Mike Angley

MA: My very special guest today is Dr. Ellen Kirschman of Redwood City, California. Dr. Kirschman is a licensed clinical psychologist who has specialized in police and public safety since 1978. She is the author of two books I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need To Know-Revised (Guilford, 2007) and I Love a Firefighter: What the Family Needs to Know (Guilford, 2004).

Dr. Kirschman is a member of the psychological services section of the International Association of Police Chiefs, the police, public safety subdivision of Division 18 of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology, the International Law Enforcement Trainers Association, the Public Safety Writers Association, and Mystery Writers of America. She has published more than a dozen articles and book chapters about police stress, the psychology of recovering from critical incidents, and strategies for consultation to organizational issues in law enforcement. Her essay “Bare Butts and Bare Souls” was included in the anthology What Would Sipowicz Do? Race, Rights and Redemption in NYPD Blue (Ben Bella, 2004). She and Dr. Lorraine Greene are co-developers of www.policefamilies.com, named web site of the month by the American Psychological Association.

She provides psychological consultation and peer support training to many local and federal public safety agencies, police, fire and probation. She was co-facilitator of the Trauma Team Training Institute for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) from1996-2008.

Dr. Kirschman has appeared on a number of national radio and television programs. She has been an invited guest at four national conferences on police psychology sponsored by the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit. She is listed in Who’s Who in American Women and was once named Woman of Distinction by the Police Chief’s Spouses Worldwide.

Dr. Kirschman currently devotes her time to training and public speaking, including guest lectures at the Hong Kong Police Department and the Singapore Police Force. She volunteers at the West Coast Post Trauma Retreat, a peer-driven, clinically guided retreat for first responders with PTSD.

You certainly have some extensive credentials with respect to the behavioral science aspects of the law enforcement community. I tend to focus my blog on fiction authors, and I understand you’ve got a novel WIP right now. But I’d like to hear more about your work with law enforcement and the non-fiction books you’ve authored.

EK: I’ve been a working police psychologist for most of my career – long before I had any gray hair. These days I spend my time giving workshops worldwide and locally, writing, and volunteering at the West Coast Post trauma Retreat for first responders with work related traumatic stress. I wrote I Love a Co because it was clear to me that officers and their families were unprepared for how much police work would spillover to their personal lives.

I wrote I Love a Fire Fighter and revised I Love a Cop after September 11th when the world changed dramatically for all of us, but especially for first responders. Writing self-help books is tough work involving a lot of research. The easy part was filling the book with real life stories from my files. The hard part was separating good science from junk science and condensing complex ideas into comprehensible, practical information. That’s when I became delusional and thought that making stuff up had to be easier. It isn’t. It’s taken me longer to write the first draft of my mystery than it did to write both books and the revision.

MA: Fiction can be tough! Tell us about your story.

EK: My mystery, working title Burying Ben, is still unpublished and in search of an agent. It features, Dr. Dot Meyerhoff, a police psychologist, whose job is a lot more dangerous than mine. Dot’s on the job one month when Ben Gomez, a rookie she is counseling, commits suicide and everyone blames her. At stake is her job, her reputation, her license to practice, and her already battered sense of self-worth. Refusing to be a scapegoat, she resolves to find out, not just what led this odd young man to commit suicide, but why her psychologist ex-husband, the man she most wants to avoid, recommended that he be hired in the first place. Ben’s surviving family and everyone else connected to him are just as determined to keep Ben’s story a secret, by any means necessary. As she pursues the truth, Dot discovers that no one is who they seem to be. Even Ben, from the grave, has secrets to keep.

MA: How did you develop your heroine’s character?

EK: Through trial and error. The more autobiographical I was, the harder it was to tell the story. I kept thinking “this wouldn’t have happened this way” or ” I would have reacted differently.” The transition from adhering to the truth as a non-fiction writer to creating a compelling story was a big shift for me.

MA: Tell us more about Dot’s personality and about the real “bad guys” in the story.

EK: She’s pretty funny and plenty gutsy, although her reckless pursuit of the truth gets her in big trouble.  She has several antagonists, including her ex-husband and his new wife. It’s hard for her to tell who’s on her side and who’s trying to destroy her.

MA: Considering your background, is there a little bit of your personal and/or professional life in the story?

EK: There are bits and pieces of my clients and colleagues in every character. Even my family pops up in surprising ways.

MA: Is this mystery going to be your only venture into fiction, and do you have any plans for more non-fiction works?

EK: I’m in discussion with my first publisher regarding another non-fiction book about treating police officers and their families. My files are full of amazing stories. Burying Ben is only the first in a series of Dot Meyerhoff mysteries. Some of the characters will migrate to future books, some will have dropped out of sight, and some will be lurking in the shadows.

MA: I love things that lurk in shadows – in the fictional world, of course.  Thanks for stopping by the Child Finder Trilogy. To learn more about Dr. Kirschman’s books and her workshops or to contact her, visit her website: www.ellenkirschman.com.

I’m honored to have been featured on two new fellow-writers’ blogs within the past couple of weeks.  My good friend and regular contributor to the Child Finder Trilogy, Mary Deal, ran a blurb about me on her blog, Write Any Genre (THANK YOU, MARY!).  Please visit Mary’s website where you will find all kinds of great articles with advice on writing, much like the wonderful articles she contributes to my blog on a regular basis.

Also, Sarah Cortez, a freelance editor, poet, and author, had me as a guest-blogger on her website, Creative Writing.  I really like how the interview came out, and I encourage all to visit Sarah’s website and read the interview as well as the other interviews and articles she has.  Great stuff!

Clichés and Jargon

by

Mary Deal

Do you know how much of your day-to-day language contains clichés and jargon? The way you speak among your family and peers defines your roots and the person you are.  However, in writing, clichés make your story stale and jargon needs to suit the time period of the story.

