writing | Bertram's Blog

The Most Unexpected Truth About Writing

May 26, 2009 — Pat Bertram

My guest today is Lazarus Barnhill, author of the wonderful and profound Lacey Took a Holiday and The Medicine People, available from Second Wind Publishing. Laz talks about destiny, which is a perfect topic for his guest appearance here on my blog. We met in November 2007 during an online writing contest (TruTV Search For the Next Great Crime Writer Contest on Gather.com) where we finished consecutively — 10th and 11th — out of over three hundred entries. Now we are colleagues again — this time at Second Wind Publishing. Lazarus says:

“We are not accustomed to thinking that God’s will for us and our own inner dreams can coincide.” –Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

It was Monday, August, 20, 2007, and I was driving home from down east North Carolina in a driving rainstorm. After I dropped off my daughter at her home, I turned on the local NPR station. As it happened, I tuned in precisely in the middle of an interview. It became clear within a few seconds that I was listening to an author who had just had his first book published. Because I was trying to catch up on the information in the report, I paid especially close attention and was able to piece together that there had been an online contest, the winner of which received a contract to have his book published by a major house. As an aside, the interviewer concluded the report by saying that the same literary website was about to host a second contest. This second one was for romance novels.

At that particular moment, I was sitting at a stoplight. I remembered how, a few months before, I had finished a novel that-if you closed one eye and squinted just right-could be considered a romance: Lacey Took a Holiday. The light was still red, so I took out my extra fine point felt tip pen and scribbled the site on the back of my hand: “Gather”.

This commenced a twenty-month string of the most unlikely events: the following day was the last day to enter the romance contest and I made it in just under the wire; in the process of reading the romance chapters of almost 300 other authors, I became well acquainted with a number of them and for the first time recognized a “great miscarriage of publishing justice” (there were far, far more worthy romance novels than there were agents and publishers to snatch them up); many of the quality writers began to coalesce into writing groups and I was actually invited to join in with them; a third Gather contest — crime/mystery novels — commenced soon after the conclusion of the romance competition and I had, only days before, finished a crime novel (The Medicine People); once again I encountered and befriended a number of outstanding writers and experienced the reality that only one of them was going to receive a book contract; at the end of that contest, a blended group of romance and crime authors decided to take matter into their hands and start up a publishing company; that company (Second Wind Publishing), ten months after its inception, has twenty books available for purchase in multiple venues with another twenty waiting in queue.

The other day I was marveling at the uncanny string of events that brought me so many wonderful new friends (by the way — thanks, Pat, for the invitation to be here!), saw the publication of my first two novels and empowered me to express my artistic vision in ways that I never imagined. Ironically, as I participated in the Gather contests, I had assumed I would be one of those writers who might pen a worthy story, but never get picked up by an agent or contracted by a major publishing house. In retrospect, I’ve gotten to the point where I feel pretty lucky that I didn’t. In fact, as I read Julia Cameron’s remarks in her wonderful book, The Artist’s Way, I began to wonder if in fact what I saw as a lucky string of chance events was really a matter of listening to a still, small voice that has always intended better for me than I could have imagined for myself. If Julia Cameron is right, that same little voice has something to say to all of us.

My premise is this: whatever force there is out there in creation (call it God, destiny, a Higher Power or whatever you want) actually wants you to write. When you write, you are fulfilling an essential aspect of your truest purpose for existing. What do you think?

Here is another far out, mystical question: for the sake of argument, let’s say the universe wants you (in fact the whole perverse group of us literary creative people) to write. Is there such a thing as praying for help with your writing? What would you pray? “Get me unstuck, O literary angel”? What about this, “Let my writing muse guide me to express my truest self as a writer, and trust the outcome to be in greater hands than mine”?

What if your literary angel has a purpose and story in mind for your writing that is greater than anything you can currently imagine? Of course that implies that being on the NY Times bestseller list may not be the greatest destiny.

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Posted in books, culture, life, writing. Tags: destiny, Higher Power, Julia Cameron, Lacey Took a Holiday, Lazarus Barnhill, literary angel, Second Wind Publishing, The Artists Way, the Medicine People. 12 Comments »

Unreal Characters From Real Life

May 24, 2009 — Pat Bertram

In a couple of previous bloggeries, I spoke of finding ideas, and how many thousands of ideas need to be accumulated to create a story. Ideas for characters — both believable and unbelievable — can come from real life. And not necessarily your own life.

