Tag: #MFRWSauthor

September 9, 2019
What are the best two or three books you’ve read this year?

This should have been an easy post to write. I can’t even remember how many books I’ve read so far this year. But the truth is, this has been a really bad writing year for some of my favorite authors. Either that, or I’m getting pickier.

But I won’t call out the ones that have disappointed me and I will concentrate on the ones that kept me enthralled.

First, kudos to J,D. Robb. I admit I’m not a big Nora Roberts fan, but someone suggested I try her sci-fi series. So, I asked for the first book in the series as a Christmas present—and I’m glad I did. (Naked in Death) I sunk into the story easily, and, while I didn’t read the book in one sitting, I devoured it rapidly. I’m not always satisfied in Nora’s endings, but this one it all the right points for me. I enjoyed it enough that I asked for the second book, Glory in Death, for another gift-giving event and I enjoyed that one, too.

Moving on…last fall I had the opportunity to meet Melissa Mayhue. author of several series, including The Magic of Time series. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a time travel series, so I started her book (All The Time You Need)  with a fair amount of trepidation. I must say, she surprised me. I found how she handled the time travel aspect of her books well written and well explained. Getting other books she’s written is on my list of things to do. (and I do love being able to put in a good word for authors who aren’t big names!)

Those were physical books. Let me grab my tablet and see what stands out in my recent reads. Aha, there it is!  Hook, Dead to Rights, by Melissa Snark. It’s a different take on the classic Peter Pan. Much different. The story had enough twists to keep me guessing who was the hero and who was the villain until near the end. The second book, Hook, Dead Wrong, is on my TBR list.

There you go! Three very different books.  Maybe one or more of them will get added to your list of books to read! 

September 9, 2019
What are the best two or three books you’ve read this year?

Rules:1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

September 2, 2019

Does a big ego help or hurt writers?

I don’t know if my ego is big enough to answer this week’s question!

Here’s the deal: A writer has to have a bit of an ego to think they can take words and and mold them into a story that others will enjoy while, at the same time, doing justice to their characters. But that ego has to be small enough to allow the characters to tell you their story the way they want to. It’s a constant balancing act

Take my book  Wolves’ Knight as an example. I’d planned out a romance subplot for Tasha, my main character, and even  started writing the scene where she and the planned romantic lead got hot and heavy with each other. And promptly got stuck, because she started fighting me. She had a different idea about how things should go. I had to set my ego aside and swap up the plot to satisfy her.

A similar thing happened with The Baron’s Cufflinks. I’d written what I thought was a great chase scene, but something didn’t sit right. The action was great, the words were fine, but it just didn’t work. Then Harmony, my main character, convinced me it was because I’d told it all wrong. That wasn’t the way it happened. I put aside my ego, scrapped the scene, and rewrote it the way she wanted. I have to admit, it was better her way, but I still liked mine! It involved the sheriff and the highway patrol, a bad guy or three, and Harmony throwing her shoes at one of them. Thankfully, I was able to use pieces of it in the revised version.

On the other side, you have to have a healthy dose of ego to get out in the public and sell books once you have them written. To engage total strangers in a public setting and ask them to buy a book isn’t easy at first. I’ve gotten better at it, but I still have to psych myself up for each public appearance. There’s always the fear that no one will want to talk to you. Even on social media you need to interact with people you’ve never met.

(If you want to check out my books, you can start from my front page, here: http://www.pjmaclayne.com )

I hope you’ll take a moment to check out the other authors on the hop and see how their egos hold up to writing. You can follow the links below. But before you go, feel free to leave a comment.

September 2, 2019

Does a big ego help or hurt writers?

Rules:1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.

August 12, 2019

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

When I first read this question, my thought was “But it’s all hard!” However, that wouldn’t make a very good blog post, so here we are.

After giving it some thought, the answer was simple. Beginnings. It’s hard to find the right place to start, whether it’s a book or a blog post. Often it takes me three or four tries to write the beginning of anything. (It took me three tries to get this far!)

Unlike the advice in song from The Sound of Music, Do_Re_Mi, stories don’t always start from the beginning. They need to start at some point that will draw the reader in. How bad would it be to have every book start with the birth of the main character?

Sometimes, it’s finding the right ‘voice’ to tell the story. When I wrote the prequel to the Harmony Duprie mysteries, I wanted to write in from Jake’s point of view. I tried four different beginnings, but none of them worked. Jake just didn’t want to reveal his secrets. Once I switched to Harmony’s point of view, the story came easily.

When I wrote The Marquesa’s Necklace, the first book in the series, I wrote an entire chapter that ended up being deleted. But it wasn’t a lost effort, because it helped me to develop Harmony’s personality. Plus, I used parts of it in my reworked first chapter.

In fact, I pulled out the first paragraph from the first draft. You’ll see why I got rid of it!

It was another quiet day in the library—just the way I like it. As an ex-librarian, I appreciate the times when only a few patrons are scattered in the stacks or perusing the racks of periodicals. Back then it gave me time to shelve books or straighten out the magazines. Now that I spend much of my time doing research for a writers’ co-op, these times are when I am most productive. None of my old coworkers object when I accumulate a large pile of books on the table I stake out as my territory for the day. They know I will put them back in the proper place before I leave. I don’t necessarily need all these books, but they create a wall I can hide behind.

The same is true for my Free Wolves series. Although the prequel to Wolves’ Pawn came to me a dream, writing the first chapter wasn’t easy. And I wrote it with pen and paper, so while I have the original somewhere, you aren’t going to get the original opening paragraph!

Each book I write, it gets a little easier to write a good first chapter. That doesn’t mean they don’t go through numerous revisions, only that I don’t end up having to delete the whole thing and start over.

By the way, endings can be hard, too. But I’m just going to leave this here and head over to check out what the other authors have to say.  You can come with me by following the links below. 

August 12, 2019

What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?

Rules:1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.