It’s Been a While

Life happens to all of us, authors too.  My life took a difficult, and painful, turn almost a year ago when I suffered the loss of my father.  His death was a mix between sudden and expected.  We all knew he was ill.  We knew his time with us was coming to a close sooner or later.  We just had no idea it would be so soon or sudden.

Not only did I have my own grief to deal with but my children’s as well.  I love writing, and I love those people who support me as they follow me here or on the other social media outlets.  Your believe matters to me!  That said, my children come first.  They were torn apart by the loss of a grandfather they were very close to, especially my youngest.  My time and attention had to focus on helping us through the difficult time.

The grief is still there, and still pretty raw.  HIs birthday is just four days away.  It will be the first spent without him.  He loved my stories, though.  He was so proud of me when I told him I decided to put real effort into making my dream of publication a reality.  He became my greatest cheerleader and fan.  He bought the first copy ever sold of The Exiles as well as two other books I wrote under another pen name.

He had I discussed the idea for my current project before he passed.  He was excited.  The story grabbed him and he even made suggestions and gave insight.  I realized the best way to honor him was not to give up on finishing the project.  The best way to honor my father is to finish the book we started together one day on his porch throwing ideas at each other.

We will visit our Exiles again one day but now I am taking you to the Kingdom of Karisan and a world trapped in the grasp of madness and terror.  You will meet the brave souls who will fight to try and free their people from the long nightmare.  These heroes are flawed and imperfect.  They are human and gritty.  I love them.  I hope you will, too.

This one’s for you, Dad.  I hope you will like it when it is done.

 

The Most Amazing Thing

The most amazing thing in the world to me is the fact that people are reading my books!  They are reading them, and they are buying them.  I cannot begin to say how surreal that is to me.  It was always the goal, but to see a life-long dream come true before my very eyes, that is something out of its own book!

I had always hoped people would read my work.  I always thought it would be pretty cool if they bought it.  It is amazing.  It is not an ego boost either.  It is actually humbling.  It makes me even more aware of how privileged I am to have been able to have this experience.  I love writing.  I write for that love of writing.  Writing is not a choice for me.  Writing is a compulsion.  The fact that others enjoy the words I have put to pages is both humbling and exhilarating.

Thank you to anyone who has bought, or read through the lending library, my book.  I hope you will also enjoy the next book in the series.  I look forward to seeing reviews, as long as they are honest, left by readers.  Reviews will help me continue to grow as a writer, so they are very important.

 

 

 

Haven’t Written In A While

I know that I have been silent here, but I have been working on my newest book.  I have released Sanctuary’s Children, The Exiles.  I am deep into the follow-up novel, War Cry.  This series has grabbed me, and it will not let me go.  I have truly enjoyed writing it so far, and I can see many stories yet to be told waiting.  This has been a busy time for me, and I hope to stay busy in this way.  Writing is not just a ‘job’ to me.  Writing is a passion.  It is a life-long dream, and I am embracing this dream with both arms.  I can only wish that anyone reading this blog will do the same thing.  No matter what it is your dream, embrace it!

Any interested can find The Exiles on Amazon.  Just click the link.  You can own it in digital, print, or simply read it for free via Kindle Unlimited.

Marketing?

Writing a novel is great.  It is the achievement of a life’s dream, and there is nothing that can put into words just how amazing that feels.  Just to see it, know it exists, and know that you managed that, is completely amazing.  There is a second half to that dream, though.  It would be very nice if people would actually read that book, too.  How is that accomplished?

Suddenly, the the author needs to become the marketer, too.  We need to figure out how to get word about our great creation into the ears of those who want to read that great creation.  This is not as easy as it sounds!  I know I am learning as I go.  If you were reading this hoping to find some great tips on how to do that marketing effectively, I’m sorry to disappoint.  If you have some great tips, leave them in the comments, please.

Writing is not a single faceted profession.  You do not get to just make up the great stories and throw them out to the world.  I wish it was.  Even those writers that are lucky enough to have the powerful publishing houses behind them, they have to work at the marketing, too.  They have to make appearances, they have to keep themselves relevant, and they have to help their marketers work with their branding.

I wrote my book!  I actually have two books available, and one is in pre-order phases.  That’s fantastic.  Now I need to convince people that they want to buy, and read, those books.  I thought writing was hard work!

Simple Views from a Simple Woman

I try to avoid addressing matters of politics, religion, or other hot topics that could alienate my readers, potential fans, and other such persons.  This is not to say I do not hold strong views.  I most certainly do have passionate views on all of the above topics.  I simply wish for my word to be taken upon face value, and not have my political, religious, or social views impact who might actually even bother reading that book.

