Icy Snow Blackstone's Bargain With Lucifer

Icy Snow Blackstone is my guest author today. Icy, please give us a brief bio.

First of all, thanks for letting me do this blog. I appreciate it. Now, to the bio! I’m a Southerner by birth although I’ve lived in various parts of the US, including the Midwest and Orange County, California. I graduated from a well-known Southern Baptist university with a degree in Fine Art and have another in Illustrative Art. I also have a son who’s a teacher and a granddaughter and grandson, ages eight and sixteen, respectively.

When did the writing bug bite, and in what genre(s)?
I started writing when I began first grade and have been penning various fictions ever since but I didn’t begin writing seriously until 1989.

When you started writing, what goals did you want to accomplish? Is there a message you want readers to grasp?
My reasons for writing are pretty selfish, I suppose. I just wanted to tell a story, many stories, in fact. All those that were circulating inside my head and just absolutely had to come out. So I started writing them down—first by hand, then typewriter, and finally on computer. I never really intended to have any published; they were just for me and a few others to read and enjoy.

Briefly tell us about your latest book. Series or stand-alone?

My latest book is called Brother Devil. About 20 years ago, I wrote a story called Bargain with Lucifer and sent it to a cousin to read. This novel was a romance, and in it, two brothers—Luc and Michel--were featured. After she read it, she said to me, “I’ve only got one question: What happened to Michel?” Bargain with Lucifer was supposed to be a one-shot, stand-alone novel but then I had to write Brother Devil to tell Michel’s story.

What’s the hook ?

Here’s the blurb to describe the story: The women of Orleans parish may have called Luc a devil and Michel an angel but now the angel is falling fast—and he’s enjoying his downward flight to the limit.

Brother Devil opens with a funeral, a funeral in which only the husband of the deceased is truly mourning. In spite of the things his dead wife did to him and his family, Michel Deveraux still loves her and tries to deny how completely cruel she was. It takes some very strong convincing from his family to make Michel admit Clarice’s manipulations but once he dies and realizes he’s no longer bound by marriage vows, he decides to make up for lost time. Michel had always been second to his big brother in everything, from his grandfather’s love to excelling in sports, and now, being successful with women is high in the list of categories. Before he knows it, he’s involved in a scandal and finding his life in danger as he goes after the one woman in Orleans parish whose brothers won’t accept a Deveraux “trifling” with their baby sister.

How do you develop characters? Setting?

In this book, the characters were more or less already set since they’d been in a previous novel. It was simply a matter of tempering them over time (the story covers 3 years), showing how the events in the first novel caused what happened in the second and how they all reacted to it. The fact that they are Southerners and Creoles also influences their reactions to events differently from how people in another part of the country would act.

Do you have specific techniques you use to develop the plot and stay on track?

I imagine my techniques are the worst imaginable! I just sit down and start typing. Very linear. Beginning to end. Afterward, I may decide that something in the middle of the book would be more appropriate at the end or closer to the beginning, or that I should actually start the story in the present or after a certain event and then flashback or forward. I actually used to print out pages and cut them up and repaste them together into how I thought they should be. I still do that but now, I “cut and paste” on the computer.

Every time I start a new chapter, I go back and read the one I just finished, edit it, and then go on. That helps me keep continuity.

How does your environment/upbringing color your writing?

I set a lot of my romances in the South and goodness knows, that’s a place which has a great influence on what my characters do. It also helps if your editor knows something about the setting of your novels. I had one editor who was from Tasmania and admitted she knew nothing about Southerners. We went back and forth over a few things in the novel because she was looking at them from an Australian/United Kingdom point of view, and I was seeing them from the US/Southern viewpoint.

What are your current projects?

I have a couple of fantasy romances I’m tossing around. One is The King’s Swordswoman, about a woman warrior hired to protect a king’s invalid son and what happens when she believes the boy is killed while on her watch. Of course, he isn’t and many years later they meet; he knows who she is but she doesn’t recognize him. It’s a love story, so of course there’s going to be plenty of intrigue and heartbreak before the HEA.

Where can folks learn more about your books and events?

I have a website: http://www.icysnowblackstone.com/, Facebook and My Space pages, and a page at Author’s Central on amazon.com’s website. I also blog regularly at the Pink Fuzzy Slippers blogsite.

http://pinkfuzzyslipperwriters.blogspot.com/

Icy, thanks for a great interview. I wish you the best of sales!