If you are writing a story that takes place, perhaps in the 1930s or any older time period, you’ll need to capture the language of the day. Whether you have your characters speak these lines or your narrator uses them, similar phrases of the early Twentieth Century may be something like:

A penny for your thoughts

The pot calling the kettle black

Putting the horse before the cart

To include such phrases in a modern-day story tells of an elderly author who has not kept up with language changes, or tells of a younger author bound in family colloquialisms. With the exception of writing a story in a past time frame, the language you use must be the most up-to-date as possible.

You can free your muse to create lines all your own. Add humor. Be silly. You can even add wry humor into a thriller.

Remember what the police used to ask, perhaps at a stake out? “Did you spot him?” Today, the police say “Do you have an eyeball?”

Try this: “His voice squeaked like a fledgling choirboy.” Instead say, “His high pitched voice made him sound as if in a perpetual state of shock.”

When a person is fired from the job, you would no longer say “He got the boot.” You might say “He took it in the shorts.”

One such change I used in my novel, “River Bones,” was when referring to a person’s mind, I called it his attic. The lines I used were: “Crazy Ike never hurt anyone. He was just a little off-center in the attic.”

Depending on the overall “feel” of the book, you might choose to have your narrator use these phrases. The narrator may be an old-timer relating an experience. She or he can use old jargon along with the characters.

You may choose to have your narrator be a modern-day speaker relating a story about age old characters. They would be the only ones to speak the clichéd language to enhance their dialog and give the reader a sense of the characters’ personalities.

Writers need to have a library or resource at their fingertips. Many books have been published defining American colloquialisms, British colloquialisms, even police jargon. Books on worn out phrases have also been published. Lists can even be found on the Internet. Every author should have some of these on hand to help avoid worn out language. The overall intention is to give your stories a sense of freshness, to help your reader avoid feeling they’ve “read something like this before.”

Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre.

MA: W.S. Gager has lived in West Michigan for most of her life except for stints early in her career as a newspaper reporter and editor. Now she enjoys creating villains instead of crossing police lines to get the story. She teaches English at a local college and is a soccer chauffeur for her children. During her driving time she spins webs of intrigue for Mitch Malone’s next crime-solving adventure. Her second book in the Mitch Malone Mystery Series has a working title of A Case of the Accidental Intersection and is due out this month.

I understand you’ve been involved with writing professionally for a long time.  Tell us more about that.

WSG: I have always been making a living from writing. I went to Central Michigan University and walked away with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. From there I worked at a half dozen newspapers for a decade, then came children whose schedule didn’t allow me to chase ambulances anymore. I moved into more public relations writing where I could control the schedule. Crime reporting always happened at the most inconvenient of times. During that time I also wrote speeches and that really helped me with dialogue. Getting into people’s heads and figuring out how they would word things. Four years ago I was recuperating from surgery and started on a book. This time I told myself I was going to finish it. I did and the characters in my head have never let me rest since!

MA: You’ve certainly dipped your toes in a few areas involving writing, but mostly non-fiction.  What brought you to write a novel?

WSG:  For as long as I can remember I have been a voracious reader. At many times I have started books and then life got in the way and I put them aside. It wasn’t so much as me choosing to write a novel, it was that I couldn’t not write a novel. Now the ideas just come. I could happily write 24/7. Then I would have to edit which I don’t find so much fun!

MA: It may sound crazy, but I actually enjoy the editing process.  I like to think of my initial draft manuscript as a simple black and white sketch, but it’s during the editing process that I add color and dimension.  Are your mysteries hard-boiled?

WSG: My stories are fun reads similar to a cozy mystery with an amateur sleuth named Mitch Malone. He has some issues and gets himself into trouble in my first book, A Case of Infatuation. Crime Beat Reporter Mitch Malone’s rules are simple: He never lets the blood and guts he covers bother him. He always works alone. And he hates kids. Mitch breaks all three rules when he unwittingly agrees to smuggle a potential witness out of a suburban Michigan home while police investigate a mob-style hit that’s left two dead bodies. Mitch sends his intern (a real hottie, but nonetheless an interloper) to interview neighbors, hoping to throw her off, but when he finds the pint-sized survivor the killer overlooked, he decides she might be helpful. When the FBI accuses him of the murder, Mitch goes into hiding with the bombshell intern who doesn’t talk and the precocious preschooler. Mitch works his contacts to regain his freedom from his roommates only to find they each hold keys to a bizarre story of disappearances, terrorists and the perfect hamburger recipe.

MA: (chuckling) I like Mitch and the story already…terrorists and hamburgers…I’m going to have to read it!  Where did your hero come from?

WSG:  Mitch came to me in a dream. I woke up with Mitch’s story buzzing in my head. I got up and six hours later I had half the rough draft done. Originally I thought the female in the book, Patrenka, would be the main character but Mitch just wouldn’t leave me alone and he took over the book.

MA: I know how a character can take control!  What makes Mitch tick, besides trying to avoid kids?

WSG: Mitch likes to think of himself as a real loner. He doesn’t need anybody. He’s a bit full of himself. In A Case of Infatuation, he has a major character change in that he stops going for the story to doing what is best for his source and realizes he can care about somebody. In the second book with a working title of A Case of the Accidental Intersection, Mitch again gets involved in one of his stories and an accident victim propels him to dig deeper. Even though Mitch is learning to care about other people, his “it’s all about me” attitude does get him into some funny situations.

MA: With a character as colorful as Mitch, does he have an evil doppelganger nemesis of some kind?

