06/30/2010

Attention: WritersNewsWeekly is preparing a series on the impact childhood books have on their young readers. If you’re an author interested in being interviewed, or if you think you have a unique perspective on the topic, contact us at submissions@writersnewsweekly.com.

WritersNewsWeekly talks with the Ask a New Author Team

Book Divas is an online book club started in 2002 as a community for girls to freely express themselves and share in their love of books. Eager to help budding authors, Book Divas recently started a special column, Ask a New Author, where three authors share their stories about breaking into the book business and answer the questions of those hoping to write and publish their own books. We recently spoke with the three authors who contribute to Ask a New Author.

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Promise Not to Tell by Jennifer McMahon

By Carlotta G. Holton

When it comes to murder, does history repeat itself? It seems that way in this tautly written mystery that revolves around the decades-old murder of fifth grader Del Griswold, a pariah dubbed, “Potato Girl.” When divorced school nurse Kate Cypher returns to her childhood home in Vermont in 2002, she is confronted not only with a mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s, but also with a new murder involving another young girl.

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The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker

By Amanda Linsmeier

I am admittedly the type of reader who judges a book by its cover. Strolling through Barnes & Noble a few months ago, a certain book happened to catch my eye. Titled The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, it intrigued me immediately, and the synopsis on the back made me want to know more. I didn’t purchase it right away, but the memory of the cover and premise had me searching for it on Amazon.com late one evening. I bought it and devoured it in one or two nights of reading.

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By Christopher Stokum & Sarah Schiavoni

By Christopher Stokum

Yesterday morning, the sunlight spread like honey between the clouds. I heard the city move more distinctly than I have before. Voices from the street separated from and rejoined the freeway noise and exhaust rumblings in a loose, hectic harmony. This is a day for writing, I thought. This is a day for a story, a poem or a song, for something sublime and artistic to flow from me without effort or preparation. I stared at the clock at work – even the motion of its hands seemed profound – furiously anticipating the moment I could take advantage of this rare mood.
           I got home, emptied my pockets, sat leaning forward in my chair and turned on my roommate’s electric typewriter, a birthday present from his parents that he has yet to use. It whirred, waiting. My fingers hovered above the keys.
           Two hours later, I held a half-finished draft of a rambling, ill-conceived story. It kicked around in the shallows for the first ten pages, covering far too much too quickly, only to get caught in a sinkhole by the twelfth page. I’d spent the last six pages explaining the origins of my protagonist’s fiery hatred of shopping plazas.
           What happened? What kind of fissure had formed between my brain and my fingers? I set the table for dinner with unnecessary force. I berated my roommate for not keeping his typewriter properly oiled. I sulked and grumbled. Had I somehow wasted my inspired mood, squandered it on fast women and booze and worthless short stories?
           No, I hadn’t. On the above counts, I was innocent. I was guilty, however, of confusing a perceptive mood for an expressive mood, or an influx of data for an outward rush. In terms of writing, my days normally take on one of three temperaments. First, and most opposed to a writer’s work, is overwhelming neutrality. On these days, my writing is forced and dull, but not awful. I have a fair idea of where the groove is, but I can’t quite get into it. There’s not much one can do besides feel remotely apathetic. People who dig these kinds of days are generally drawn to heavy opiates. On the second kind of days, I perceive. I find new vantage points, new ways of looking at the same things. Call it perspectival mobility. These days allow for those third breed of days, the elusive expressive days.
           These second two kinds look dangerously similar at first, hence my confusion. Both are needed to write anything worthwhile, and both seem to be in some sense “inspired,” though I hate to give any of this a romantic air. But perceptive days, days on which I’m concerned mostly with how I relate to the world and how the world relates to itself, don’t lend themselves well to expressive, and vice versa. Days of the former sort provide me with something to say, the latter an opportunity to say it. Imagine the life of a writer as a crossbow. On perceptive days, the string is drawn back. Tension mounts, the bolt shakes with barely-constrained energy, but letting off a shot now would be premature. You’d never hit the target. No – no, to strike as close to the bulls-eye as possible, to make the best use of the bolt you’ve got loaded, you have to wait for a expressive day, for when the string is fully drawn.
            This is not to say that a writer should wander about until inspiration hits. The neutral and perceptive days are for practice. They’re when one runs drills, self-criticizes and undergoes literary enemas that clear fragments  of stories like my meditation on shopping plazas from one’s head. The neutral days are when the author can see the world as close to objectively as possible, the perceptive days when he can interpret the hell out of that objectivity. If a writer chooses to take these days off, he’ll come at the writing days without the slightest notion of how to make use of them. Only constant use ensures that the bolt won’t stick when the string is drawn.
            The sunlight spreads like honey between the clouds. By noon, I’ll have typed a few hundred words of fumbling prose that hopefully will be better than yesterday’s, though it’s hard to say what will come out. My hopes aren’t higher because, despite the tension I feel, I know that there’s still room to pull the string back. Today is not a day for writing. When that day comes, I’ll hardly notice the sunlight. I’ll care only about the target – the stack of paper on my desk – and releasing the bolt as soon as I can.