T.V. Sweeney's Serpent's Tooth

Toni Sweeney was born in Georgia after the War between the States but before the Gulf War. Her writing career began during an extended convalescence following an automobile accident. Marriage, parenthood, divorce, and a variety of occupations ranging from dancer to medical transcriptionist assistant took precedent over writing for several years. She has survived hurricanes in the South, tornados and snow-covered winters in the Midwestern United States, and earthquakes, and forest fires in California.

Toni says," I’m a native-born Southerner but I currently live in the Midwest with my son who’s a math teacher. I was residing in Orange County, California but when I hit age 65, he decided I’d better “come home” so he could keep an eye on me! We’ll see…"

Toni, welcome to the blog. Tell us when did the writing bug bite, and in what genre(s)?
I’ve always loved to read and writing just naturally seemed to follow it. I’d read a story, then find myself thinking over certain parts—the beginning, the ending—and rewriting it with my own spin. Sometimes, it would be, “what if…?” or “If this had happened instead…” I loved English class, especially Composition, although I hated standing in front of the class and giving reports. I’m a terribly shy person, almost agoraphobic, and going to conventions and being in the public eye terrifies me but I do it.
Anyway, I’ve always like adventure stories—Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Roy Rogers—anything that had plenty of action and cheeky humor, and little dashes of romance, like the Three Musketeers, Robin Hood, Treasure Island. I also like mystery, thrills and chills, and the supernatural. So, I write what I like, and generally my stories have some or all of these elements in them. That’s why I like to say I don’t write romances but romans, which were the stories the wandering troubadors told, stories combining adventures, action, supernatural elements, and love.

When you started writing, what goals did you want to accomplish? Is there a message you want readers to grasp?
Most of my stories deal with the hero or heroine’s search for belonging. This is especially obvious in my Sinbad series and the Kan Ingan Archives series, and a little less so in the Chronicles of Riven the Heretic. Sinbad’s a smuggler and a very successful one but all he wants is a home and family, and once he achieves that, he discovers that he’s also become a very law-abiding, and rich, man in the process—all because of the woman he loves. Aric kan Ingan loses all for love but regains it, only to lose it again because he’s still searching for that one perfect love. Riven kan Ingan, his ancestor, tried to find acceptance by being a social climber and marrying into wealth. Instead, he fell in love with a barbarian warrior woman and ended up becoming the progenitor of a race of kings.
So, if there’s a message in my stories, it’s that everyone wants someone to belong to and sometimes that someone may not be whom they expect. Other than that, I just want people to read my stories and enjoy them.

Briefly tell us about your latest book. Series or stand-alone?
Currently, I’ve got two books in the burners. Sinbad’s Pride, third in the Adventures of Sinbad series and Serpent’s Tooth, and these two books couldn’t be more different. They came from the same mother but they’re definitely fraternal twins. Sinbad’s Pride is sci-fi, set several centuries in the future, and Serpent’s Tooth is a contemporary horror novel.

What are the hooks for the books?
The Sinbad story deals with family obligations. It begins with Sinbad arranging, against his better judgment, a marriage between his infant daughter and an adult cousin—and if that doesn’t pique readers, I’ll be disappointed! It progresses from there to his realizing that coming home and becoming his grandfather’s heir involves more than he expected…namely that he’s going to have to do certain things that are politically motivated, such as taking concubines to cement relationships with their families. This is especially difficult since Sinbad loves no one but his wife and has never looked at another woman since the moment he met her—and now he’s being told he has to have not one but two other women in his life as secondary wives? Whoa! Things go downhill—or up—from there, depending on where you’re standing.
Serpent’s Tooth opens with a famous rock star contemplating suicide. The choices he made to bring him to this moment provides the story, which involves a naïve midwesterner’s corruption by Tinsel Town and his attempts at redemption.

How do you develop characters? Setting?
I have absolutely no idea! Sometimes a word or phrase or a scene just pops into my mind and I start expounding on it. I’ve always said that if I think about something for three days and can’t get it out of my head, I have to write about it. That’s generally true, although recently, I’ve hit a kind of slump. So far, I’ve managed to hold the ideas at arms-length for several months. The book I’m working on right now, The Seventh Mothman, I’ve fended off for almost two years!

