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For the last few posts, we’ve been talking about endings. You can link to the blog for tips on ending a scene or chapter here: Five Tips for Ending Your Scene, and for thoughts on ending your book here: Writing the End. Today let’s talk about ending a series.
Notebooks Galore
Creativity hits me several times a day. I can see something while I’m out and about, overhear a conversation, or be involved in a conversation, hear a funny line & say “I’ma put that in my script.” I say that a lot.
When this happens and if I’m away from home, I write a note in my Memo app or in Evernote. If I am home, I decide if the “idea” already has its own notebook. If it does, I write it in there. If not, I break the idea down even more. If the idea needs its own notebook, I designate one.
I have notebooks for everythang. I have one that’s primarily for my brand. I have one where I outline blog posts, jot down ideas in a hurry; it’s a catch all book, and also the book I used to outline this post…
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Last week, we talked about ways to end a scene or chapter. You can have a look at that article here: Five Ways to End a Scene. Today, let’s focus on ending the book. What do we owe our readers after we’ve pulled them into our story and invested them in our characters? How can we end our novel with the same good writing craft that we’ve been striving for throughout?
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October 4-7, 2018
Springfed Arts and Inspiration Alcona are proud to announce the teacher lineup for the 2018 event, to be held Oct. 4-7 at Lost Lake Woods Club in northeast Michigan’s Alcona County. The location is a hotel overlooking a small lake on the edge of the forest.
Novelists Jacquelyn Mitchard and Michael Zadoorian will lead prose writers. Mitchard’s “The Deep End of the Ocean” was made into a movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer in 1999. In March, Zadoorian’s “The Leisure Seeker” debuted as a film starring Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland.
Poets Cecilia Woloch, Jack Ridl and Kathleen McGookey will lead poets, along with songwriter Emily Rose. Woloch’s “Tsigan: The Gypsy Poem” is a book-length work that has been developed into a stage performance. Ridl has a new book, “St. Peter and the Goldfinch,” coming in 2019. McGookey is a specialist in prose poetry with three books, two chapbooks and a translation of French poetry to her credit. Rose is a Detroit songwriter who has won Best Acoustic Songwriter at the Detroit Music Awards four times since 2009.
Information about the retreat is available at InspirationAlcona.org and Springfed.org.
The more people who know you, the more publishers will want to get acquainted. That’s an over-simplified explanation of a writer’s platform, but it’s functionally true. Although publishers will always care more about the quality of your fiction, having a platform definitely helps seal the deal. Both the publishing industry and your target audience have changed a lot in the past few decades, however, and platform-building has changed with them.
Many writers see building an author platform to promote our books as a chore at best, a major source of anxiety at worst. We tend to be an introverted bunch. We’d rather write in solitude than talk ourselves up on social media.
ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. – A new donation from Girls of the Crescent to the Rochester Hills Public Library added to the diversity of the books available.
“We’re the public’s library,” said Christine Lind Hage, the director of the library. “We have 100,000 people, so our collection serves all of them.”
The library now has new books aimed at teenagers and children highlighting Muslim women as the main characters.
“There’s more traditional stories like ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘Snow White,'” said Betsy Raczkowski, the manager of youth services at the library. “Every kid is going to recognize that and then there’s more cultural and religious books and then there’s also fun fiction.”
This month of August, Motown Writers Network features, T.J. London, author of The Tory Book #1 The Rebels and Redcoats Saga. Check out her great interview, get to know her and then support her by reading and reviewing her book and then sharing this interview with others.
Download the Excerpt | Buy Book | Author Website
Where are you from?I am from Northville, MI
When and why did you begin writing? I wrote my first book when I was 15, but I restarted writing recently as part of counceling, to help me cope with anxiety of loosing a job and a my father becoming ill all at the same time. I wrote The Tory as part of a therapy technigue instead of journaling. When I finished, my councelor read the book and loved it. So here I am, a published author.
When did you first consider yourself a writer? The day The Tory was released. LOL. I have a bit of an inferiority complex, because I know some AMAZING authors.
