
We travel the countryside of Surrey, England which Bowen has brought to clear and gleaming life. The rolling hills, the hedgerow lanes, the tiny villages, the ancient, cold stone from which most of the great houses were built, centuries ago. In alternate chapters the author thrusts the reader into another fortress-like village, surrounded by olive trees under a hot Tuscany sun, full of the aromas of cooking. The absolute power of the church and the old, archaic Italian families dominates the population. Mixed in with life in the 70’s we travel back in time to the same village in occupied (by Germans) Italy in the 40’s. We hide out with a downed pilot behind enemy lines.
If you know me, as a reviewer, I don’t write spoilers. I don’t fill my review with a synopsis of the story. I prefer to tell you about the writing. It’s always about the
Rhys Bowen, Author
writing. But I will tell you this; Bowen has created two wonderful new protagonists: Sir Hugo Langley, bomber pilot in the RAF and his daughter, Joanna Langley. Their stories separate them by thirty years as the daughter tries to understand a time when the world was at war and her father was fighting for his life.
Released February 20th for sale. Rhys Bowen’s fans can look forward to an exceptional story and superb writing!!
Did you miss my Interview with Rhys? Click here
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MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? January: Sue Grafton ~ In Memory March: Larry D. Sweazy
JG. I suppose you can get lost to the extent that you forget what time it is and write for longer than planned. Sometimes you really get caught up in things and laugh at an idea you’ve had or get annoyed at a character for doing a certain thing and so yes, you do get lost in it if you’re properly invested in the book. This is all good I suppose, as you care about what you are coming up with.
Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment?
JG. I don’t really have a muse as such but I like lots of different writers like Bukowski, Hemingway, Salinger and Brautigan for instance and so they inspire me to try and improve all the time I suppose and keep at it!
Q. Do you have a new book coming out soon? If so tell us about it.
JG.I have a sequel to Jane of Manchester out now which is called Jane Once More and it furthers the adventures of Jane as well as developing her life and those of her friends as well and I’m also writing a fantasy type thing but that’s a long way off being finished!
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
JG. In my late twenties I think when I started to write poetry and entered a few competitions (I didn’t win any) That’s when it all got started as far as I can recall.
Q. How long after that were you published?
JG. I am self-published and that is only something I’ve done in recent years. I haven’t been picked up by the traditional publishers.
Q. What makes a writer great?
JG. The ability to have his/her own unique voice and to be able to effect a writer in a way that moves them in some way whether that be laughter or the shedding of a few tears or something else. As long as you can provoke something from people and hopefully tell a good tale along the way.
me and my Mum at Christmas
Q. and the all-important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like for you?
JG. It’s all just a matter of bashing away at the keyboard or typewriter until it’s all done and you are happy with the completed work. It creeps up on you and then one day…wow, I finished it!
Q. How has your life experiences influenced your writing?
JG. Living in Manchester gave me a feel for that particular city and so I could write about it confidently, knowing bars and restaurants etc. Reading helps you know how to write I think and just the process of getting older and learning from mistakes colours what you do quite significantly. All experience helps!
Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre`?
JG. I have done some science fiction and fantasy type stuff so I do write in a few different genres and I am enjoying writing in the chick-lit/humour genre as well.
at a friend’s home in Yorkshire
Q. Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
JG. I can juggle a bit but I don’t think it will serve me well anywhere down the line! I can’t think of anything else really so I suppose I’ll end there!
MY BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? October’s author was Donna Kauffman. November: Rita Avaud a Najm. December: English mystery writer, J.G. Dow.
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TS. Fairly recently I discovered Donna. I ordered one book (Blue Hollow Falls) and quickly ordered the rest of her books. That’s always a good sign from this Blogger! Beautifully crafted stories!
Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing? (please provide a photo/s of your shed, room, closet, barn….) Or tell us about your ‘dream’ work space.
DK. I work any and everywhere. Have laptop, will travel! And I often do. I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains in southern Virginia, and though I do have dedicated office space in my house, I don’t think I’ve ever actually gone in there to write. Working where you live can, at times, provide a wealth of distractions to help procrastinate getting any writing done. At least a few times a week, I hop in my car and head up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is minutes from where I live, and find a quiet overlook, trail, picnic area, and work there. It’s inspiring and has the added benefit of no internet/cell/email/other distractions. I’ve written large portions of many books up there.
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.)
DK. No rituals for me. I prefer it quiet (no tv, music, chatter) but I’ve written sitting in busy airport terminals and during my kids sports practices. I think sometimes you can get bogged down by placing too many “I have to have this in order to write” requirements. I’ve always been a “plant your backside somewhere and fall into the story already” type, mostly because I know if I started down the “I must have” path, I’d never get another book written.
Fox kits at Rescue Center
Q. Could you tell us something about yourself that we might not already know?
DK. I volunteer for a local wildlife center and a local wildlife sanctuary. I’m a dedicated hiker/outdoors person and photographer who loves animals, so it’s been a fascinating adjunct to that and I’ve learned so much about all the critters I’ve lived amongst for years. If I had the time, I’d love to get my wildlife rehabilitators’ license. Someday!
Q. Do you have a set time each day (or night) to write?
DK. No set time. My schedule and other obligations often create the blocks of time I write. Given a whole day with nothing else on the docket, I tend to get up and dive in before the world wakes up and gets in the way, and often times write all day until dinner. Then I’d likely sink back in again after the world goes to sleep. I’m both morning person and night owl, so that comes in handy!
