Mike Angley

Author Jean Henry Mead is my special guest today.  She began her career as a news reporter, later serving as a news, magazine and small press editor. The author of four novels, her latest release is a senior sleuth mystery/suspense novel, Diary of Murder. She’s also the author of eight nonfiction books. Her magazine articles have won state, regional and national awards and have appeared domestically as well as abroad.

Welcome aboard, Jean!  Tell us about your professional career, before you became a novelist.

JHM:  My first professional writing job occurred while I was editor-in-chief of my college newspaper. I worked 35 hours a week as a reporter/photographer for a daily newspaper in California, and drove 25 miles to a neighboring town to carry 15 units of study. At that time I was a divorced mother of four young daughters. We studied together at night and all managed to stay on the honor rolls. I also coached and managed their softball team which went all the way to the national playoffs one year. It instilled the work ethic in my daughters.

MA:  You sound like a dedicated, multi-tasking mom and writer!  So how did you come about to write novels?

JHM:  I wrote my first novel at age 9 to entertain classmates, a chapter a day written with pencil on construction  paper. But when I reached high school I wrote for the school newspaper and went on to become a news reporter. However, there was always the desire to write novels. Raising four children on my own sidetracked that desire until the kids were grown and I remarried.

MA:  I understand fully how difficult it can be to write while pursuing something fulltime.  In your case it was raising your family, but for me it was my USAF career.  Do you have any professional experiences that influenced your fiction career?

JHM:  I was a police reporter so that inspired my mystery/suspense novels, but I first wrote a Wyoming historical novel based on years of research for a centennial nonfiction book. I spent two years behind a microfilm machine for that and had 18 inches of typed notes left over, which I plan to use for a historical mystery series.  And yes, I heavily researched members of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch for my novel, Escape, a Wyoming Historical Novel. It’s based on actual historical events of the late 1890s and is laced with humor.

MA:  Tell us about your subsequent novels.

JHM:  My second and third novels are my Logan & Caffertry mystery/suspense series, which features two 60-year-old feisty widows who solve the murders of their friends and club members living in a retirement village in California’s foggy San Joaquin Valley. Dana Logan’s beautiful journalist daughter arrives in time to help with the investigation but places her own life in danger. The book is titled A Village Shattered.

In the second novel, Diary of Murder, they’ve sold their homes in the retirement village and purchased a 32-foot motorhome to travel the country. On their way to Wyoming to visit Dana’s mystery novelist sister, Georgi, they learn that she has died. Georgi’s husband claims it was suicide, but Dana and Sarah find Georgi’s diary and investigate her murder. Along the way they encounter a vicious drug ring and more bodies. They nearly lose their own lives in the process.

I’m currently working on the third novel in the series: Murder on the Interstate. Dana and Sarah encounter a murdered young woman along I-40 and are targets themselves.

MA:  How did you go about developing your two protagonists?  What are their strengths and weaknesses?

JHM:  I’m a seat of the pants writer who listens to her characters’ dialog. They actually write the book for me. I may have subconsciously adapted some of the characteristics of a couple of good friends for Dana and Sarah but they’re definitely originals with quirks of their own.

Dana is logical, an introvert and determined while Sarah is quirky, old fashioned and outspoken. They seem to balance each other’s strengths while shoring up the other’s occasional weaknesses.

MA:  Considering you write your mysteries in a series, is there are particular nemesis the ladies encounter in each book?

JHM:  Because the women are on the move, they dispatch each antagonist before moving on to the next murder case in a new location. On down the road, a former “bad guy” may escape prison and come after them, but I like fresh villains in each book.

MA:  Did any of your real-life experiences factor in to the plot at all?  I imagine as a former police reporter you’ve got some good fodder for your stories.

JHM:  Oh, sure. You have to write from experience to be convincing, unless you’re writing fantasy. My first freelance interview was with a couple of sheepherding sisters in the Wyoming outback, in their late 70s and early 80s. When I wrote my first novel, Escape, I portrayed them as twin sisters living in the badlands. Not until the novel was finished did I realize the characters had been patterned after the sheepherders.