LOL. That happens to me as well.
It’s been said that in sci-fi/fantasy, you can set a story wherever you want and no one can refute it and that’s so, but you still have to have a realistic basis floating around somewhere. It can’t be too fantastic or far-out or you’re going to lose your audience before you’ve even captured them. So a little believability is always needed.

Do you have specific techniques you use to develop the plot and stay on track?
I Know I should, but I don’t. No outlines, no character studies. I did that with Wizard’s Wife, had an outline, extensive synopsis, a list of characters, etc. Then, I promptly lost it. It turned up again about a year ago then disappeared again. I had three chapters written but had only one in the computer, so I scrubbed it and started over and wrote the whole thing from scratch. I keep telling myself I should write all the ideas down but I’m so darned lazy, I just never do it.
Mainly, I just sit down and start pounding the keyboard. So far, I’ve worn out five computers and eight printers.

LOL. That's serious pounding.
How does your environment/upbringing color your writing?
For sci-fi/fantasy? Not much. Generally the whole things is made up or based on some medieval lifestyle which I tailor to fit the story. I have a couple of books on life in Ancient Times/the Middle Ages which I consult faithfully for my novels. I used them extensively in the Chronicles/Archives series. Also, if I hear or read an interesting fact about a specific time period, I write it down for future reference. I have a notebook just for that sort of thing. For something like Serpent’s Tooth, I did use a bit of observation about kids in the ‘80’s idiolizing rock-and-roll stars, but because I was never a “teeneybopper,” I got most of my information from watching much, much earlier TV shows such as American Bandstand and Ed Sullivan, etc. I remember the night the Beatles were features and Elvis Presley, and I wove that adoration and idolatization of those singer into the story.

What are your current projects?
Sinbad’s Pride, third entry in the Adventures of Sinbad. In this one, Sinbad is in his thirties to forties (The earlier books were about his childhood and youth). It shows his changing attitude toward the things he’s always held dear as he matures, and how his love for his wife matures along with it, and also the things he has to do, sometimes against his will, because of the responsibility he now holds. It’s being published by Double Dragon Publishing.
Serpent’s Tooth covers 25 years in the life of a very successful rock star—how he was discovered, and the things he’s done that come to so appall him that he chucks it all and disappears at the height of his career. When he reappears 20 years later, he thinks he left all the unpleasantness behind but just when he’s again found happiness, the past rears its ugly—and deadly—head.

Where can folks learn more about your books and events?
My website is www.tonivsweeney.com. I update it weekly. I also have a newsletter, and if anyone wants to be put on the mailing list, they can send their e-mail addresses to tvsweeney@neb.rr.com. I also have a My Space, Facebook, and YouTube accounts also a blog page at amazon.com’s Author Central. I also blog of various blogging groups, such as the Pink Fuzzy Slipper Writers and The Wild Rose Press.

Thanks for a fun interview, Toni.

A Chat with C.J. West

I'm delighted to have C.J. West here today for a brief interview. Welcome, C.J. Let's get started.
Your Randy Black Series is unconventional. Why did you choose to evolve Randy Black as a character?

When I wrote Sin &Vengeance, I wasn’t planning a series. It wasn’t until readers started telling me they wanted to kill Randy that I decided to write A Demon Awaits. I was really surprised by the strong reactions to Randy. I felt for him as a character and I wanted people to understand why he did the things he did. Most readers reacted strongly to the way he took revenge during Sin &Vengeance. I think that was primarily because Randy is a brilliant guy and when he took his revenge the way he did, I think it was eerily real to readers.

Did you feel writing A Demon Awaits from Randy’s perspective was a risk?

Absolutely. It was a risk and a challenge. I wanted to change people’s feelings about Randy and help them understand what I saw in him. It was also a risk because it requires readers to start with Sin & Vengeance and then move on to A Demon Awaits to really understand the story line. If they didn’t buy Randy as a sympathetic character, the series was shot for them. The great thing for me is that readers who really hated Randy after Sin &Vengeance came back to tell me how they warmed to him after A Demon Awaits.

How does Gretchen Greene fit? Will Randy continue to grow?