In the 1973 book Cecil B. DeMille by Charles Higham, Higham talks about DeMille’s problems with Victor Mature while filming Samson and Delilah. DeMille, who chose Victor Mature to be Samson because of his role in Kiss of Death, was horrified when he first saw Mature at a costume test. He was badly out of condition, with fatty, flabby muscles. DeMille sent him to a gym for weeks of severe training until he lost thirty pounds. But that’s not the interesting bit.

Once shooting began that fall, Mature turned out to be even more problematica. He was a victim of numerous phobias: fear of water, fear of lions, fear of swords, and practically everything else as well. His genial, charming personality was far too weak for DeMille’s severe and stoical taste. When Mature appeared in the battle of the jawbone in which a great wind swept through the studio, he took fright at a particularly violent, machine-made gust, and fled, hiding in terror in his dressing room. DeMille had him brought back like a naughty boy who had run away from school. He picked up his megaphone, and in a voice icy with disgust, shouted in full hearing of the immense cast and crew: “I have met a few men in my time. Soem have been afraid of heights, some have been afraid of water, some have been afraid of fire, some have been afraid of closed spaces. Some have even been afraid of open spaces — or themselves. But in all my thirty-five years of picture-making experience, Mr. Mature, I have not until now met a man who was 100 percent yellow.”

A few notes about John Wayne from the same book: John Wayne hated horses. He was a good chess player. He got straight “A”s toward the end of high school. The sand in the batch of cement outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater where John Wayne put his prints came from Iwo Jima. Also, John Wayne only had to read his lines one to memorize them. He was a voracious reader.

These are the kind of ideas I like, the ones that make us think of characters in a different light: the hero who is afraid of everything; the big, physical man who is a great reader.

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Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: Cecil B. DeMille, Charles Higham, fear, Grauman's Chinese Theater, John Wayne, Kiss of Death, phobias, Samson and Delilah, Victor Mature. 6 Comments »

The Living Language of Dying

May 22, 2009 — Pat Bertram

The language of death and dying is a fluid, living language because people are forever trying to blunt the cutting edge of grief by using new words. Here are the living origins of a few words about death.

Coffin comes from a Greek word meaning basket, which is a euphemism for casket.

Crypt means concealed.

Pyre means hearth or fireplace.

Dirge came from the “Office for the Dead” which included an antiphon that began, “Dirge, Domine, Deus meus,” meaning “Guide, O Lord, my God.”

Embalm means to anoint the body with sweet spices.

Eulogy means blessing.

Grave means to dig.

Hearse is a large rake. Turned upside down, it looked like a candelabrum, so the candle holder became known as a hearse. These elaborate candle holders became associated with the vehicle used to transport it and the corpse to the cemetery.

Morgue is French for “haughty superiority,” and was the place where new prisoners were grilled. This room was also used to dispay and examine bodies of persons who had kied under questionable circumstances.

Pallbearer comes from pall meaning a coronation robe. Because it covered the whole body, its name became used to designate anything that covered or concealed. For centuries, a pall was laid over a casket being transported to a cemetery. Four men walked in procession, each holding a corner of the pall.

Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: coffin, crypt, dirge, embalm, eulogy, hearse, morgue, pall, pallbearer, pyre. 4 Comments »

“Where Do You Get Your Ideas?” Silly Question, or Not — continued

May 20, 2009 — Pat Bertram

A couple of days ago, I posted a bloggery about the question that so many writers hate to be asked: where do you get your ideas? I always thought it was a perfectly sensible question, and now that I am a writer, I know that it’s a perfectly sensible question. Sure, ideas come from our heads, but how? And why does one particular idea take hold when others don’t?

For me, a story usually begins with a series of ideas or a combination of events, but that initial idea is only the first of many. A novel is composed of thousands of different ideas — each scene, each description, each sentence is an idea separate from the original.

For example, There is a scene in my WIP where the hero kicks over a rock and a volcano is born. I’d like to take credit for being so imaginative, but it really happened. In 1943, in Michoacan State, Mexico, a farmer hit a stone with his plow and uncovered a small hole. Steam came out of the hole, the earth shook, and Parangaricutiro Volcano was born. In two weeks, it grew to two hundred feet high, and flames, rocks, and lava were erupting from it. In my story, it takes only minutes for the volcano to grow, and a day for it to grow to two hundred feet, but is that hardly more fantastic than the truth.