By Sarah Schiavoni and Christopher Stokum

Book Divas is an online book club started in 2002 as a community for girls to freely express themselves and share in their love of books. Eager to help budding authors, Book Divas recently started a special column, Ask a New Author, where three authors share their stories about breaking into the book business and answer the questions of those hoping to write and publish their own books. We recently spoke with the three authors who contribute to Ask a New Author.

WNW: How did you get involved with the column?
New Author Miriam: A few months ago, Leah Messina approached me about writing a Tips From the Industry column for Book Divas. I’ve always been a little squeamish when it comes to offering advice to other writers because everyone has such a unique, individual process. But I had great fun writing that column, and I realized I actually had something to say, which seemed to be of value.
That’s when I came up with the Ask a New Author column idea. I thought it would be helpful – at a time when there are more and more horror stories about books and publishing and the impossibility of breaking into the industry – for Book Diva readers to hear about the experiences of recently published authors. I also liked that Book Divas’ members are the young and young-at-heart. I think a lot of hopeful writers come from that demographic.
I pitched the idea to Leah and she was enthusiastically game. When it came to recruiting the other New Authors, the choices were easy. Susanna Daniel is a brilliant writer and really articulate and honest about the writing process, which you can see on her blog. Randy Susan Meyers is not only a fabulous writer, but she’s really great at reaching out to readers and other writers, which is an art in and of itself. They’re also both just lovely people, so I knew we’d have a good time working together.

WNW: The “About” section on Book Divas mentions that it’s specifically a website for “girls.” Why focus on female authors? What role does gender play in the publishing world?
Ask a New Author team: Book Divas was started as a place online where girls could feel comfortable expressing their opinions—especially when it came to topics they were reading and/or writing about. Though we absolutely welcome boys to our site too (and we do have a few male members!), we wanted to be able to have our members feel like they could be themselves, which really has created a strong bond amongst several members within our community. There have been some great young adult books that deal with issues such as growing up, love, friendships—and females tend to gravitate towards these topics.

WNW: Where did you go for guidance when you were a new writer?
New Author Randy: There is an incredible resource in Boston: Grub Street Writers Center. Grub Street was my go-to for finding the right writing workshop and for a yearly conference (The Muse and The Marketplace) that offers a wide array of very professional advice. Backspace Writer’s Forum offers a number of well-known and in-progress writers helping each other. And I turned to writer’s books for every step of the process. I recommend that writers try a local writer’s conference to find the best local help.

WNW: How is what you’re doing here different from the help you received?
New Author Susanna: It's very different from help I've received in writing workshops, though for me that assistance has been essential. When you're in a workshop led by an author who's won the Pulitzer Prize, it's not kosher to ask whether she likes music when she writes or how she found her agent. A graduate writing program, in my experience, is almost completely concentrated on the efforts a writer makes well before sending out a manuscript, and hardly at all on what happens after. I think that's the right focus in that situation—but now that I'm being published, I rely heavily on the guidance of people who've been through the process. I'm in a novelist group and have a couple of very close friends who have published successfully, and I ask these women questions all the time about the process itself—about everything from how to throw a launch party to how long to read at a bookstore to how to promote the book online.