MA:  So what are your future writing plans?

JHM:  I plan more Logan & Cafferty books because they’re so much fun to write. I’ve also finished a children’s  novel, The Mystery of Spider Mountain, and a nonfiction book to be published by Poisoned Pen Press, called Mysterious People–interviews with other mystery writers, including Carolyn Hart, John Gilstrap, Louise Penny and Rick Mofina, among many others. I’ve also started a historical mystery/suspense series featuring a single woman homesteader in Wyoming.

Thank you for turning the tables on me with this interview. You can access my Mysterious People interviews at: http://mysteriouspeople.blogspot.com/ and writing advice and book reviews at: http://advicefromeditors.blogspot.com/. Many of the writers I interview are giving away copies of their books to blog visitors who leave comments.

MA:  Thanks, Jean.  I appreciate your visit with us today and sharing information about your life and your books.  I encourage my readers to visit your websites for more about Jean Henry Mead.

I am pleased to introduce today’s guest-blogger, Stacy Juba.  Stacy is the author of the mystery novel Twenty-Five Years Ago Today. She is a freelance writer and former daily newspaper reporter with more than a dozen writing awards to her credit, including three New England Press Association awards and the American Cancer Society New England Chapter’s Sword of Hope Media Award. Her young adult novel Face-Off was published under her maiden name, Stacy Drumtra, when she was 18 years old. Her web site is www.stacyjuba.com.

Eighteen years old!  You hear it right, folks.  Now that’s impressive.  Stacy, you have some significant writing accomplishments in your life, not only because you published so early, but because of the professional work you’ve done.  Tell us some more about that.

SJ:   I’m a new mystery author, with Twenty-Five Years Ago Today released in October 2009 and Sink or Swim scheduled for release tentatively in December 2010, both by Mainly Murder Press. I’m also a freelance writer/publicist, working with clients such as the Melanoma Education Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving lives from melanoma. (http://www.skincheck.org.) In addition, I’m a former daily newspaper reporter and have won several journalism awards over the years.

MA:  Why did you choose to write novels?

SJ:  I started writing short stories in third grade, and by high school, I was submitting stories to magazines.  I started my first novel, Face-Off, at age 16 and found that novel-writing came more naturally to me than short story writing.  I liked having the room to develop characters and allow the plot to unveil. Also, I was an avid reader growing up, and always dreamed of seeing my books in a bookstore. Once you have that experience once, you want it to happen again. The last reason is that even though I’m introverted, I have quite a lot to say. Writing novels is a rewarding way to express myself.

MA:  Did your professional writing career inspire your fiction writing in any way?

SJ:  It certainly did. I began my journalism career as an editorial assistant for a small daily newspaper.  My responsibilities included writing obits, wedding and birth announcements, answering the newsroom phone, and compiling the 25 Years Ago Today column from the microfilm.  This experience inspired my new book Twenty-Five Years Ago Today.  Following in my path, the protagonist is an obit writer and editorial assistant. While researching the 25 Years Ago Today column on the microfilm, she stumbles across an unsolved murder.  My second mystery novel, Sink or Swim, has been accepted for publication in late 2010. That book features a personal trainer who works in a health club. I worked in a health club during my senior year in college, and that experience lent authenticity to the gym scenes in the novel.

MA:  So, tell us more about your newest novel, Twenty-Five Years Ago Today.

SJ:  It would appeal to both mystery fans and romantic suspense fans. For twenty-five years, Diana Ferguson’s killer has gotten away with murder. When rookie obit writer and newsroom editorial assistant Kris Langley investigates the cold case of the artistic young cocktail waitress who was obsessed with Greek and Roman mythology, she must fight to stay off the obituary page herself.