WSG:  There isn’t a reoccurring bad guy. In each of the books, the good guy (Mitch) wins and the bad guys go to jail. In book three, which is only in a rough draft phase, his love interest in the first book, Patrenka, returns. She is one woman who knows how to push all his buttons and walk away unscathed. Mitch struggles with trust issues and if he is ready for a full relationship. Every time he thinks he has her figured out, she throws him a curve and leaves him questioning what he wants.

MA: Does art imitate life in your stories?

WSG: Mitch is a crime beat reporter like I was for several years. Much of the background for Mitch came from my reporting days. Also some of the things he encounters are things I ran across while reporting. The beauty of fiction is I can take a kernel of truth and spin it to fit my purposes or make it worse than it was.

MA:  It sounds like your writing has kept you busy.  Are you writing more stories?

WSG: I plan on producing at least a book a year as long as I can get them published. I have a second mystery series featuring a female protagonist set in the nonprofit world that I will be marketing to agents and publishers shortly. I also have a great idea for a standalone book that isn’t a mystery. That one is just in the idea and notes phase but has really captured my interest.

MA: Will Mitch stick around and resurface in some of these new stories?

WSG: Mitch will stay in his own series I think and I have ideas for at least three more. In the second series that I call the Back Room Babes Books, each book will feature a different executive director from a different nonprofit organization and a major crisis and mystery for them to solve. Each book will have characters from the previous books in them. The stand alone book will not have any characters from previous books.

MA: What do you tell people about yourself and your writing, and what do you hope people gain from reading your stories?

WSG: In my writing, I try to not take it very seriously. That isn’t to say I’m not a dedicated writer but I like to keep my characters human. I want to provide a great story that you can’t put down but I also want to generate smiles and laughter with some of my character’s antics. My books are about dead bodies and mysteries that need to be solved but with unique characters that provide levity as well. I want people to be entertained when they read my books and walk away smiling.

MA: W.S., thanks for swinging by and guest-blogging today.  I encourage people to visit W.S. Gager’s website, and that of her publisher: www.wsgager.com, and www.oaktreebooks.com.

MA: Today’s guest-blogger is Richard Brawer, a multi-published mystery-thriller author.  After graduating the University of Florida and a stint in the National Guard, Richard worked for 35 years in the textile industry.  He spends his retirement years writing novels, sailing and gardening.  He has two married daughters and lives in New Jersey with his wife.  Beyond Guilty is his fourth published novel.

Welcome, Richard!  How did you go from the textile industry to writing?  Is there some connection to or inspiration from your years in the textile business to your fiction?

RB: I started writing as something to do in retirement.  But as friends and family said I should try to get them published, I became serious about writing.  Did my professional career inspire my writing?  Absolutely.  My novel, Silk Legacy, is set in early twentieth century Paterson, NJ in the height of the silk era which Paterson was famous for.  My grandfather started a silk business in 1904.  It is very, very loosely based on vignettes about his early years in the silk business.   And of course my years in the textile business helped me as I knew about weaving and selling textiles. If you go to my website www.silklegacy.com and click on the silk legacy tab you will see all the great reviews it has received.  Silk Legacy was the book published just before Beyond Guilty, my latest book.

MA: Tell us about your latest novel and some of its characters.

RB: Beyond Guilty is a high concept thriller where a wrongly convicted woman escapes from death row and fights to prove her innocence, and the development of the latest nanotech drug that has the potential to virtually wipe out all disease.  Again if you go to my website you can read reviews and more about the book.

Characters for Beyond Guilty?  This is really an interesting question.  My daughter is a lawyer at NBC/Universal in California.  She also writes scripts.  One of her scripts, Beyond the Evidence, (note similarity in the title) won a number of awards plus $1000.00 in a writer’s digest contest.  Despite her contacts she could not find a movie company to produce the movie.  The screen play has an African-American male as the protagonist.  I said let me write it as a book with an African-American female protagonist as there are many African-American actresses, but very few have leading roles.  Most are supporting characters.  So I did, but the book took on a life of its own.  There is no nanomedicine (see website) or island in her story (click on scenes from the book at the top of the home page in the website.)  She has now written a second screen play from the book and is showing it around.  The heroine’s strength is her strong female character, but causing the deaths of her sisters continues to torment her.

MA: It sounds like you’ve got a good corporate-conspiracy type of thriller, can I assume there’s a greedy tycoon antagonist of some sort?

RB: Yes, the CEO of the drug company that kidnapped her to experiment on her and others.  Also his henchman who chases her after she escapes the island. Both are antognists.

MA: Since you came from the textile industry, and draw inspiration at least from it and your knowledge of the silk industry in New Jersey, did any of your real-life experiences help fill in the plot?

RB: The only real life experience in the plot is the nanomedicine which is real.  See my website for Robert A. Freitas, Jr. who edited the references to nanomedicine and wrote an essay at the end of the novel explaining where the research on nanomedicine is today.

MA: What comes next for you?

RB: I have just finished another suspense novel about a conspiracy with the military/industrial complex.  I am now working on a conspiracy story involving Japan.  Although in my early writing career I wrote a series of three mysteries with the same detective set at the Jersey Shore, two of which were published by small presses, none of the characters in my latest novels will appear in future novels.

MA: Thanks for stopping by The Child Finder Trilogy today!  Folks, read more about Richard Brawer and his stories at his website: www.silklegacy.com.

MA: Born a Military Brat, Marilyn Morris attended schools overseas, in Seoul Korea (1946-47) and Linz, Austria (1949-1952) and various schools stateside.  From this background, she has crafted her autobiographical Once a Brat, relating her travels with her army officer father from her birth in 1938 to his retirement in 1958.