The world we live in makes it very difficult to continue to adhere to that policy, though.  Issues that I feel strongly about appear in the news daily.  Various wars, social issues such as the ongoing struggles of the LGBT community, the rights of the religious and how they are impacted by the previously mentioned struggle, and so many other things do make me stop and go hmm.  I actually get asked where I stand on many of these issues, too.  I suppose anyone that has any sort of public image (even if my public is very small) gets asked these questions.

I have a question in response to this.  Why does it matter to anyone who is trying to decide to read my book where I stand on any of this?  Why do my personal beliefs have to be a reflection of my creative ability?  If I say I support the LGBT movement, I stand the chance of being boycotted by the Christians.  If I say I support the religious rights of those people not wishing to seem to condone same sex marriage, I stand the chance of being boycotted by the LGBT community.  So, I ask you this. Why do my political, social, or religious views have any impact whatsoever on someone’s choice to read my work or not?  Is it not possible to just take the work, and judge it solely based upon its own merit?

I promise you, if you read my work closely enough many of the answers to these questions will reveal themselves anyway.  I guess, if someone wants to know badly enough, they will take the time to read my work.

Yes, I have strong views on the world around me.  Yes, I have passionate beliefs that I hold near and dear to my heart, too.  No, I’m not going to use my blog as a platform to push forward any form of political, social, or religious agenda.  My blog is about my journey as an author, maybe some comical moments other authors can relate to.  This is not a political blog.  It is not a social commentary blog, and it is not a religious blog.  This is a writer’s blog about writing.

Thank you.

So, I think we all have insomia!

I communicate with several authors via facebook and twitter.  It is a great thing to be able to share ideas, or even jokes, with people who share your passions.  I have discovered that I am not the only author up at wee hours of the morning either working on another chapter for the next project, or just unable to sleep.  I begin to think insomnia is just an occupational hazard in the writing world.  Maybe our brilliance comes from our sleep deprived minds going in directions that they would not go were we actually well rested?

Just an observation I have recently made.  I think we all have insomnia, or maybe we’re just naturally night owls?

 

 

Awareness is great but…

April is Autism Awareness month across the world.  Many cities are lighting up monuments and buildings in blue, people are talking about this condition that impacts millions of people worldwide.  The statistics are truly frightening when you think about it.  1 in 68 live births in the United States alone are of a child that will have one of the Autism Spectrum of Disorders.  That is almost HALF the children born in our country will have this condition to some degree or another.  My life has been impacted by Autism in the form of my beloved nephew, his best friend, and a few other children I know.  We are blessed that my nephew is on the higher end of the functionality with this condition.  He is one of the lucky ones.  Awareness of Autism is vital, and I am not saying that it is not.  Awareness is just no longer good enough.  We need to strive for acceptance of these children for the very unique, special, and remarkable children that they are.

I have seen it with my sister when we take my nephew out.  Going out is difficult for him, he is assaulted from every which way by stimulus that his body cannot properly process.  I image that life for him is much like those Calgon commercials when I was younger.  The blender going, phone ringing, lights flashing to drive the poor woman insane to the point she needed a nice, soothing, QUIET bubble bath.  That would be my nephew’s life every moment of every  day, and it would be the lives of all those children who deal with Autism on a daily basis.  What we, without the disorder, perceive as a soothing sound can be jarring and frightening to those with Autism.  What we perceive as ‘just a bit spicy’ might literally be burning their mouth.  They are just that sensitive to the various inputs that come at them on a daily basis.  This can lead to what are known as ‘melt downs’. This is when the child might act out due to overstimulation.  They can scream, cry, or otherwise behave in what is ‘socially unacceptable’ behaviors in order to try and make enough noise to shut out the stimuli coming in to them too fast to process.  Meltdowns are often embarrassing to the parents of the child having one due to people who stare and judge them.  I used to be one of those people, and I won’t lie about that.

 

Children screaming at restaurants, or in the grocery store, or otherwise acting out in odd ways would make me think ‘they need to learn how to control their child’.  I was one of those people I have learned to truly dislike that would give judgemental stares, or angry stares, at both the child and the parent.  I just did not understand.  It took a very special boy to help me understand that it is neither the parent nor the child at fault for this.  I did not know, I did not grasp, and truthfully the fault was with me for assuming that the child was a ‘brat’ or a ‘terror’ or ‘spoiled’.  The information about this condition is out there, and we see it every day in commercials and literature provided.  We ARE aware!  We just don’t accept these children and adults..