WNW: Will all the advice be coming from the New Author team, or will you allow readers to contribute?
New Author Miriam: Our initial vision is to start with advice from the three of us. However, the column is brand new and certainly adaptable. There are countless other new authors out there. So, if readers who also have publishing experience have something to contribute, I can’t see how that would hurt.

WNW: What do you hope to accomplish with Ask a New Author?
New Author Susanna: There are a lot of unknowns in the writing life—a lot of mystery. Most people don't talk in their blogs or at their reading groups about what they do when they hit a wall in their writing, or whether or not they pay the bills by writing, or how they picked themselves up after getting a particularly difficult rejection. It's good for me, as a writer, to talk about some of these things, and I think it's good for new writers and someday-writers to have someone to ask. For me, personally, talking about writing is a great relief, since writing is something I do in solitude (often in vain, sometimes in despair)—it's like I'm opening up my private room, and only when others see it do I know I haven't imagined it.
Also, writing is very difficult, and I think many people don't realize that. I think some people think it's an easy way of life, logistically and psychologically. It's not, so I know from experience that it's a relief to have some support.

WNW: Why do you think it’s important to have something like this now, with the publishing industry in its current state?
New Author Randy: With so many options currently available to writers (e-publishing, self-publishing, Amazon’s options for writers, etc.) we thought it would be helpful to provide a place where writers can ask their specific questions on how to cope with this plethora of opportunities. Writers struggle with certain questions (Should I put my book online? Should I start a blog? Do I really need an agent?) and while we will not necessarily have the definitive answers, we will have strong opinions and good suggestions on where to find answers.

WNW: How do you give constructive advice and encouragement to would-be writers without making the blanket statement that anyone can be a successful writer?
New Author Randy: Easy: we would never make that blanket statement. Telling writers that anyone can be a successful writer would be a lie. First of all, the definition of ‘successful’ is subjective. My success could feel like someoneelse’s failure and vice-versa. Most writers—successful and otherwise—have books in the drawer, failures, and piles of rejection in their past. We can only offer the tools that others have found successful. How our craft, submission, sales and promotion ideas manifest when used by others will depend on the writer’s own talent, decisions, and perseverance.

WNW: Are you at all concerned about backlash from readers who take your advice but do not find the success you have?
New Author Miriam: I trust that readers understand the nature of advice and advice columns. I don’t think anyone would take our input as a guarantee. Or I certainly hope they wouldn’t. We’re just one – or three – more voices offering our opinions. There are lots of agents and editors out there who give their opinions on the world of publishing. We want to be an encouraging and informative voice from the author’s point of view. But I think every emerging writer out there knows that their success depends on their own perseverance, talent and luck.

For more information about the Ask a New Author team and their column, please visit the Ask a New Author column. Have a question for the Ask a New Author team?—Send it to askanewauthor@bookdivas.com.

By Sarah Schiavoni and Christopher Stokum

WritersNewsWeekly recently spoke with Cathryn Louis, author of Sunrise on the Pier, published in eBook format on Smashwords. Sunrise on the Pier is the tale of Gabrielle Winston, an intelligent business analyst, and the discoveries she makes that thrust her into the middle of a war among ruthless, ultra-rich industrialists.

WNW: You’ve clearly blended your passion for writing and technology into this piece. Do you worry that people with little knack for technology might get lost in the jargon?
Louis: I'm trusting that people are adventurous and would like to try something different. I use the language of technology to establish that Gabrielle is an accomplished technologist. Then as soon as the story allows, I give the reader a visual - the 'downward spiral graph' - to capture the essence of her discovery. As for the rest of the book, I think the terms I use are familiar to many people.

WNW: What writers have influenced your work? Are there any that also include modern technology in their novels?
Louis: I think it's likely that every author I've read has had some influence on my work. Everyone from YA authors such as JK Rowling and Meg Cabot, fantasy authors such as JRR Tolkien, George Martin and Gail Z. Martin, as well as a wide variety of other authors such as Katherine Neville, Stephen L. Carter and Judith Krantz. As for novels with modern technology, of course, I've read almost every Jack Ryan novel by Tom Clancy and I'm a big fan of Robert Ludlum's earlier work. The Materese Circle is still one of my favorite rereads.