Her first novel, Sabbath’s Room, was published in 2001, followed by Diagnosis: Lupus:  The Intimate Journal of a Lupus. More novels quickly followed:  The Women of Camp Sobingo; Forces of Nature; Sabbath’s Gift; and Sabbath’s House. Additionally, she has published a collection of humor/human interest articles written for a newspaper over a 10-year period, titled: My Ashes of Dead Lovers Garage Sale.

She has taught creative writing at Tarrant County College, Fort Worth TX and survived numerous book signings and speaking engagements.  She is a member of the North Texas Chapter of the Lupus Foundation of America.

When not writing or editing emerging writers’ manuscripts, she enjoys her family and friends worldwide and near her home in Fort Worth TX. True to her Brat heritage, she has a suitcase packed under the bed, ready to travel at a moment’s notice.

I have to thank you for your service as a military brat!  I’ve got three of them myself, and they were real troopers each time we moved.  We also served in Korea, and believe it or not, it’s one of the places my kids loved the most.  It was the hardest place for us to leave.

You began writing as a young girl, as I recall you mentioning to me earlier.

MM: I think I was born with a pencil in my hand.  All my family read voraciously, and when I was in kindergarten, I figured out that the squiggles the teacher made on the blackboard were letters, and letters made words, and words made stories.  My mother says I was “writing” stories from age three on.  In school, I wrote for the school newspaper.  I didn’t start writing “for real” until I was about 50; I was divorced, my children were grown and I had the time to do what I really wanted to do.

MA: So why choose fiction over non-fiction?  It would seem with your background, you could produce some great real-life stories for a compelling book.

MM: A vivid imagination.  Writing non-fiction, such as articles where accuracy is required, intimidates me.  I would much rather write imaginatively, than be bored with dry facts.  I’ve read that the definition of a novelist is “Telling lies for fun and profit.”  So far, lots of fun; very little profit.  But I wouldn’t trade fiction writing for anything.

MA: I’d have to second that! I spent a quarter of a century of my adult life writing non-fiction…reports of investigation, intelligence reports, analytical pieces, and so forth.  It was dry and boring.  I like the escape that fiction gives me. Tell us about your novels.

MM: My Sabbath books — two are published, one more is coming soon — could be described as paranormal, or supernatural mystery.  My first novel with Vanilla Heart Publishing is The Women of Camp Sobingo. This novel is based on my mother’s experiences as an army wife in the post-WWII years in a remote military compound outside Seoul, Korea.

Forces of Nature came from a thought while shopping in a suburban shopping mall:  What if one of the Air Force bombers from the base nearby would crash into the mall?  Add to that, what if the plane would be blown into the mall by a fierce tornado?  Who would live and who would die?

Sabbath’s Gift is a reprint of my first novel, Sabbath’s Room, and deals with a black cat who “once belonged to a witch” who is witness to a double murder and provides answers to the mystery of whatever happened to the couple who lived in the remote farmhouse?

Sabbath’s House is the second in the Sabbath Trilogy, and deals with the beleaguered Elliott family who trade one haunted house for another in the Texas Hill Country.

I also have a collection of humor/human interest columns written for a suburban newspaper over a ten year period, titled: My Ashes of Dead Lovers Garage Sale (and other stories from a single woman of a certain age) and two non-fiction books that arose from my own experiences:

Once a Brat arose from a request by the president of The American Overseas Schools Historical Society for me to please document my experiences as having been one of the first military brats to be deployed overseas after WWII with my army officer father.  I gladly complied, and he then urged me to have the ms. published. The original ms. is in the archives in the museum in Wichita KS.   I am currently writing a sequel that will feature contributions from other military brats.

The second non-fiction book is Diagnosis: Lupus: The Intimate Journal of a Lupus Patient where I took pages from three years of journaling about finding a diagnosis and treatment of this puzzling disease.  It has received the designation of Recommended Reading by the Education Committee of The Lupus Foundation of America.  As with my army brat book, I am also writing a second book about lupus; while the first is from my own personal perspective, the sequel will feature contributions from other lupus sufferers.

MA: You have unique protagonists.  Tell us about them.

MM: I think with all my novels, all the protagonists are strong women.  In my upcoming historical romance, The Unexplored Heart, the heroine is a strong young woman who strikes out on her own in Victorian England.  The heroes and heroines in my novels have flexibility that enables them to take unorthodox paths to attain their goals.  And, conversely, it turns out that in many instances, that very strength turns out to be one of their weaknesses.  My characters are always surprising me.

MA: What kinds of antagonists do you manage to insert into your stories to wreak havoc on the heroines?

MM: I think circumstances in which the characters find themselves is the “bad guy”, be it the isolation of a remote military compound or confronting a natural force like a tornado and surviving.  It’s an interesting thought…..my characters must search deep inside themselves to not only solve the problem, mystery, or isolation thrust on them, but to survive.

MA: I know many of your own real-life experiences influenced your writing.  Can you elaborate more on that?

MM: Oh, yes.  I tell people my first novel was written in revenge.  I had gone through a terrible, protracted divorce, and no doubt took out my frustrations on my soon-to-be ex husband….the bodies in the cellar could certainly have had his face on them!  While it was my mother who had the true-life experiences portrayed in The Women of Camp Sobingo, I also felt the impact of that unusual life, even as an eight and nine year old girl.

MA: What are you working on now, and will you migrate any of your current characters to future stories?

MM: Oh, yes.  The protagonist in The Women of Camp Sobingo, Trudy Cavanaugh, who suffered a tragedy while she was in Korea as an army wife, will get her very own sequel, to be called, That Cavanaugh Woman. This will show how her innate strength carries her from her years as an army wife to her world-wide fame as the CEO of a publishing empire in an environment and era where she made her own path.  Other characters from the original book will make appearances to test her mind and spirit.  I can’t wait to get this book under way!

MA: I know you are also involved in some wonderful programs to support the troops.  Tell us about that.