Gretchen Greene is the first of a series of adventures Randy will undertake on the run. The plan for the next several books is for Randy to continue his quest for redemption by finding souls in trouble and helping them. Gretchen Greene is a former ecoterrorist that has stolen a breakthrough solar technology and is running for her life. She desperately needs Randy’s help, but the two of them can’t agree on anything. It makes for some fun interchanges on their way across country. The next several books will occur in a short span of time. Randy will continue to grow, but much more slowly. My goal is for readers to be able to enjoy any of the remaining books whether they’ve read others in the series or not.

Is there a message in your writing you want readers to grasp?


Randy is on a journey to redeem himself, so that is a constant theme. I think all good fiction addresses a serious issue. For me the issues change from book to book. I also think that the tone of my books varies with the subject matter and the characters. Many readers have told me that my books are very different from one another and I really take pride in that. My latest book centers on environmental activism and asks where we should draw the line between protecting the environment and restricting people’s freedom.

What are your current projects?


I have just released Gretchen Greene, my latest Randy Black novel and my entire backlist on Kindle. I have a new standalone thriller, The End of Marking Time coming this summer. I also have a film adaptation of Sin &Vengeance currently in the fundraising stage with an independent film production company. The website for the film is www.sinandvengeance.com

Wow! Congratulations on all the success!
Where can folks learn more about your books and events C.J?

I’m on tour right now and this year I’m hosting a series of events that promise to teach readers everything Randy Black does in my novels. I’m hosting a high performance driving demonstration, a firearms class, a winery tour, a newsroom tour and many Texas Hold ‘em lessons. I’ll be appearing throughout New England. Readers can find my books and my tour schedule at http://www.22wb.com/.

C.J., I know how busy you are. Thanks for dropping by. We'll be expecting more great books and events from you.

Pat Bertram: Daughter Am I

Pat Bertram, author of Daughter Am I, is a native of Colorado and except for a brief stay in the north woods of Wisconsin, lived there all her life. When the traditional publishers stopped publishing her favorite type of book — character and story driven novels that can’t easily be slotted into a genre — she decided to write her own. Daughter Am I is her third novel to be published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC. Also available are More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.

Pat, it's a pleasure to have you here.
What do you mean by "novels that can't easily be slotted into a genre"?

All of my novels have elements of intrigue, adventure, mystery, suspense, romance, history, and some have a touch of science fiction. A Spark of Heavenly Fire, for example, is the story of people who become extraordinary during a time of horror -- a bioengineered disease is decimating the population of Colorado, and the entire state is quarantined. One character is obsessed with finding out who created the disease, one couple tries to escape, one woman does what she can to help the survivors. And a thread of romance connects all the stories. All these different stories entwined into one makes it difficult to settle on a single genre. A Spark of Heavenly Fire is being sold as mystery/crime, but it could just as easily be mainstream or a thriller.

Is there a message in your writing you want readers to grasp?

My only goal is to write the stories I want to read. If my books do have a message, it’s that nothing is as it seems. We are not necessarily who we think we are, history did not necessarily happen the way we think it did, and what we see is not necessarily the truth. But all that is more of a side effect. Mostly I just want to write good stories with good characters.

Do you have specific techniques you use to develop the plot and stay on track?

I don’t have any specific technique, though I do fill in a timeline as I write to make sure that the events happen in a realistic framework. When I first started writing, I never had weekends or holidays in the story, just one long string of weekdays, so a timeline is very important. The timeline also serves as a brief outline of what I have written so that I can see the story at a glance. Besides the timeline, I use a theme to stay on track. If I’m not sure of the efficacy of a character trait or plot point, I check it against the theme. If the trait or plot point helps prove the theme, I keep it, otherwise I look for a stronger way of tying the ideas to the theme. I’ve found that a theme helps keep a story (and me) focused.

Briefly tell us about your latest book, Daughter Am I.

Daughter Am I is the story of a young woman who inherits a farm from murdered grandparents she never knew she had. Since her father won’t talk about them or explain why he told her they were dead, she sets out on a journey to discover who those grandparents were and why someone killed them. Armed with a little black address book she found in a secret room in the farmhouse, she travels halfway across the country talking to people who knew her grandfather. Through the stories those feisty octogenarians tell, she learns the truth about her grandparents and herself.

How does your environment/upbringing color your writing?

Because I’ve mostly lived in the shadow of mountains, mountains always shadow my writing.
How fortunate.

How do you promote yourself online and off?