MA:  Nothing like stumbling across a cold case to irritate a killer who thinks he/she has been in the clear all these years!  How did you develop the character of your protagonist?

SJ:  I gave Kris a job that I once had – obit writer/editorial assistant for a daily newspaper – and built her character from there. I decided that she felt responsible for a childhood prank which led to her cousin’s murder and has punished herself for years. As a result, Kris suffers from nightmares and insomnia and has a past addiction to sleeping pills. Kris works the night shift because she has so much trouble sleeping.  When she stumbles across the unsolved murder of Diana Ferguson, Kris obsesses over cracking the case and bringing justice to the victim’s family. Kris feels that if she helps this other family, perhaps she can redeem herself from her past mistakes.

MA:  So it sounds like you built some intriguing character flaws into your heroine.  Tell us more.

SJ:  Reviewer Diana Vickery at Cozy Library (http://www.cozylibrary.com/Default.aspx?id=692) noted that Kris is a bit naïve and not a hardnosed reporter, but that she has heart, desire and sympathy for her sources, something that is often missing in journalism today. Kris also has a strained relationship with her mother and sister. She has a hard time communicating her feelings and tends to hold things in, which leads to a build-up of resentment. She doesn’t trust others easily; however, Kris is a very trustworthy person herself. As a young woman in her mid-twenties, she has embarked on a journey of self discovery and is struggling to carve out an identity for herself and find her place in life.

MA:  So far you haven’t mentioned anything about your nemesis…obviously there’s a murderer out there.  Can you give us some insight?

SJ:  I think that question makes Twenty-Five Years Ago Today a unique candidate for book clubs to discuss. After the surprise ending, readers are left with the questions “What constitutes a villain?  Was the character who killed Diana Ferguson the actual ‘villain’ or was someone else the villain?  Was justice served?”  Readers have told me that the book stays with them for awhile as they ponder these questions.

MA:  Interesting. So in some respects it may or may not be a solved-cold case!  Beyond this novel what are your future writing plans?

SJ:  Mainly Murder Press will publish my second mystery novel, Sink or Swim, in late 2010.  It focuses on Cassidy Novak, a personal trainer who is stalked after appearing on the hit reality game show Sink or Swim – also known as SOS. I think it would appeal to mystery fans, as well as to fans of reality TV shows. In addition, I’m polishing up a paranormal young adult thriller tentatively titled Dark Before Dawn, and I’m also working on a new adult mystery series. At some point, I’d like to bring back an updated edition of my young adult book Face-Off, so I’ll be researching different options for that down the line.

MA:  Well Stacy, you have had – and continue to have – a wonderful writing career.  I want to thank you for stopping by the Child Finder Trilogy and sharing your stories, both fiction and personal, with us.  Please visit Stacy Juba’s website for more information about her and her books: www.stacyjuba.com.

Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome my guest-blogger for today, Linda M. Faulkner.  Linda is a transplant from New England to Montana, which is the setting of her mystery novel, Second Time Around.  In addition to writing fiction, she also pens a column, Business Sense, in The Weekender, a monthly entertainment newspaper (Orlando, FL) and articles for both regional and national magazines such as Three Rivers Lifestyle and Rough Notes.  A tremendous body of Linda’s work appears in the insurance industry, where she has developed, written, and instructed numerous continuing education workshops and seminars.  Visit Linda’s web site at:  http://www.lindamfaulkner.com.

Well, Linda, it sounds like you’ve been involved in the writing world for some time!  How far back does your interest in writing go?

LF:  I’ve been writing since I was a kid.  I joined both MWA and RWA in the late 1980s and served as Chapter President of RWA’s New England Chapter from 1990-1994, during which time I came this close to publication.  I first became published in 2002 with a monthly newspaper column in The Weekender, an entertainment monthly in Hunter’s Glen, Florida and went on to publish in several magazines, both regional and national.  My first mystery novel, Second Time Around, was published in January 2009.