Another example: we have a lot of native roses around here, a flat yellow, or red, or red and yellow rose that smells like oranges. In one scene of my WIP, the hero is so dehydrated that when he smells the orange and goes in search of what he thinks is an orange tree, he is devastated to discover rose bushes.

Where do you find all the ideas that you need to complete your book? Do they all come from your head or do you buy them on Ebay (a joke, and one that I borrowed from someone else.). Do you integrate your real life experiences? Do you go searching for ideas, or do they come searching for you?

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Posted in life, writing. Tags: birth of a volcano, finding ideas, volcano, where do ideas come from. 9 Comments »

Pat Bertram Is Two Years Old Today!

May 16, 2009 — Pat Bertram

On May 17, 2007, I — or rather, Pat Bertram — signed up for the Internet, and it was love at first byte. The entire world opened up to me, and I was reborn. I’d already written four books, but until I went online, I hadn’t started creating the author of those books. Who should I be? What name should I use? I considered using a male pseudonym, Cole Black, perhaps, since men with hard C’s and K’s do well in the public arena. Anyone heard of Steven King? Dean Koontz? Tom Clancy? Kevin Costner? Clint Eastwood?

In the end I decided to stick with a version of my own name, one that I didn’t use in my offline life. It’s a good name for an author with enough hard consonants to sound authoritative. And it has the whole androgynous “It’s Pat” thing going for it; I can be whoever I want. Besides, p’s and b’s and t’s and r’s didn’t hurt Brad Pitt any.

I signed up for my domain, set up a website at patbertram.com, then fished around for another way to create myself, and discovered blogging. I didn’t even know what a blog was, didn’t think it was something I would ever be able to do (my diaries as a kid never lasted more than a day or two), but I’d discovered that an author needed a blog. Since I was intent on creating myself as an author, I signed up for WordPress, and oh! What a joy! I could write whatever I wanted, say what I wanted, be what I wanted, and people would read what I wrote. Okay, only a couple of people read Bertram’s Blog at the beginning, but I am still friends with one of them. How cool is that? I’m too embarrassed to admit how many blogs I now have — some of which I keep up with on a regular basis, so balloons1 me I don’t — but blogging remains one of my favorite online activities.

From blogging, I went to Gather.com to enter a crime writing contest, and through a series of incredibly serendipitous encounters, I found a publisher. And more friends. After that, of course, I had to start promoting, so I started social networking. I’d heard from so many authors how much they hated promoting, but me? I think it’s great fun. It’s all about making friends, and what’s more fun than that?

So, friends, please join me in celebrating this very special birthday. You don’t even have to bring me a present. I have presents for you! Click on either package to open. I hope you have fun.

I know I will.

Posted in blogging, internet, life, writing. Tags: birthday party, happy birthday, internet, online persona, Pat Bertram. 46 Comments »

“Where Do You Get Your Ideas?” Silly Question, or Not?

May 15, 2009 — Pat Bertram

“Where do your stories come from?” A couple of people had a problem with this question in a discussion on Facebook today. One woman thought it was the worst discussion question ever. She said that our ideas come from our heads, and that it was the kind of question asked by an interviewer who hasn’t read the book. Another person agreed, saying that he expected the question from someone who knew nothing about fiction; that it had no single answer.

Whenever a guest on this blog talks about how he or she got his ideas, I get a huge response from readers, so I know it is a good topic — and one I never get tired of discussing — so I was surprised by the responses on the Facebook forum. I truly never understood why writers hate to be asked where they get their ideas, where their stories came from, or how their stories got started. I always thought it was a perfectly sensible question, and now that I am a writer (and published) I know that it’s a perfectly sensible question. Sure, ideas come from our heads, but how? And why does one particular idea take hold when others don’t?

Of course there is no one answer to the question — that’s the beauty of it. Your answer tells who you are as a writer. If you can’t answer it, there is a chance you are one of those writers who can sit down and write without thinking — just let the story flow. If you can answer it, you are probably a writer who needs to know the story before you can write. Either way, it does not negate the validity of the question.

For me, a story usually begins with a series of ideas or a combination of events. For example, after reading Albert Zuckerman’s book about how to create the blockbusting novel, I decided I wanted to write such a book. But stories of major ideas and ideals, personal upheavals and changes generally take place during times of great strife, and so I needed an extraordinary setting for my story of women with “a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up, and beams and blares in the dark hour of adversity.” Not wanting to write a war story, I searched about in my mind and finally settled upon an epidemic so severe that the entire state of Colorado had to be quarantined.