WNW: By mixing it with a plotline, your book presents technology in a less imposing light, especially for someone unfamiliar with it. Was this one of your goals in writing the novel?
Louis: That sounds really good! I ought to just say yes and claim that I meant to do that. But the reality is that for a long time, I've had a scene in my head where the people I've named Gabrielle and Jarin (the J pronounced as a Y sound) met at a breakwater fence on a cove somewhere. I felt driven to build a story around it, and technology is what I know best. I have to say though that the way the fence scene played out is not even close to what I started out with. I originally saw it as the end of the book.

WNW: You published your book in eBook format, which seems to be a testament to your love of technology. What made you decide to publish it in this format?
Louis: Being in software development, I get immediate feedback on what I write. I finish a project, give it to people to use, and they either rave - or rant. Sometimes it's both! In any case, I know fairly quickly what to change and what to keep. So when I finished Sunrise on the Pier, I gave it to family and friends, and I also wanted feedback from people who had no interest in sparing my feelings. So I had a dilemma. I have a very demanding day job, and a family. My daughter is involved in all sorts of activities that involve time and travel. There's another book in my brain that is trying to get out. With all of that going on, how do I establish the contacts to get my book in front of an agent? I also had to ask myself if Sunrise on the Pier was a once in a lifetime thing, or whether I am going to be a novelist. Once I decided I'm an author for life, I took the chance to publish it as an eBook this past April. My goal was to get it in front of an audience as quickly as possible. I would dearly love for it to be a hit. But even if it isn't, publishing it has helped me learn so much already. Being able to say I'm a published author has given me the confidence to pursue opportunities to get it in front of readers. Best of all, I still have time to write.

WNW: Do you plan to publish your book in print format?
Louis: Of course! First, I'd like to see how much of an audience it gains as an eBook.

WNW: Since you’re self-published, did you ever wish you had help from a publishing house, especially in the editing process?
Louis: Absolutely. Now that I'm learning the business with Sunrise on the Pier, I'll be in a far better position to pursue those relationships with my next novel.

WNW: How did recent economic issues influence your book?
Louis: Significantly. The book is about the actions that various fictional people took prior to the real event of the stock market meltdown in 2008. I recently read Michael Lewis' non-fiction work The Big Short. It details the events leading up to that meltdown. I was surprised and pleased to see that even though the meltdown isn't the main plotline in Sunrise on the Pier, what is there tracks with his reporting.

WNW: How do you think working as a technical writer has affected your fiction?
Louis: Believe it or not, technical writers make notoriously poor novelists. We are trained to KISS (keep it short, stupid) and use bullet points. I had to learn how to give feeling and depth to my writing. I guess you could say that the effect was that I knew I needed help and got a writing coach. I would never have written anything I felt that someone might want to read without his help.

WNW: Are you working on any new fiction now?
Louis: Yes I am. Skye Pointe and its surrounding area live in my mind. The story that I'm now writing is also about people in that area - and there's a murder. It's unclear yet whether or not the characters in Sunrise on the Pier will make an appearance in that novel. If they do, it will be as minor characters.

Cathryn Louis spent much of her career in the technology industry. She began building chips and computers before riding the dotcom wave into software development. She currently writes desktop and web applications but has worked on fostering a writing career as well. In Sunrise on the Pier, she hopes to have combined her passions for technology and writing into an entertaining piece. For more information about Ms. Louis, visit her Twitter page or her blog. If interested in reading Sunrise on the Pier, please view her book on Smashwords.

By Carlotta G. Holton

When it comes to murder, does history repeat itself?  It seems that way in this tautly written mystery that revolves around the decades-old murder of fifth grader Del Griswold, a pariah dubbed, “Potato Girl.”  When divorced school nurse Kate Cypher returns to her childhood home in Vermont in 2002, she is confronted not only with a mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s, but also with a new murder involving another young girl. 