MA:  You’ve written non-fiction features in newspapers, and non-fiction articles and training documents for the insurance industry…so what brought you to the fiction realm?

LF:  Probably because that’s what I prefer to read.  I like becoming involved in the characters; I invest myself in their lives and the outcomes of their decisions.  I can do that with a very well-written short story, but it’s over so soon!

MA:  I know what you mean about immersing yourself in your character development.  I like to tell folks that I “mentor” my trilogy’s protagonist, Special Agent Patrick O’Donnell, much as I would mentor young officers in my real Air Force career.  Did any of your experiences in your prior professional life contribute to your novel?

LF:  In an ironic way, my writing inspired my professional career.  I’ve worked in the insurance industry for over 30 years.  After founding my first insurance agency at age 28, I found myself a bit bored 11 years later:  you can’t climb up the ladder within an organization when you’re the boss!  I was invited to teach insurance continuing education seminars by the local agent’s association and after a few years, began writing the seminars.  That led to me opening another insurance business where I develop, write, and instruct insurance seminars.  As a result of that endeavor, I’ve been recruited to contribute articles to a national insurance magazine.  Writing insurance texts, on deadline, really helped me hone a number of my writing skills.  And no, I don’t base my fictional characters on people I know—although I sometimes “borrow” the names of people I know for my characters, with permission, of course.

MA:  I know you from the Rocky Mountain Mystery Writers of America chapter and email loop.  Is there a “local color” to your novel?

LF:  My debut novel is a mystery, which is set in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana.  What do you do when the dead body you stumble across turns out to belong to your father, the father you thought abandoned you in infancy?  That’s what Timmie Campbell asks herself.  Turns out her mother has been lying for years: about her father’s abandonment, about him not contacting them, about a lot of things. Unfortunately, Timmie can’t dwell on her mother’s deception because she has to deal with the stalker who’s monitoring her every move with cameras hidden in the trees outside her mountain home in western Montana–not to mention the additional bodies that begin piling up. Sheriff’s deputy Jack Kendall further complicates her life. He’s investigating the murders and is intent on resuming their relationship–the one he ended the previous summer.  Unfortunately for Jack, Timmie’s not the least bit interested in romance.  Her priority is stopping the killer before he eliminates everyone her family.

MA:  I see.  There’s a little Rocky Mountain romance to add a twist!  How did you develop your characters?

LF:  I tend to develop all my characters the same way.  First, I choose 2-3 important personality/character traits, a goal/mission, and move on from there.  In the case of Timmie Campbell, the protagonist in Second Time Around, I also made sure a couple of her personality/character traits conflicted with those of Jack Kendall, her love interest and “partner” in solving the mystery.

MA:  What makes Timmie strong and what makes her weak?

LF:  Timmie’s strengths are her compassion and perseverance; they’re also her weaknesses.  I enjoy building characters in shades of grey rather than black and white; it makes for a more interesting personality and allows for changes and growth down the line.

MA:  I presume since it’s a mystery you have one or two nemeses that Timmie has to deal with?  Tell us about him/her/them.

LF:  Well, the murderer is the “bad guy,” but her parents also played that role, to a lesser degree.  Because of her upbringing and her parents, Timmie has issues with people who lie.  That’s a thread through the story, which might be considered a nemesis.

MA:  Since you live in the real-world setting of your fictional story, have any real experiences shaped the plot?

LF:  The setting is real:  pretty much my own backyard.  And the critters are real, too, although I changed some of their names.  The opening scene, where Timmie is walking her two dogs down her driveway in the forest when the dead body comes rolling down the hill, happened to me—except for the dead body part.  My husband and I were walking our four dogs, and we heard a rustling in the forest.  The puppies went on alert and, being the writer with the vivid imagination, I said to Stephen, “Wouldn’t it be neat if a dead body came rolling down the hill?”  He said it would be lovely, but I don’t think he really meant it.  The opening for the book was born.