I have not done much offline promotion. I’ve been doing my promotion online -- Facebook, of course. Twitter, though to be honest, I haven’t quite figured out how to use it to my benefit. I blog. I hold writing discussions, both on Facebook and Gather.com. I try to put in an appearance on Goodreads. I’m not sure how effective any of these sites are as a promotion tool, but they are a start. Eventually I hope to find a way to get vast numbers of people interested in my books, but so far I haven’t hit on the right method of promotion. I’ve heard that if your book hasn’t caught on in six weeks it never will find a readership. I’ve also heard that it takes three years for a book to find its readership. I’m hoping it’s the latter.

Where can folks learn more about your books and events?

I have a website -- http://patbertram.com/-- where I post important information, including the first chapters of each of my books, but the best way to keep up with me, my books, and my events on a daily basis is by way of Bertram’s Blog. http://ptbertram.wordpress.com

All my books are available both in print and in ebook format. You can get them online at Second Wind Publishing, Amazon, and Smashwords. Smashwords is great -- the books are available in all ebook formats, including Kindle, and you can download the first 30% free.

Pat, thanks for the interview,  and I wish you well on all endeavors. By the way, the cover is gorgeous. I'm certain that it will be in the finals in the next Whitfield Cover Award contest.

Lynette Hall Hampton's Stetson Mold

Lynette Hall Hampton is my special guest today. Welcome, Lynette. Give us a little history about yourself.
I was born into a family of readers and writers. My Dad read western novels by the car load. When he retired from public work he read at least one a day for the rest of his life. My Mother read everything from Shakespeare to Grace Livingston Hill and wrote short stories and poems. She also wrote a column for her local paper. In the third grade I discovered a book called Cowgirl Kate and decided then and there that I’d someday write a book someday. It took many years of writing magazine articles and an occasional short story for me to reach that goal. In 2003 my first mystery novel, Jilted by Death was published. I haven’t stopped writing novels since.

I've read all of you books and enjoyed them very much. Briefly tell us about Stetson Mold.
My latest book, Stetson Mold, came out in January of this year from Wings ePress in e-book and trade paperback. It is a stand alone romantic suspense. It’s setting is an injection molding company which is located in Huntersville, NC – a small town near Charlotte. Stetson Varner dies and leaves his company and all his assets to his niece, Shelly Wakefield. When she takes control of the company, she learns that Stetson Varner didn’t die in an automobile accident as was reported, but he was murdered. In her struggle to learn who killed her uncle, she faces threats, sabotage, a potential strike and the possibility that the handsome molding manager is behind it all before she leans who she can and can not trust in the company.

How do you develop characters? Setting? Plot? And do you have specific techniques you use to stay on track?
My characters and plots have no rhyme or reason about them. It may sound strange, but my characters seem to pop into my head, sometimes uninvited. At first they’re fuzzy and nameless and without much form. To find out who these drop-in guest are I have a series of questions for them. Name? Age? Married? Single? And so on. After I get a fix on them, I start asking such things as: Where are you? What are you up to? Where do you work? Why are you bugging me? When I get the answers here I usually start writing. I don’t worry about a full blown plot, though I often have a vague idea of how things are going to end up and it usually does end this way. It’s the twist and turns in the middle that often surprise me. Though I know a lot of writers plot their entire novel before writing, I can’t seem to do it. Every time I’ve tried, the books have ended up not written or tossed in the trash. I’m not saying that I don’t plot at all, because I do. It’s simply a chapter or so at a time and as I do this I asked myself, “How is this going to lead to the ending I have decided on?” It’s kind of like a thirty-day trip I took across several years ago. I knew I was going to go a northern route through Ohio, Michigan, Montana and Oregon, go down the California coast and come back to NC by way of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. I didn’t plan some of the most fun things – the off shoots of visiting the Grand Canyon, The London Bridge in Colorado or touring the plantation in Louisiana among other things. And though I started out and ended up where I planned, I had a more exciting time doing ii than if I’d know about these things in advance.

Where do you write? What do you have around you?
I’d like to impress everyone and say that I have a beautifully appointed office, but alas that would be fiction. Because my son-in-law had to take a job out of town and he’s away five days a week, I have recently downsized and moved into a small apartment connected to my daughter’s home. I have a large living room and one wall contains bookshelves, a desk with my computer and a television in the corner. My file cabinet is in my walk-in closet and my cat thinks the back of the desk is his private sleeping quarters. (He’s nineteen years old, so who am I to argue with him?) At least it’s private and my two grandchildren are most of the time thoughtful enough to knock before coming into my area. My seven-year old granddaughter sometimes forgets and will come bounding in, grab her mouth saying, “Oh, I forgot,” go running back out and knock. It always makes me smile.