There is no way anyone can have learned that simply by reading my novel A Spark of Heavenly Fire. The evolution of a story is completely separate from the story itself, and the evolution begins with an idea. And where did my idea come from? I created it from the wild stretches of my imagination, reasearch, and lots of hard work.

So, where do your stories come from?

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Posted in blogging, writing. Tags: A Spark of Heavenly Fire, developing ideas for a novel, Facebook, ideas, where do ideas come from, writer. 6 Comments »

The Transformation of the Hero

May 14, 2009 — Pat Bertram

One of the best books about writing I ever read was David Gerrold’s Worlds of Wonder. It’s a how-to for writing science fiction and fantasy, but it’s applicable to all writers since, in the end, we are all creating worlds of wonder.

The aspect of the book I would like to discuss is the transformation of the hero. In the beginning, the situation is introduced and the hero discovers she has a problem. She attempts action and, though she gives it all she has, she is beaten by the problem. She gains a deeper understanding of the problem, then tries again, exhausting all possibilities she knows. All that is left is what she doesn’t know. Finally, because some event occurs or some person says something that triggers the hero’s realization of what she has to do, the hero goes through a shift in being, a reinvention of herself, and confronts the problem directly.

This transformation of the character is the reason you’re telling the story. A story is an account of how a particular person who started out like that ended up like this.

Most problems are about not handling the problem. By choosing to make the situation the problem, the hero creates herself as the source of the problem. Until she recognizes her own authorship of the dilemma, she cannot create herself as the source of the resolution. She has to give up whatever investment she has in not solving the problem. The hero has to be awakened to the possibility that there is another way to think about this. Another way to be.

So transformation is not only the re-creation of the hero as the owner of the situation, it is self-empowerment as well.

In science fiction and fantasy, this transformation is not metaphysical but real. In the process of transformation, not only is the hero changed, but the world in which he exists is also transformed.

In all other fictions, this transformation is more internal, but still real.

I have been thinking about transformation lately as pertaining to my real life. In order to become one of those rare writers who can support herself with sales of her books, I need to transform myself into an “Author,” to recreate myself as if I were a character in one of my books. Don’t know how to do it, and the only reason I’m mentioning it is to show the validity of the hero’s transformation.

So, what problems confront your heroes? How do they attempt to solve them? How are they thwarted? And finally, how do they recreate themselves to solve the problems?

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Posted in books, writing. Tags: David Gerrold, fantasy, hero, science fiction, self-empowerment, story, transformation of the hero, Worlds of Wonder. 3 Comments »

DeForest Kelley: A Harvest of Memories, My Life and Times with a Remarkable Gentleman Actor

May 11, 2009 — Pat Bertram

My remarkable guest today is Kristine M. Smith, author of The Enduring Legacy of DeForest Kelley: Actor, Healer, Friend, and DeForest Kelley: A Harvest of Memories, My Life and Times with a Remarkable Gentleman Actor. And she writes a blog with a perfect name: Almost Famous by De’s Fault. How cool is that? Kristine talks about writing a personal memoir:

It’s funny. No one showed me how to write a personal memoir before I sat down to write one. I hadn’t studied the genre, and although I had read numerous memoirs over the years, that hardly qualified (or qualifies) me as an expert in the field. So please accept everything I say with a grain of salt. What success I’ve had with my memoir may have had as much to do with “luck” (a sad, secular substitution for what is actually “unrecognized divine intervention”!) as it did with anything else.

The memoir I wrote had a built-in niche audience: STAR TREK.

The STAR TREK aspect of my story began in earnest on May 4, 1968 the day I met actor DeForest Kelley, who portrayed Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy on the original series. I was so impressed with his graciousness and appreciation for his fans that I went home and wrote an article about meeting him for my creative writing class. My teacher thought it was so good that he insisted I should send it to Mr. Kelley for him to read and enjoy. Oh, boy, that was nerve-wracking! I wasn’t in the habit of writing to TV stars.

When De and his wife Carolyn read it, they, too, thought it was exceptional and forwarded it to a New York publisher with a suggestion that it might make a good piece for their magazine, TV STAR PARADE. When the publisher agreed, De wrote me a letter letting me know I was about to become a published author.