MM: All my books from Vanilla Publishing are available in eBook format.  Recently, through the wonder of the Internet, I was asked to participate in Operation eBook Drop, through a partnership between Smashwords and Vanilla Heart Publishing, It will enable our deployed military personnel to gain access to my books through any of their reading devices.  Free.  Absolutely free.  As many books as they would like.  My late father, RM Morris, US Army Artillery during the WWII and Cold War eras, would be so pleased I’m able to participate and support our troops.

MA:  Thanks, Marilyn, for being my special guest today, for your service, and for your continued support to the troops.  Folks, check out Marilyn’s blog: http://mcmauthor.wordpress.com/ as well as her author’s page on the Vanilla Heart Publishing website: http://www.vanillaheartbooksandauthors.com/Marilyn_Morris.html

MA: Peggy Bechko is a multi-faceted writer. Some would say she’s far-stretched, others, multi-talented. Born in Michigan, raised in Indiana and Florida, she now lives with her husband in New Mexico, a beautiful state of mountains, pines, desert and cactus.

Fiction has been her passion from about the age of fourteen. Her only quandary was that she could never write anything short. So, in the course of things, she just kind of skipped over short stories and jumped right to novel length and submitted what she felt was her first marketable works when she was nineteen, to a literary agency in New York. They welcomed her into their ranks of writers, addressing her as Mister Bechko, which at that time went uncorrected as she was then submitting westerns and was told, repeatedly, “women can’t write westerns.”

Her first sale was to Doubleday, the editor with whom she dealt, was also greatly surprised to find himself talking to a young woman. But, over time, everybody adjusted. The book, THE NIGHT OF THE FLAMING GUNS, written it in the first person as a middle-aged man, was published when she was twenty-two. Doubleday went on to buy a total of five westerns from her.

Congratulations, Peggy, on your success as a writer, a career which began unusually early in life.  Most authors don’t publish until they are older, after experiencing life a bit and dabbling in different careers.  Given your quick start, I assume not much preceded your writing endeavors?

PB:  There’s not a lot to tell about the prequel of my writing career since it’s pretty much what I’ve always done: write.  I had my first novel published with Doubleday when I was 21.  After that I published on a fairly regular basis, westerns, then romance, and finally fantasy.  Along with that, as westerns rarely pay all the bills, I did frequently hold jobs as well.  I’ve been a bookkeeper, an administrative assistant, an assistant bookstore director at a college and legal assistant.  I took a few years off writing novels to be mentored in screenwriting, optioned several scripts domestically and abroad, wrote a script for an animated TV show airing in France and now work on script or novel – whichever appeals.  I’ve also written articles, reports and other commercial projects to help keep the bills paid.

MA: Talk about your passion for fiction, in particular novel-length stories.

PB: I chose to write novels mainly because I couldn’t stop.  Never did write short stories (though I did more recently and won an award for it).  First writings were simply novella length and they expended right into novels when I learned how to fill in the details.

I’ve written in several genres.  Western, romance and adult adventure/fantasy.  Western and romance are in hard copy format.  Fantasy is Stormrider, published at www.fictionworks.com as an Ebook.

MA: Do you find it difficult to write, especially the basic mechanics, plotting, character development, and the like?

PB:  Developing characters – protagonist or others, has always been a pretty natural progression for me.  I usually get a story idea first, then ideas for the characters flow into the mix.  It was all launched by the protagonist in my first western who was actually my grandfather in disguise.   The strengths of my hero or heroine are good character, solid resolve and adaptability…weaknesses are they’re human!

MA: As an accomplished writer, how much do you think an author’s personal life experiences should find themselves inside the plot of a work of fiction?

PB:  I think every writer’s real-life experiences are factors in every plot they write.  It’s life experiences that mold us and give us the grist for our collective mill.  It’s those experiences, life’s pain and triumph, defeat and victory that we instill into our characters.  Living life and being human is the basis of our experience and thus that of our characters.   Understanding by experience what it’s like to love, to hate, to fear – that’s all part of what we write.  Without that experience we’re empty and have nothing to put on the page.   I discuss just that in my book for new and young writers at http://www.newwriterguide.com

MA: Those are some powerful words, and spot-on observations.  So, what’s next?

PB: Beyond this – novel writing, which I am currently doing in the form of a new paranormal romance, I plan to write more scripts (have several ideas that need fleshing out) and do more ghostwriting and commercial writing.  I usually dedicate part of my day to my own projects and part to the projects of someone else to keep the bills paid.

MA:  Do you have any words of advice to aspiring writers?

PB: Writing, in any form, is my first love.  Unfortunately very few fiction writers can earn a living writing full time; it’s a small percentage who do.  Fortunately, there are other ways for writers to fill the gaps.  Think of everyday life.  What doesn’t include writing?  Who writes the newspaper articles serious or fluff?  Who writes screen or TV scripts?  Who writes magazine articles or the reports or instruction books or catalog copy or sales letters or the web content or the blogs?  If everyone suddenly stopped writing for a day what would be the result?  So all my writing life I’ve moved through different areas of writing and have loved every minute of it.  I recommend other writers who love to write, love to sculpt the sentence and paragraph, do the same.  You don’t have to do the shotgun effect, but find several areas of writing you delight in and pursue them.

MA:  That’s some great advice.  Peggy, thanks for visiting with me today and sharing your insight and inspiration with my readers.  Peggy has several websites and social media sites which I encourage everyone to visit:

http://www.PeggyBechko.50megs.com
http://www.PeggyBechko.blogspot.com
http://www.twitter.com/PeggyBechko
http://www.newwriterguide.com

Mike: Melanie Atkins a multi-published author of suspense and romantic suspense, a fan of crime dramas, and an avid reader. Writing is more than an escape for her—it’s a way of life. She grew up in the Deep South listening to tall tales and penning stories about her cats. Now she writes gripping stories of love, suspense, and mystery with the help of her furry little feline muses.