What are your current projects?
I have to laugh when I think of this question. I’m one of those strange writers who works on more than one book at a time. I’m about half through the third in the Rev. Willa Hinshaw series, though it’s giving me more trouble than any other of the series. I have completed three books in the Coverton Mills Romance series and am working on the fourth. A third of the third book in the Ferrington Men series is finished and I’ve recently written a stand alone historical romance which is looking for a home. I’m now writing the second in this genre. I like stretching my mind and attempting different forms of novel writing, but I haven’t had the urge to try my hand at erotica yet. Probably won’t do that one.

Some of this books will be out in the future. The first in the Coverton Mills series, Lady Slippers for my Lady will hopefully be coming out from Wild Rose Press in 2011 under my pen name, Agnes Alexander. Your Place or Mine? is scheduled to be out later this year from WriteWord Books. The mass paperback reprints of Jilted by Death will be out this summer from Harlequin’s World Wide Mysteries. They will publish Echoes of Mercy in 2011. I have offered Wings ePress the first in my Calendar Clan series. So, like all writers, I’m waiting to hear form the others I have out.

Where can folks learn more about your books and events?
My website, http://www.lynettehallhampton.com/, is in bad need of updating, but my older books are there. Most of my books are available on Amazon and other on line booksellers. Of course they can be ordered from the publishers: PublisherAlabaster.Biz or WingsPress.com. I keep books on hand myself and my email is LynetteHampton82@Yahoo.com.
Thank you for interviewing me, Susan. I enjoyed it.

It was my pleasure, Lynette. Good luck with all those books going at once. I tip my Stetson to you!

Lynette (in the hat) and Susan at

Carolina Conspiracy event

Mari Sloan's Beaufort Falls

Mari Sloan dropped by to answer a few questions about Beaufort Falls. Welcome, Mari. Please give us a brief bio.

I am a Southern writer whose family is from Atlanta, Ga., now transplanted to Southern California where I live in a small apartment with my husband and a huge black cat. Writing is my part-time vocation, and I work fulltime as an AdMin for a furniture store, although my past has included counseling, teaching, disaster relief work for the American Red Cross and night and weekend director for a domestic violence center. Mental health, crisis intervention and the welfare of women and children have always been high priorities in my life.

How does your environment/upbringing color your writing?

The Author’s page on my webpage begins with a statement that I think sums up most of my writing. I tell everyone, only partly tongue-in-cheek, “my Mother was Scarlett O’Hara and my Father was John Wayne.” My Great-Grandmother was the first prison matron for the state of Georgia, a saintly woman who wore an apron instead of a uniform and who stopped a prison break once (two women on foot who had decided to leave the work farm) with nothing but a stern look and a switch. From an early age I was told that my life should matter to more than just myself, and I was expected to be of service to others in some way. When you add the influences of some decidedly off beat religious experiences and a Grandmother who had learned through contact with prisoners at an early age how to predict the future and who was never wrong, I had all of the elements for a first class novel before I was ten.

LOL. I love it! Tell us about Beaufort Falls.

In Beaufort Falls a determined ghost comes back from the grave to protect her living children, still in the custody of her abuser, and to avenge her murder. This is accomplished with the unconscious help of her very strange ex-lover, who manages to evade arrest himself by a series of creative impersonations, beginning with posing as the first man he is supposed to have killed, and ending as the biggest, most awkward woman you could ever imagine, a part I picture as being acted if it ever becomes a movie by Bruce Willis. A mix of characters rotate around this main plot, a dangerous religious fanatic, two cute little kids, women whose biological clocks are ticking loudly, lost boys adrift in a mental health system gone astray, two of the most inept “hit-men” you could ever image, with an action packed finish that leaves room for a sequel. “Nothing is what it seems, in Beaufort Falls!”

Is there a message in your writing you want readers to grasp?