Q. What’s your best advice to other writers for overcoming procrastination?
DK. That’s the single biggest obstacle to all writers. I think I can safely say we all do it. (And if you don’t, please share your trick with me!) I guess I’ve learned how to remove temptation from my immediate surroundings (hence the my mobile office pod, as I call it, aka my car.) If I can’t stop myself from getting up and doing laundry instead of tackling the next scene, or from scrolling through social media, then I take myself off somewhere where I can’t do either of those things. It’s an ongoing battle. Deadlines and knowing you’ve got bills to pay also help immensely.
Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters?
DK. I don’t know if I can pinpoint that. Story evolution is such an ephemeral thing for me. It comes at me from all sides, in all manners of unfolding. Some characters are part of the initial, ooh, this is a story I want to tell! And some come along as the story develops.
Q. What first inspired you to write your stories?
DK. Wanting there to be more books in the world that I wanted to read. I have broad interests in fiction and I’m very picky all at the same time. I like what I like. I have my favorite authors and am always on the prowl for new ones. (The library is a wonderful treasure trove for finding new authors. No investment risk other than a little time to see if they can pull you into their worlds…) I was having a hard time finding more of what I loved and kept imagining what story I would want to read, and one thing led to another, and I started putting thoughts to paper. I’d always been a writer of some kind or other, so it was a natural combination of putting my thoughts down in writing, then steering those thoughts into the fictional realm. When I got serious about it, I joined a local writer’s organization and immersed myself in learning more about the craft of writing as well as the business of writing. I knew immediately I’d found my people. (Fictional and non.)
Q. What comes first to you? The Characters or the Situation?
DK. Could be either one. It really depends on the story. The trigger could be location, occupation, setting, conflict, or any combination of those. I’ve been writing small town fiction for a while now and so location is often the first thing that intrigues me. I want to set my fictional world in this place or that, and then occupations, conflicts, plot ideas start to percolate, and along with them the perfect people to tell that story, both main characters and secondary. Research begins, story begins, and folks just up and introduce themselves in the process.
Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing?
Join us for Part II, October 27th of this fascinating Interview
To purchase Donna Kauffman’s books ~ Click here
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MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? September: Dylan Callens. October’s author is Donna Kauffman. In November we say hello to Rita Avaud a Najm.
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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
Part II of my Interview with Sheryl Steines, Sci-Fi writer
Q. Who or what is your “Muse” at the moment?
SS. It’s weird but I think right now, time is my muse. The older I get, the farther away I feel from accomplishing my goals, I feel as though I’m fighting with time. And knowing that time moves so quickly, it inspires me to keep writing and creating and working.
Q. Do you have a new book coming out soon? If so tell us about it.
SS. Black Market. It’s the second book in the Wizard Hall Series. Annie Pearce, is a wizard guard, a magical police officer. She is called by her contact at the FBI who warns her of a John Doe in the forest. He’s dressed oddly for a hike in the forest and Annie, learning of his location is worried because the body was discovered just outside the portal to the black market, the magical shopping area selling illegal objects, potions and animals.
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
SS. At my 20th class reunion, I caught up with a former classmate who I discovered was a published author. I was so jealous because it had been my life’s dream to be an author. That emotional awakening, forced me to face the reality that I hadn’t even tried to accomplish my goal. It took two years before I finally was able to write the book, but since then, I haven’t looked back.
Q. How long after that were you published?
SS. I self-published the book in 2010, two years after I started writing.
Q. What makes a writer great?
SS. A great writer is someone who watches, listens, understands people and the world around them. They’re intuitive, empathic and when they write, the story and the characters come off the page.
Q. and the all-important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like for you?
SS. I start with an object, an idea for a murder, a location or a snippet of a scene; one thing that starts the story. I can come from watching television or reading a book on mythology or folk tales. When something sparks, I do more in depth research learning about the history of the object, person, story until the idea grows. I’m a pantser, I write by the seat of my pants. I let the story unfold for me once I get the basic idea drawn out. My first draft is usually short and incomplete. After finishing the draft, I wait about four weeks before I touch the story again. The next several drafts add color. I change or adjust the story lines, I add characters, or make tweaks to existing characters. Sometimes this could take up to 10 drafts or more until the story unfolds in a fabulous way. My second book took 10 drafts before it was ready to go to an editor. When I originally wrote the story, the middle and the end were completely different than how the final draft came out because I saw things differently in the later drafts; I rewrote the ending, I changed the bad guys, I changed the murderer, I gave different magical skills to the creatures until the story felt complete and whole.
Q. How has your life experiences influenced your writing?
SS. I write about death because of the death of my daughter. It helps me understand the grief and in the stories, my main character Annie Pearce also tries to figure out how her father’s death affects how she lives her life.
Q. Have you or do you want to write in another genre`?
SS. Every once and a while I see something or read something that I think would make a great book idea, something that’s not part of the Fantasy Genre. I just wish I had the time to write it.
Q. Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
SS. I’m a mom of two. I love being creative and enjoy interior design. I’m an avid reader, love driving my ’66 Mustang convertible, I’ve been a Cubs fan since I was born and love to travel and immerse myself into my location.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MY BLOGS feature INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! Did you miss the past few months? December: Reed Farrel Coleman, contributing writer for Robert B. Parker series. January was Dinah Jefferies and February’s author is Sheryl Steines.
Johan Thompson (South African author) will join us in March.
It is beautifully written and the reader cares about Josiah almost immediately. I highly recommend this book.
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close by, the sheriff asks her for help. But she still has to figure out how to run the farm and take care of her husband. She has a lot of challenges to overcome. I also wrote a stand-alone a few years ago about an aging Texas Ranger who gets into a shoot-out with Bonnie and Clyde and loses his right arm. That novel, A Thousand Falling Crows, concerns the character’s fight to go on living regardless of the difficulty of his new circumstance. What a character goes through and how they come out of it shows who they are as far as I’m concerned. We all have our battles. Characters that have something to fight for are a big draw to me.