 

We need to work on accepting the fact that this condition is real, it is not the fault of the child or parent, and that sometimes these things cannot be helped.  Instead of assuming that child screaming in a grocery cart is just spoiled and throwing a tantrum; we need to entertain the notion that that child might be in genuine distress and discomfort.  The poor parent is being subjected to the accusing, judgemental, and often rude glares from those around them while they are trying to deal with preventing their child from harming themselves during those moments.  Acceptance would be so much nicer for those parents and children to deal with.  Awareness is only the first step.  We have awareness now, so let us strive for genuine acceptance.

Notes Are Important

 

There are many different sources out there that claim to have the ‘formula’ for writing the perfect novel.  I’m sure they are filled with great advise, too.  I have read some of those resources, myself.  I have not followed any of them to the letter, but I have taken this idea and that to give it a whirl and see if it works for me.  The best advise I ever received came from none of those resources.  It came from my mother!

“You get all these great ideas, and half the time you forget them.  You should keep notes on your ideas so you don’t forget them.”  Mom told me one day.

The light bulb went off over my head as if this were some sort of life altering moment.  Maybe, in a way, it genuinely was a life altering moment, too.  Take notes of the ideas as they come to explore or expand them later.  Brilliant! Genius!  WHY had I not thought of that sooner?  I was the sort of writer who felt you could only have one great idea at a time.  I could not have been more wrong.

Inspiration for stories can come from anything, anywhere, and at any time.  It is important to jot those ideas down when having them for later exploration.  Make no mistake, most of these ideas may well end up discarded later.  That is not the point.  The point is jot them down so that the decision to discard them is yours and NOT because they were forgotten.

I don’t care what writing method an author uses, there is no story without the idea.  Without a great idea there would be no Stephen King, or Dean Koontz, or Terry Brooks, or Robin Cook, or any of the other dozens of authors whom I admire and enjoy.  Every book they have produced has begun with a simple idea that they later expanded upon.  Ideas are a writer’s most precious resource, and having a means to keep track of them is vital.  I use the notes app on my smartphone, but before that I carried a small notebook with me.  I still have those notebooks, too.  I look back on them time to time to see if any of the ideas I had years ago are now ready to become a fully realized novel.  I’m sure most of them never will, but that is just fine.  That was my choice, and not my memory’s choice.

 

Speaking About Great Stories

Recently I watched The Passion Live from New Orleans, narrated by Tyler Perry.  I am only writing about it now because of just how greatly this telling of such a familiar story impacted me.  I realize that it is likely that not all of my readers are Christian, and that is perfectly fine.  I am discussing HOW the story was told more than I am discussing the story and its meaning.  The Passion is the tracing of the life of Jesus from Palm Sunday through his death and resurrection.  It is one of the most important stories that Christians are taught, and it has been told more ways than I care to count.

I really was not sure what to expect when I sat down to watch this version of it.  I know I half expected it to be smoke, mirrors, and Hollywood special effects that would cloud what is such a meaningful story to so many people.  I am glad to say I was very, very wrong.  What Tyler Perry, and the cast, did with The Passion was deliver the story in its most basic form.  Yes, I’m sure there were technological marvels involved with such an ambitious production that took place at iconic locations in such a famed city!  I am not saying that there was not a lot of tech involved.

What these people did was take OUT the smoke, the mirrors, the hype, and the special effects to boil down an important story to its most basic elements.  The use of currently popular music helped bring this age old story into the modern times seamlessly.  The use of small scenes followed by passionate narration helped drive the story in a more personal way than any special effects could have.  The Passion, at the core of it, is a story about PEOPLE making difficult decisions in a very challenging time.  This version of the Passion brings us to their inner torments, their insecurities, their fears, and it lets us view them through another lens that we don’t often get to see them in.  The combination of Tyler Perry’s passionate narration that was at times joyful as well as sorrowful tied this story together perfectly.  In short – he told a GREAT story, and he told it brilliantly.

We live in a day and age where the movies try to churn out bigger explosions, better special effects, and greater technological marvels in order to sell them.  The stripping away of all these things left us with but one thing for the story to stand on – the ACTUAL story itself.  It was wonderful to see.  The fine art of storytelling is growing lost in our world, and it was good to see it found once again.  I have to say all the performers did amazing jobs on the songs they sang, and that helped tie the whole thing together.  When I was done with watching this, I was left with the thought that The Passion Live In New Orleans presented us with something we have not had.  It presented us with what could easily become an Easter Tradition to view again, and again, and again to remind us of why we have the holiday at all.