Yes, a definite message of hope for victims of domestic abuse, the mental health system, and people who are dealing with injustice anywhere. Not even death prevents Eliza from taking care of her children and making sure that they are taken care of. A secondary message, or its “subtext,” is that you never really know what you or anyone else is capable of just by watching life move around you. What may seem ordinary on the surface can be very bizarre indeed. Who knows what his or her neighbor is really thinking, or what goes on behind their little white picket fence or closed doors?

How do you develop characters? Setting? That all-important first sentence? Your “voice?” Influences?

My setting is, of course, the land of my childhood, the sleepy, sultry, Deep South, where superstition, religion gone insane, agenda determined aberration all move beneath the surface of normality in grooves worn by centuries of the misuse of power and sanctioned abuse of the weak. My characters are all shaped by this, but show extraordinary creativity, strength and ingenuity in overcoming the obstacles placed in their way. The ones regarded as the weakest are actually the toughest, and you cheer for them every step of the way.

I lived in Southern Alabama, Beaufort Falls’ setting, for several years and found it much like my Atlanta home and my childhood in hot, humid South Georgia. My first sentence? "Beaufort Falls was not exactly what you would call a ‘happening’ town.” Not on the surface, anyway. My voice is satirical, in the best tradition of Southern writers, and my greatest influence has always been Pat Conroy, probably the best portrayer of human nobility and fallacies in the history of the written word. Want to see me do the dance of joy? Compare me to Pat.

Where do you write and what particular distractions do you have to overcome? What helps you concentrate, aids your creative process?

Life throws distractions at me with the accuracy of a curve ball pitcher on a pro baseball team. I live in a studio apartment with a mate whose schedule is my opposite and there is always confusion and noise around me. The plus side of this is that he is my soul-mate, and nothing I say to him disturbs him. We both have to be creating something to be happy, so it’s not at all unusual for conversation on a Friday or Saturday morning to go like this:

“Mari, come here and look at this! Look what Microsoft is doing now!”

“Leave me alone. I’m writing!”

“But look! Should I send this out? Come proof this for me.”

“In a minute. Charlie knew that he …”

“But Mari, I’m going to send it …”

“Shut up!!” Eventually I take a look and then this same restless man sits still and lets me read my chapter to him, even when he’s heard it dozens of times before. Beaufort Falls took three years to finish its first draft and then it went through more than ten major and minor rewrites before I was happy with it, and this poor man heard it read out loud to him every word of the way. Then we suffered through the publishing process as partners, creating It’s ME! Ink Press and learning together how to launch “the baby.” Now I’ve gone through three years of creating its sequel and reading IT out loud, as well.

What are your current projects and where can folks learn more about your books and events?

Road Trip, the sequel to Beaufort Falls, should be out by August of this year. I’m working at rewriting and editing it now, and in it Molly, who was only eight in Beaufort Falls is a troubled teen-ager who teams up with her biological Dad to transport a pink trailer to Hollywood where she believes that she can sell it and make her fortune. There is a cosmic subplot to this thriller and an entirely new array of characters as they cross the country. Native Americans, Chinese gang members, a god-like superhero “more like Spiderman than Superman,” a vicious, super-powered black cat, and more make this novel even more multi-faceted than the first.

You can find Beaufort Falls for sale on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions, Barnes and Noble.com, anywhere books are sold online or you can order it from your favorite bookstore by author name (Mari Sloan) or title (Beaufort Falls). It should be delivered to your door within ten days, either way.

You can reach my website using either
http://www.beaufortfalls.com/ or http://www.marisloan.com,or/ visit my blog at http://mari-thewritersblock.blogspot.com/ . I’m also active at Book Town and you can always send me messages here, whenever you’re around.  (Mari's interview will also be posted at booktown.com)

It’s a pleasure to hang out with Susan and I thank her for her time and her wonderful questions. If there is anything else you want to contribute or ask me, leave a response here, under the interview, and I’ll reply right away!

Thanks so much, Mari. Continued success!

Crystal J.Stranaghan and The Pirate

My guest author today is multi-talented Crystal Stanaghan. She is the author of six published picture books for children, three early reader chapter books and four upcoming non-fiction titles for adults. She has worked as a publisher, editor, book designer, publishing consultant, and creative writing mentor on numerous projects. Crystal is an experienced workshop facilitator, and has taught groups ranging in age from pre-school students to adults on topics including: writing, web-marketing, publishing, wellness, goal setting and the business of making books. Crystal is the Publisher of Gumboot Books (www.gumbootbooks.com) – a Vancouver publisher that specializes in books for children and youth. Through the Self Publishing Network (www.selfpublishingnetwork.info) which she co-founded, she also works as a consultant and project coordinator for people publishing their own projects of all kinds.