Book Cover Design
What inspired you to write your first book? I mentioned this above, but also, I love the American Revolution and I feel like it is under represented in fiction. So it was a combination of therapy and my love of the time period
Do you have a specific writing style? YEESSS!! Deep third person perspective. I love gritty, graphic, sexy, raw novels. Like a good cable mini-series. I want to bleed, cry, fall and love and get a little hot under the collar when I read.
How did you come up with the title? My story is about a British Spy undercover as a Tory profiteer, hence the name.
Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp? Yes, that there were good people on both sides of war. Any war! That the same values and truths we hold dear are universal to all people and time periods. And if we would look to the history, the true history, not the mocked up happy verison we want to see, all things can be explained. And love really does conqure all, if we open our heart to it.
How much of the book is realistic? All of it. I did my best to keep the history correct, as it is a Historical Fiction with romantic elements.
Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life? Yes, painfully so. This book was therapy, my personal story is buried within the fiction and history. While some of the events are dramatized and creations of my mind, some of it is very much part of me. I am very much both of my main characters, though one is a man. His personal struggles and emotional ones, while dramatized in some form are my own. That is all I will say, as an author, allow me a little fun and the ability to keep the mystery.
What books have most influenced your life most? North and South, and The Bastard by John Jakes. The Help. 1776. Wow, there are many, but they really influenced me as a writer, not so much my life.
If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor? If I could pick a mentor it would be Kerrigan Byre, I love her as a person (Ive met her once, but she’s lovely) and cuz her prose just makes me feel. She’s amazing. Also, Donna Thorland, I love her Revolutionary War fiction, its fab!
What book are you reading now? The Turning of Anne Merrick by Christina Blevins. Love me some Revolutionary War fiction
Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest? Yes, Layla Omorose, I know her from Romantic Times and I love her stuff.Jo Michaels, she’s my copy editor, but I’m just now getting into her writing
What are your current projects? Books #2 The Traitor and #3 The Turncoat of The Rebels and Redcoats Saga
Name one entity that you feel supported you outside of family members. My editor Kathe Robin, and the Romatic Time Community which is sadly no more.
Do you see writing as a career? It’s a side career for me, if I did it full time, I think I wouldnt love it as much. Art must be pure and come from inspiration, so I have to wait for it, not be forced into it.
If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book? Not a thing. The Tory and all its characters are very, very special to me. It was my solace when I could find none.
Do you recall how your interest in writing originated? When I was a little girl and I had lots of nightmares, my mother told me to re-create a move or a favorite book in my head and then create my own ending to it, the one I would like to see. That’s when I started really being creative. Hence I wrote like 5 version of Mary Poppins in my sleepless childhood nights. LOL. Still love P.L. Travers today.
Download the Excerpt | Buy Book | Author Website
Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Download the Excerpt | Buy Book | Author Website
His King or His Conscience…which will he chose?
It is the winter of 1776, and Captain John Carlisle, one of His Majesty’s not-so-finest, has gone back to the scene of the crime to right a wrong so dark it left a permanent stain on what was once an illustrious career and left a man broken, defeated, in search of justice…
In an effort to win back his commission, he must discover the true nature of the relationship between the Six Nations of the Iroquois and the Colonial Army. Undercover as a war profiteer, John travels to the treacherous Mohawk River Valley and infiltrates local society, making friends with those he’s come to betray.
But a chance meeting with a beautiful half Oneida innkeeper, whose tragic history is integrally linked to his own, will provide him with the intelligence he needs to complete his mission—and devastate her people.
Now, as the flames of war threaten to consume the Mohawk Valley, John has the chance to not only serve King and country, but to clear his name. When the truth he uncovers ties his own secrets to those in the highest positions of the British military and threatens the very life of the woman he’s come to love, he will be forced to make a choice…
Download the Excerpt | Buy Book | Author Website
Download the Excerpt | Buy Book | Author Website
Subscribe to The Motown Writers Network to get the second part of this wonderful interview with the awesome author. Please don’t forget to support her literary endeavors by purchasing her book, reviewing and sharing your review or this interview with other readers.
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