I love your genre, and I also know you have some connection to the law enforcement community.  Tell us about your background and what brought you to writing your novels.

Melanie: I’m the former wife of a police officer, and even though we divorced I admire all the brave men and women who protect and serve–and I love to write about them. Fiction grabbed me at a young age and I can’t stop writing. In an effort to “make it real and get it right,” I’ve completed two local Citizen’s Police Academies and have attended numerous writing conferences with law enforcement sessions taught by professionals, including Forensic University sponsored by the St. Louis chapter of Sisters in Crime. Some of the professionals there have turned out to be excellent resources who are eager to help. Even though I’ve sold many books, I know I’ll never stop learning.  I’ve written a good many short stories and even a little poetry (which no one will ever see) over the years but I tend to write long. I love the escape books provide and I hope to give my readers that same pleasure.

Mike: I was in law enforcement for over 25 years, and I know the sacrifices the spouses make, so thanks for your support to the troops.  Tell us about your novels.

Melanie: PRIME SUSPECT is a suspense set in New Orleans. In this story, New Orleans Assistant District Attorney Marisa Cooper prosecutes murderers for a living, but the tables are turned on her when her ex-husband is found dead in her garage. To prove her innocence, she must team up with her former fiancée, Slade Montgomery, the detective who risks his career–and his heart–to help her find the real killer.

SKELETON BAYOU is s single title romantic suspense set in south Louisiana. In this book, Savannah Love is emotionally and physically battered, but is determined to survive after escaping the hellish imprisonment imposed on her by her psychotic cop-husband. After seven months in hiding, she resurfaces at Mossy Oak, her ramshackle family home on a Louisiana bayou, and attempts to restart her life. The empty house provides shelter, but isn’t the fortress she needs when her cruel ex comes calling.

Mack O’Malley, former cop turned handyman conflicted over a bad shoot on the job, comes to Savannah’s rescue when the psychopath draws them into a deadly game of cat and mouse. Fearful of Mack at first, she soon discovers that beneath his steely exterior lies a resolute defender with a heart hungry for love. Will their alliance save them, or will they fall victim to the Legend of Skeleton Bayou?

Mike: How did you develop the ideas for the stories?

Melanie: I come up with a basic story premise, then develop my characters using character diamonds that include their four main traits–putting my two main characters at odds with each other and the villain. Everything they say and do must come from one of the corners of the diamond. I’ve found that it’s an effective way to build my heroes and heroines.

Mike: Tell us more about your heroines and heroes.

Melanie: My heroes tend to be loyal, brave, and trustworthy–but they are afraid to trust, to risk their hearts. They give their all to save the heroine and defeat their adversary, even if it means being hurt or even dying, but usually they intend to walk away in the end so they won’t get hurt. In PRIME SUSPECT, Slade is afraid Marisa will leave him again. She did once before, so why not now? He fights his attraction to her but finally gives in and together they bring down a killer.

Mike:  And the bad guys?

Melanie: Each of my books has a different villain. PRIME SUSPECT has an entire family of them, allowing for enough red herrings to keep the reader guessing. SKELETON BAYOU is a bigger book with a secondary storyline that has its own villains. It’s a complicated story.

Mike: Since you grew up in the Deep South, I bet your early experiences there shaped your writing, correct?

Melanie: As far as the settings go, yes. As for the plot, not exactly. My love of New Orleans plays a large part in many of my stories. I’m fascinated with the city, and I believe that comes out in PRIME SUSPECT. As for SKELETON BAYOU, I’ve visited the Louisiana swamp, and it scared me–which gave me the idea for that book. The plot of each of my stories comes totally from my imagination–even though I might get an idea from a dream, a newspaper story, or an event I witness. All of life is material, and I try to keep my eyes and ears open.

Mike: What are you working on next?

Melanie: I’m working on a gritty single title suspense set in my hometown. I’m hoping to shine a light in a very dark place and keep readers guessing.

Also, in my six-book New Orleans Detective series (PRIME SUSPECT is the 2nd book), I introduce the hero for the next title in each book, then bring them back from time to time. They all work together, and I love revisiting the characters and seeing how they’ve grown.

Mike: Sounds like some fun reads!  Please visit Melanie’s website and blog for more information about her and her books: http://www.melanieatkins.com and http://melanieatkins.wordpress.com

MA: Dianne Ascroft is a Canadian writer, living in Britain. She has been freelance writing since 2002. Her non-fiction writing focuses on history, arts/music and human interest stories. She particularly enjoys interviewing music personalities and has had the pleasure of chatting with a variety of people including former Bay City Rollers lead singer, Les McKeown and the classical singing trio, The Priests. Her articles have been printed in Canadian and Irish newspapers and magazines including the Toronto Star, Mississauga News, Derry Journal, Banbridge Leader, Senior Times and Ireland’s Own magazine. She has had several short stories published in Irish magazines. Hitler and Mars Bars is her first novel, and it is an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award quarter finalist!

Dianne started life in a quiet residential neighborhood in the buzzing city of Toronto and has progressively moved to smaller places through the years. She now lives on a small farm in Northern Ireland with her husband and an assortment of pets. If she ever decides to write her autobiography the working title will be Downsizing.

It sounds like you’ve had a variety of writing experiences that no doubt led you to your first novel, but that all seems to have begun within the last eight years. What else have you done that may have contributed to your writing career?