My parents had to peel me off the ceiling for a week.

Over the course of the next thirty years, the Kelleys and I established an on-again, off-again correspondence, and I continued to flail away at my typewriter, since the Kelleys and the publisher had convinced me that I did, indeed, know how to string words together to good effect.

I kept notebook journals, of course. (Doesn’t every writer? If you don’t, start now. The reason will become clear momentarily.) As I accrued experiences with the Kelleys, every detail of our interactions went into scores of notebooks. Over time, I segued from a giddy fan to a point where the Kelleys began to encourage me to move to Hollywood and find a place in the entertainment industry where I might be able to utilize my writing skills in a major (lucrative) way.

They helped me get my foot in the door in the entertainment industry, helped me find a landlord who would allow me to keep my hand-raised serval “son” (a knee-high African wildcat) in the backyard of the house I rented, and continued to encourage me in every way, all without any thought of paybacks or rewards. (It took me a while to realize that they truly were as benevolent as they seemed. I don’t trust very easily, especially when it comes to denizens of Hollywood!)

Toward the end of De’s life, I became his personal assistant and caregiver. He was already hospitalized and would never again leave the hospital except for brief forays to visit his bank, doctors and home. Mrs. Kelley, his usual helpmate, was already hospitalized with a broken leg.

All of this, too, went into my journals, sometimes only in “talking points” because I was so exhausted (after fourteen and sixteen hour days near the end) from the stress and busy-ness of being their almost-constant companion, helper and confidant. My hours were my choice, not a demand of theirs. It was my way of paying them back in some small way for the thirty-plus years of devotion and encouragement they had extended to me.

A few weeks before De passed away, he gave me permission to write his biography, or a memoir, or anything else I wanted to do with the story of our association. I handed off the biography to Terry Lee Rioux, a tried-and-true historian (now a history professor at Lamar University) whom I had met at a STAR TREK convention several years earlier, because I’m an anecdotal writer, not a researcher or interviewer.

After De passed away, I served Carolyn for another eight months. I pondered writing a book, but figured I probably didn’t have much of significance to say except for how wonderful they were and how much I loved them. End of story. (?)

Then Terry Rioux came to Hollywood to do research at various regional motion picture libraries in preparation for writing De’s biography and to interview De’s co-stars, producers, writers, friends – and me. At one point she asked me, “How did you go from being a fan on the outermost regions of fandom to being at his bedside when he died?”

I was speechless. I had no answer.

I finally responded, “That’s something De would have to answer. I have no idea how that happened.” Terry insisted, carefully and pointedly, “You know the answer. Just connect the dots. I need to know the answer – and so do you.”

Wow. What an assignment!

Then she said, “I think you somehow became the daughter they never had.”

I started bawling, right there in the restaurant. “Oh, no! Don’t say that! If that’s true, I didn’t do enough for them.

Terry said, “You did everything you could, everything they would allow you to do for them.”

That was true . . .

Then I remembered the journals – six large plastic bins, sitting out in the garage, crammed with my journals, with the entire adventure, from beginning to end!!!

I dug them all out, laid them out in order, and began the journey anew, connecting the dots, following the crumbs. There were hundreds of small details I had completely forgotten about. It was like discovering a gold mine!

I watched as a cordial first meeting morphed into an association, then built to become a familiar, comfortable relationship. Then I watched as the relationship swelled into agape love, trust, and mutual support.

That’s when I knew I had to write the memoir, and that’s when I knew I could write it, that I had enough material for it.

Had Terry not asked me the one question about the Kelleys that I could not answer without researching and writing a book, I never would have written it – would never have remembered all those journals tucked away in the garage!

So I became my own historian. I became a memoir writer. It took three solid months of 12-14 hour days, six days a week. It took lots of guts to go over the last months again and put them down in a way that would inform without half killing the reader.

But it resurrected the man, and – in conjunction with Terry’s bio – it has extended his legacy far beyond what fans would otherwise be able to learn about him.

So, to me, writing a memoir is all about diving into journals we’ve written and culling from them the nuggets that resurrect a place, a time, and the crucial people who helped mold us into what we have become, whether for good or for ill.

If you do the task well, the person or people you resurrect don’t have to be TV stars and the times you depict don’t have to be historical in nature. All that needs to happen is that the reader connects, lives with you in your past for a time, and comes out changed in many of the same ways that your history has changed you. The reader “gets” you, your times and your loved ones (and others) in ways they never did before. That’s the essence of a good memoir.