It does not go unnoticed amongst the townspeople that Kate’s arrival comes around the same time that a young girl is killed. This girl had been with three friends in the woods, sitting around a fire telling the story of “Potato Girl,” who supposedly haunts the woods.  Shortly after, she left the group, only to be found dead minutes later. The similarities to Del’s murder are astounding and echoes of Kate’s past come to haunt her. Memories of her relationship with Del and her older brother, Nick, surface as Del’s ghost makes her presence known.  Is she out to exact revenge upon those who betrayed her or to point the finger at her killer? Does Kate know more about the cold case than she’s let on?  Is she right to feel guilt and responsibility over her friend’s murder?

The author weaves her darkly compelling tale between 1971 and 2002 as she aptly explores various themes of child abuse, coming-of-age difficulties and bullying. The latter theme is made more relevant to the reader as the daily news across the country details stories of young adults who are verbally tortured by their classmates. Such scenes are difficult to read, yet most of us have either been subjected to or witnessed such incidents during our own school years.

Kate, who grew up on the hippie commune of New Hope, VT., always related to Del.   Both were considered “outsiders” by their classmates, but they found a commonality of purpose in their secretive relationship.  So close were the two that Del, who treasured her silver sheriff badge, made Kate her deputy.  When Del shows Kate her tattoo, she makes her promise, “Not to tell.”
 
As Kate’s mother, Jean, worsens, she is drawn to painting strange images.  Her speech changes and at times her giggling voice is reminiscent of Del’s.  Is she possessed by the child or is she further sinking into the abyss of Alzheimer’s? By introducing the possible supernatural elements to the story through the eyes of skeptic Kate, the plausibility of such a phenomenon is more acceptable.  This is especially the case when considering Nick, Kate’s newly reconnected love interest from childhood, is almost too eager to put his trust in ghostly intervention.

Kate’s flaw is her constant lying, which begins when she is a child. She plays two sides when she befriends Del only to reveal her secrets to the popular girls to be liked. At 41, however, she is still engaged in telling lies. It is also somewhat unbelievable that she falls for Nick, her childhood sweetheart.

Like the shiny silver sheriff’s badge she proudly wore, Del stands out as a touching characterization of an abused, secretive child who seeks only to be loved. Her torment is heart-wrenching and one genuinely feels for her tragic, short life. She is not an easily forgotten character, and for this McMahon deserves praise. Promise not to Tell is a short, entertaining read that raises awareness of the very real perils of childhood.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact, Touching The Dead and Vampire Resurrection, and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

By Amanda Linsmeier

I am admittedly the type of reader who judges a book by its cover. Strolling through Barnes & Noble a few months ago, a certain book happened to catch my eye. Titled The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, it intrigued me immediately, and the synopsis on the back made me want to know more. I didn’t purchase it right away, but the memory of the cover and premise had me searching for it on Amazon.com late one evening. I bought it and devoured it in one or two nights of reading.

The novel tells the story of Truly, a larger than life woman born to be different—different from her town, her classmates, and certainly from her beautiful and delicate , Serena Jane. After her mother dies giving in childbirth, Truly and her sister are left in the care of their father. Upon his untimely death, the two young girls are separated into very different families. Serena Jane grows up adored by all, the town’s darling in every way and the love obsession and eventual wife of Bob Bob Morgan, the youngest in a line of Aberdeen’s influential doctors. Bob Bob has spent his adolescence torturing Truly, who grows bigger and bigger no matter what she does. Then a tragic circumstance brings Truly back into Dr. Morgan’s life, and she is left with no other choice than to move into his home to take care of her sister’s son. There, she suffers humiliation and degradation by her brother-in-law. It’s only when Truly discovers a centuries-old Morgan family heirloom that she begins to see the power in herself, help others and possibly take a little revenge on the man responsible for her sister’s fate.

This is a great book, if a little bittersweet, with wonderful storytelling and truly (no pun intended) remarkable characters. The author did her research and felt deeply for the main character. My only beef is the slight overuse of similes. Peppered quite liberally throughout the pages, most of the time they did indeed add to the story. Once in awhile though, I was turned off by so many on one page because it felt distracting to the story. Other than that, author Tiffany Baker is one to watch out for. Go ahead, pick up this book—just don’t wait as long as I did to actually read it.