DA: Like many writers, writing has never been my primary occupation. I’ve always held a day job and written in my spare time. I’ve held a variety of jobs over the years. In Canada, after I graduated from university, I focused on the information management field. I worked as a library clerk in a corporate library and as an archives clerk in the public sector. When I moved to Northern Ireland, in 1990, I landed every booklover’s dream job – an assistant in a bookshop. Needless to say, that was heaven for an avid reader like me and I stayed there for several years. Since 1998 I’ve held various clerical positions on short term contracts. I like this flexible approach to employment as breaks between assignments give me a chance to spend some extra time writing. It also allows me time to enjoy country life with our animals on our small farm.

MA: With all your experience writing non-fiction, what inspired you to write a novel?

DA: I had toyed with the idea for ages before I began Hitler and Mars Bars. I had ideas for plots but I couldn’t decide which one to start – until I found a tale that I had to tell. And it was a much bigger tale than I could tell in a short story so it pushed me into writing a novel. I heard about a Red Cross humanitarian aid effort, Operation Shamrock, which brought German children to Ireland to recuperate after the Second World War. The story of this endeavor opened up a new aspect of Irish and German history for me – one that has been overlooked in the history books. It aroused my curiosity so I waded into researching the project. Fascinated by what I learned about this little known episode in history, I wanted to bring the events and the era alive for readers. The novel was born from that. I found it exciting and a challenge to create a story that was entertaining and also recounted real historical events.

MA: You certainly have an interesting title for the novel, as well as a fascinating historical backdrop for it.  Tell us about the story.

DA: Hitler and Mars Bars is the story of a German boy growing up in war-torn Germany and post war rural Ireland. Set against the backdrop of Operation Shamrock, a little known Irish Red Cross initiative which helped German children after World War II, my novel explores a previously hidden slice of Irish and German history. Erich, growing up in Germany’s embattled Ruhr area during World War II, knows only war and deprivation. His mother disappears after a heavy bombing raid leaving him distraught. After the war the Red Cross transports Erich and his younger brother, Hans, to Ireland, along with hundreds of other children, to recuperate from the devastating conditions in their homeland.

During the next few years Erich moves around Ireland through a string of foster families. He experiences the best and worst of Irish life, enduring indifference and brutality and sometimes finding love and acceptance. Plucky and resilient, Erich confronts every challenge he meets and never loses hope. Hitler and Mars Bars is the tale of a boy who is flung into a foreign land to grow and forge a new life.

MA: Obviously since you live in Ireland you understand the culture there, so I imagine that helped you shape Erich as a character.  What else did you do to bring him to life?

DA: It was a challenge for me to develop Erich’s character and understand how he sees the world. Erich’s viewpoint is very different from my own. It isn’t his nationality that is ‘foreign’ to me as much as his gender. Some emotions and responses to our life experiences are universal but there are differences between male and female perceptions of the world. I used the recollections of a German man who was part of the initiative to help me understand how Erich might feel about what was happening to him and to decide how he would behave.

This man’s recollections, as well as information I gleaned from my research about other children’s experiences as part of Operation Shamrock, helped me create my character. I tried to create a character that is believable – one who acts and thinks like a real child.

The book is set in 1940s and 50s Ireland where the people had deep Christian beliefs. These beliefs, and the actions they prompted (living their lives in keeping with their beliefs), are clear in the novel’s main characters.

MA: Describe Erich some more.

DA: Irrepressible and impulsive are good words to describe Erich. These characteristics can be either positive or negative aspects of his personality depending on the situation he finds himself in. He frequently gets into mischief but he doesn’t mean any harm. Erich is a fighter in the courageous rather than the brawling sense of the word. Before he’s even school age he has already survived a war and circumstances most adults never face, yet he remains hopeful and resilient. His spirit borders on brashness which annoys some people he meets. But it serves him well as he’s not easily cowed and doesn’t give up even when life just seems to get worse.

He is fiercely loyal to the people he loves. Because he feels so intensely he is also easily hurt by any perceived betrayals. This can cause him to misinterpret situations and overreact. He finds it hard to forgive and can hate as intensely as he loves. Readers have told me they like Erich because he isn’t romanticized; he behaves like a real child.  He will awaken the reader’s parental instincts to love and discipline him in equal measures.

MA: Given the nature of the story’s setting…post-war…I suspect there are one or two antagonists in the novel.

DA: There are several adversaries in this story. People and events both conspire against Erich. The most significant event that affects him is the Second World War. Erich’s early years are difficult and deprived because of the devastation caused by bombing raids. He spends nights huddled in the cellar of the Children’s Home where he lives to shelter from the threat of bombing. He is constantly hungry due to the food shortages. His mother disappears after a bombing raid and he must leave Germany without learning what has happened to her. The war affects every aspect of his life. Several people are also his adversaries.

Erich encounters uncaring, even brutal foster parents at two of his foster placements. The first one is Aunt Rachel, a widow with one daughter. She fosters Erich and his brother, Hans, to earn some extra money to meet her bills and she really isn’t interested in the boys’ welfare. She is cross and cruel, making the boys’ lives a misery. Erich hates every minute he spends at her house and seethes with anger at her treatment of them.

The other one is quick tempered, harsh Uncle Bob. Although Uncle Bob plans to adopt Erich, his main reason for wanting the boy is to have unpaid farm labour. His priority is to get as much free labour as possible and he is abusive and unconcerned about the boy’s welfare. Erich has a place to sleep and the basic necessities for existence but he does not have a real family with Uncle Bob and his wife, Aunt Annie. How Erich overcomes his situation is the climax of the story.

MA: Living in working Europe no doubt helped you frame the story, but did any real life experiences manage to squeak into the plot?