Welcome, Crystal.
When did the writing bug bite, and in what genre(s)?

I've been creating stories my whole life, and decided when I was about 8 years old that I was going to be a writer when I grew up. I haven't really grown up yet, but I started to take the writing a whole lot more seriously about 6 years ago when I finished my Masters degree. I've always had wide ranging interests as far as books and life are concerned, and that's definitely reflected in the genres I like to work in. Children's books, romantic thrillers, non-fiction and self-help are my favourites.

Briefly tell us about your latest book.

My most recently published title is The Pirate Who Lost His Aarrr! (illustrated by Marcus Wild). It's a picture book, but for the older end of that spectrum (age 6-9). The story and themes are a bit more complex and the illustration style has strong graphic novel elements to it, so it appeals especially to boys in that age range. It's a tale of pirates, gold, and a cursed Captain - but is also about learning to hold on to your temper.

Is there a message in your writing you want readers to grasp?

In all of my books there is some kind of message, but I do try to make sure that it's subtle and something that the readers have to figure out for themselves. My training as a psychologist is put to good use in my children's books and I've dealt with a variety of topics over the years. The environment, facing your fears, anger management and more - but always in a way that's woven into a fun story and the learning takes a back seat to really engaging readers in the story.

Does your environment/upbringing color your writing?

Absolutely. Geographically for sure - I have a teen novel and a romantic thriller I'm working on that are both set in the small coastal BC town that I was born in called Ocean Falls. It's essentially a ghost town now, and makes a great setting for spooky stories. I have spent a lot of time in small towns (in various countries) and that comes through in the settings and types of stories I choose. My first book was called Then It Rained - which was definitely inspired by the local weather!

In a family sense, I was blessed with an adventurous family who and are also very encouraging of whatever I'm working on. They've provided great inspiration over the years, and the lessons we learned (caring for the world around you, treating people like you'd want to be treated etc.) are definitely topics that have come up in my children's books in particular. Vernon and the Snake (Gumboot Books 2007) was actually written for my Grandfather Vernon - who is petrified of garter snakes. My mom always told me to put myself in their shoes - and understand that to them, I was the monster. That all came together in this book as the story is told from the Snake's point of view on one side, and Vernon's on the other.

In my non-fiction, it comes out in the firm belief that anyone can learn to do anything-if they're stubborn enough, believe they can, and keep an open mind. Also, my parents are both great at explaining things to people, and really patient, and I think that had a direct impact on my own teaching style and on my writing. They also were really involved in the community and always contributing time and energy to various fundraising projects and A World of Stories is a direct result of their examples. That's a project we put together to raise money for literacy through Rotary Clubs.

What are your current projects?

Right now, I'm working on several different writing projects in different genres. In children's books, I'm working on books 2 and 3 of a series called The 13th Floor, illustrated by Izabela Bzymek. The first one in the series came out last year from Gumboot Books (The 13th Floor: Primed for Adventure).

I also have 3 early reader chapter books for ESL students coming out this year from the JLS Storybook Project. In the non-fiction realm, my partner Jared Hunt and I have co-authored 4 non-fiction books about writing and publishing that are coming out this spring and summer. These are paired with workshops we teach in each area, and for the next 12 months we'll be teaching these all over Canada. Between that, and keeping Gumboot Books running - that's more than enough to keep us out of trouble for the near future!

How do you promote yourself online and off?

I actually love building websites (yeah, really!) and so that's definitely the first place I start. Online marketing happens mainly through various social media channels: ning, facebook, twitter, linkedin, blogging and more. Offline, I spend most of my time either writing, teaching, or marketing books for our publishing company at events in person. This takes a variety of forms: doing readings at community events and bookstores, doing school visits, speaking at conferences, and teaching workshops.

Where can folks learn more about your books and events?

The best place to get more information is from my websites. My author website can be found at www.crystalstranaghan.com.

For information on Gumboot Books: www.gumbootbooks.ca

For information on the Self Publishing Network: www.selfpublishingnetwork.info

For information on the Live Your Dream Workshops: www.liveyourdreamworkshops.com

on twitter: @cjstranaghan