Kristine has agreed to answer questions and respond to comments, so feel free to leave a comment for Kristine. And don’t forget to check back later for her responses.

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Posted in books, culture, writing. Tags: "Bones", Carolyn Kelley, DeForest Kelley, DeForest Kelley: A Harvest of Memories, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Dr. Leonard McCoy, Kristine M. Smith, memoir, Star Trek, Terry Lee Rioux, The Enduring Legacy of DeForest Kelley. 47 Comments »

Puzzling Out Promotion

May 10, 2009 — Pat Bertram

Writing means many things to many people. It is like a mythic journey into self, other lands, other minds. It is like archeology, like exorcising demons, like channeling, like performance, like a faucet. It is like having an adventure. It is uniquely human, and it brings out the divine in us. It is breathing, a compulsion, a necessity, a reason for living, an obsession, a fun pastime. It is exhilarating and frustrating. It is liberating. And it is like comfort food, chocolate, and cherries. It is like magic.

Because of this mystic connection to their words, other writers don’t seem to understand why I can stop writing to promote my newly published books. For me, writing is like the world’s longest crossword puzzle, one that takes a year to complete. I like playing with words, finding their rhythm, and getting them to behave the way I want. I like being able to take those words and create ideas, characters, and emotions. Amazing when you think about it, how we can juggle twenty-six symbols in different ways to create words, sentences, paragraphs, worlds. And what one person writes, another can read. (more . . . )

(This article was originally published and is published in full on Vince Gotera’s blog, The Man With the Blue Guitar.)

Posted in blogging, books, internet, life, writing. Tags: book marketing, promotion, writing is like. 1 Comment »

On Writing: Perseverance

May 7, 2009 — Pat Bertram

My guest today, Steven Clark Bradley, has been to or lived in 34 countries, including Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey. He has a master’s degree in liberal studies from Indiana University. He speaks French and Turkish. He has been an assistant to a prosecutor, a university instructor and a freelance journalist. Bradley is the author of four novels, including Patriot Acts. Bradley says:

I have always been a storyteller. It seems to have been something I was born with. It was actually my son who challenged to stop writing as a hobby and to start publishing my several manuscripts I had written. As a child, I started writing dreams and ideas and it was all part of the process of learning how to paint a tableau with words. Probably the hardest thing was learning to get over what I call ‘the middle of the book’ syndrome. Perseverance is one word that best describes the main character trait that all dedicated writers possess. I can attest to that as I developed the characters, setting, atmosphere and all the million things that go into holding a story together.

Winston Churchill said, “The Pessimist sees problems in every opportunity, but the Optimist sees opportunities in every problem” Once we get into the middle of a novel, we need to get over the hump of taking the story to the next level by pouring ourselves into it. Sometimes, when we find ourselves wanting to quit something, we feel pulled in two directions. Have you ever heard these voices in your head? “There’s no use in continuing!” or perhaps “I have failed and I give up!” These feelings are almost always untrue and are usually caused by depression, fatigue or loneliness. There are so many other personal things in our lives that cause such feelings of hopelessness. We are also drawn by voices in our heads that tell us not to give up. “Think of all the time you’ve invested!” or “Think how hard you have worked!” It’s that second voice that helps you continue on and is what I call “Wise Perseverance.”

To wisely persevere, you need to see the costs or difficulties and benefits or positives of what you are doing. An honest and good decision requires honest and good information. The more you understand yourself, the more certain you will be about your decisions and the more likely you will find the strength to persevere until the story starts to write itself. Some call that this “Literary Critical Mass” when the story becomes a living thing and logic flows and literary inertia seem to take over. Actually, this drive makes all of the characters come alive so that eventual readers will become one with the story until you accomplish your task! All of this serves to develop your own writing style and makes you unique and singular in your message. You’ll probably find that you’re having more fun than you actually thought you would!

I can say that each novel feels like another one of my literary children was born. All the hard work, all the revisions, the TLC that goes into making it powerful and readable and clear, expressive and addictive to the reader comes together when it sits in my hand. The greatest thing is to finally read it in book form and I forget that I am the writer and loving it. It is one of the greatest feelings I have ever had. My novel, Nimrod Rising represented more than 12 years of hard work. There is no feeling like that.