DA: A lot of my writing is inspired by my own memories and experiences. But I sometimes hear an interesting story about someone else’s life and it sparks an idea that forms the basis for a story. As I’ve mentioned earlier, in the case of Hitler and Mars Bars, my research about Operation Shamrock and tales I heard from people who had participated in it sparked the ideas for my novel. I used material I discovered during my research about the project to create a story that was as true to the real events as I could make it.

MA: Are you working on any new project, perhaps a follow-on to Hitler and Mars Bars?

DA: Hitler and Mars Bars was released in March 2008. During the following months I didn’t have much time for new writing as I was busy promoting the novel. After the initial whirlwind of promotion I had a chance to put pen to paper again. I contributed fiction and non-fiction pieces to the Fermanagh Authors’ Association’s yearly anthologies in 2008 and 2009 and I’ve also been writing non-fiction articles about a variety of subjects for several magazines. Most recently articles I wrote based on my interview with the classical singing trio, The Priests were printed in four Irish and Canadian magazines. I enjoy non-fiction writing, especially profiling people in the arts and plan to continue interviewing interesting people I meet.

I’m also doing some short story writing and have begun research for the sequel to Hitler and Mars Bars. Many people have asked me what happens to Erich after Hitler and Mars Bars ends so I will have to answer that question in the next book. The sequel will follow Erich and his adventures. Several of the major characters from the first book will also re-appear. Their lives will have moved on from where we left them in Hitler and Mars Bars but they will be the same people readers loved or loathed. People often ask me where I got the idea for the book’s title. A couple amusing incidents in the story sparked the idea for it. So I linked the words that represented each incident together to form the title. But I won’t tell you anymore – you’ll have to read the book to figure out exactly where the title came from.

MA: Well, we’ll have to let that remain a mystery that people will have to explore on their own by buying the book.  For more information about Dianne and Hitler and Mars Bars, please visit her website and her blog: www.dianne-ascroft.com and www.dianneascroft.wordpress.com

MA: My guest today is the author of The SIN of Addison Hall, Jeffrey Onorato.  In 1968, at the age of 5, Jeffrey Onorato used construction paper and Elmer’s glue to create what he believes was the world’s first graphic novel, Feelings in Baseball. During his high school years he tried to woo girls he liked by penning them haiku poems; however, they were awful and his attempts were largely unsuccessful. In 1982 while attending Lehigh University, Mr. Onorato wrote an award winning essay, The Rapes of Grath and followed it up in 1984 with another award winning essay, Baseball is an Ass. The seed for his debut novel, The SIN of Addison Hall, was planted in the fall of 1999. While in his twenties, Jeffrey visited the gym religiously, and one Sunday morning, as he pulled into his gym’s packed parking lot, he noticed that the lot of the church next to his gym had more empty beer cans than cars. It occurred to him that toning his body was more important to him then nurturing his soul, and obviously he was not alone. Seven years later, writing primarily in overpriced coffee houses and Irish pubs, Jeffrey finished a novel that warns of the dangers of carnality. Mr. Onorato lives in Westchester County, NY with his wife and two young children.

Welcome, Jeffrey.  You obviously have enjoyed writing from an early age, but it wasn’t a career until later.  What did you do leading up to writing your first novel?

JO: I spent most of my adult life in sales, traveling lots.  Waiting for planes and sitting on planes gave me ample time to write.  According to my tally I spent time writing it in 23 US cities, four European cities, and three Caribbean resorts.

MA: I can see how your essay writing experiences evolved into novel writing.  Where there any other influences that led you to it?

JO:  I chose to write novels because I enjoy reading novels and I am a big fan of dystopian literature.  I like stories that are darkly humorous and provocative and stories that make my reader’s reflect upon their own value systems. After reading my first novel, The SIN of Addison Hall, one reader told me she cancelled a botox appointment and threw her Crest Whitestrips in the garbage.

MA: Tell us about the story.

JO: Residing in a country where beautiful people are considered superior, Addison Hall is an anomaly. A mildly repugnant man, he is forced by the twisted hierarchy of his dictator to live in less than adequate living situations. The days become increasingly arduous as he toils in an unpleasant job, stricken with the disappointment of his current situation. Besides the dark comedy of his disastrous attempts at romance and his friend’s antics, Addison’s life is fairly dull. Then he meets Otka, a beautiful woman who owns the local coffee shop. After witnessing a chance encounter where Addison risks his life to save the life of a dog, Otka takes an obvious interest in him. Addison is perplexed by her reciprocated intrigue. Past experiences with such a valued creature of the opposite sex has left him tainted and doubting her motives.

The SIN of Addison Hall entrances the reader with delicious conflicts of human wanting and wavering uncertainty with an ending that will leave you begging for more.

MA: You told me earlier that your protagonist is a bit autobiographical, but did any real life experiences factor into the story line at all?

JO: Not my real life experiences, but The Holocaust was the underpinning for the story.  My wife and I visited Auschwitz in 2003, so a lot of the imagery came from that visit. I also lifted verbatim from Nazi propaganda.  My reasons for doing this is to convey the message that whenever a society devalues a segment of its people, horrible things can accrue.

MA: That’s a good message we should all keep in mind.  Do you have any future novel-writing plans?

JO: I am currently on my third re-write for a novel that lampoons overt materialism. The working title is Betty Boop’s Skirt is Frayed. I expect to send the manuscript to my publisher by beginning of May 2010.

MA: You do come up with some clever titles for essays and books!  So, there won’t be a sequel to The SIN of Addison Hall?

JO: I am also working on the first draft of The Redemption of Addison Hall, an obvious sequel to The SIN of Addison Hall.  My goal is to have the manuscript off to the publisher by Christmas 2010.

MA: That’s good to hear.  If you would like to read more about Jeffrey Onorato and The SIN of Addison Hall, please visit: http://www.blockislandbooks.com/

Thanks, Jeffrey, for stopping by!