The choice of New Orleans for the telling of this story was not accidental.  This city is having its own resurrection after the horrors of the Storms, of which Katrina was but one to hit that year.  The entire region still has a lot of work to do in order to come back from the impacts.  The story of the resurrection of the Christian’s Messiah told in a city undergoing its own resurrection helped make this story even more meaningful and relevant.  I would love to see them do it again in other communities that have been battling challenges.  Cities like Detroit would make excellent choices if they decide to do this again from another city.

Well done, Tyler Perry and Cast, well done.  You told a GREAT story, and you told it amazingly.

 

Taking a Day

I took today to enjoy time with my children, my niece, my nephew, my sister and my mother.  It is good to take these days with those closest to us because we never know when we might have another chance.  Life can get busy, things get put off, and then suddenly the moment is either gone or worse – it will never come again.  People, those close to us in our real lives, are important.  It seems that they suffer from a lack of connection because too many of us have our faces buried in our phones, tablets, or computers.  We get so busy keeping up with our ‘facebook’ friends that we don’t bother keeping up with our very real, present, family.

We also have a rule in our household.  We have family dinners every evening.  We set the table, and we sit around it and enjoy our meal while catching up with one another.  NO devices are allowed during this time period.  We don’t answer the phones if they ring, either.  If it is important they can call us back or we can call them back.  The family time of our sharing a meal time is sacred time to us.  It helps keep those connections with those who are the closest to us strong.

I am not preaching to anyone how to live their lives.  I am simply rambling about things that I have noticed in life these days.  It seems we have traded the real world for the technological one, and that is a shame.  It is even more a shame for those of us that write, because the best sources of inspiration for stories come from the world around us.  We need to be present in that world, interact in that world, in order to draw material from it.  We cannot do that with our faces buried in what ever device is handy at that time.

Just some thoughts I chose to share today.

 

 

My Stories

I have two different stories in the works. Two series with very different stories to tell. The first one, The Cycle – The Shifting is already available for purchase on Amazon.  You can find it here.

My second series has the first book due out in maybe, but it is also available for pre-order on Amazon.  That series is called Sanctuary’s Children, and the first book is The Exiles.  It can be found here.

Yes one is by Marie James and the other has the name altered to D. Marie James.  I addressed the reason for that in an earlier post, but you can read that here.

I hope that you will check out my work, and that you will enjoy reading it as much as I am enjoying writing it.  All the best to you!

What Makes A Great Story?

There is one question that is always in the front of every writer’s mind.  That question is very simply – what makes a great story?  There are thousands of answers to this single question making it almost impossible to define the source of greatness when it comes to literary efforts.  The answers also come from various aspects of the art and profession of writing.

There is the technical aspect of the answer about what makes a great story.  These answers tend to discuss the actual mechanics of writing.  The fact that a great story must be able to be read.  It should be well edited and lacking in errors that can rip the reader out of the world that the story has created.  Typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors can derail and otherwise amazing story into mediocrity faster than anything else.  It simply will not matter how fantastic, amazing, unique and thought provoking a story is if it cannot be read by the reader.

There is the content answer of the question as to what makes a great story, too.  The story needs to grip the reader, and it needs to transport them in to the world of the story being told.  It needs to have continuity that does not flip flop through the whole story.  I have read stories that could have been great were it not for such continuity errors.  The main antagonist began the story with green eyes, but somehow their eyes became blue without any reason for it.  Or the spelling of a name changed, or the meaning of something important to the story was altered not by the story itself.  These errors can jar the reader out of the world, and they can make the reader put the book down.  Continuity in the world’s basic make up, themes, and characters is vital to the telling of a great story.

The story itself is vital.  The tale that is being woven with these various things in mind must be gripping.  It must reach off the pages to draw the reader in ever deeper.  There needs to be characters that can be related to.  There needs to be enough description that the world they live in comes alive, but there is a fine balance between enough description and too much description.  That balance between enough and too much is far more difficult to obtain than many people believe it to be.  The best stories are those that make the reader FEEL something. They connect with the story on some level.  There is no formula for forming that connection either.  The best advice I ever heard from another author was very simple.  “Write the story you would want to read.”  Why write a story that you would not want to curl up with and read yourself?  That makes no sense.

Not all great stories are going to be best sellers.  Not all great stories are going to hit number one on the best seller list. Some great stories exist for no other purpose than the fact that they had to be told.  There is a difference between a great story and a commercially successful story.  Often they are the same, but just as often they are not.  It would be amazing if they were.