MA: (Chuckling) You know, only mystery writers and law enforcement professionals think that way!  What’s next after Second Time Around?

LF:  I’m currently at work on two mysteries:  Two-Timed, a follow up to Second Time Around, and Death Benefits.  I’m hoping to complete each of them by the end of January.

MA:  Will we see Timmie and Jack again in your next novels?

LF:  Funny you should ask this question right now.  I have always tended to move on when a book was complete.  But my fans (gosh, I love saying that!) have been pushing for another book about Timmie and Jack.  So, I’ve been asking fellow writers their take on writing series versus standalones to get a different perspective.  When I began Two-Timed, it was with the same protagonists, Timmie and Jack, and I lost interest after a few chapters.  But now that I’ve resumed the story from the POV of one of the minor characters in Second Time Around, a suggestion from another writer, it’s moving right along and keeping me very involved.  I suspect I’ll be doing some of that in the future:  writing several books from differing POVs of characters involved in all of them.  But I also see me writing standalones, too.

MA:  That’s a neat way to approach it – a series, but from the point of view of different characters…gives people a new perspective each time.  I want to thank you for stopping by and chatting with me and my readers.  I encourage everyone to visit Linda Faulkner’s website for more information about her and her new novel, Second Time Around:

http://www.lindamfaulkner.com and Author Exchange Blog: http://www.lindamfaulknertips.blogspot.com

My special guest today is a very prolific mystery writer.  Marilyn Meredith is the author of over twenty-five published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest Dispel the Mist from Mundania Press.  Under the name of F. M. Meredith she writes the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series.  No Sanctuary is the newest from Oak Tree Press and a finalist the mystery/suspense category of the Epic best in e-books contest .

She is a member of EPIC (Electronically Published Internet Connection), Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and is on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America.  She was an instructor for Writer’s Digest School for ten years, and served as an instructor at the Maui Writer’s Retreat and many other writer’s conferences.  She makes her home in Springville, CA, much like Bear Creek where Deputy Tempe Crabtree lives.  Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com

Marilyn, welcome aboard!  Those are some wonderful accomplishments and affiliations.  It sounds like writing is in your blood.  Is it something you always did, or did/do you have other passions besides writing?

MM:  I’m the mother of five children. The first part of my life consisted of all the things you do when raising a family, but I was always a reader.  The writing I did at the time was mostly PTA newsletters and plays for my Camp Fire Girls to star in.  I had all sorts of jobs from being a telephone operator, teaching in a school for developmentally disabled pre-schoolers to owning and operating a licensed residential care home.

MA:  So, were you writing throughout all these other avocations or did it come later in life?

MM:  I made a couple of attempts when I was in my early thirties, sent them off, was rejected and threw the manuscripts away.  When my sister researched our family genealogy, what she found contained a lot of unaswered questions.  I wrote two fictional historical family sagas based on the genealogy and after many, many rejections managed to find publishers for both.  When I was done I knew I wanted to keep on writing–and mysteries seemed the logical choice since that’s what I was reading.

MA:  Quite an interesting journey!  I’m impressed by the family connection to your early fiction work.  Now, none of your early professions seem to lend themselves to the kind of novels you write, but did you find any inspiration from them?

MM:  None of my careers inspired my writing, although I’ve certainly included bits and pieces of different jobs and experiences into some of my stories.

In my Deputy Tempe Crabtree series, Tempe is a combination of a female police officer I did a ride-along with, a female resident deputy I wrote a profile article on for the local newspaper, and a Native American artist I’d met on several occasions.  In my Rocky Bluff P.D. series, because I feature different members of the department and their families more in one book than another, I have to say they are based on many police officers I’ve met over the years.  I’ve had a lot to draw on.  We lived in a neighborhood full of police officers and their families; my son-in-law was a 15 year veteran of a beach community police department; and I now have a grandson who is a police officer in a mountain community.  I belong to Public Safety Writers Association and many of the members are active or retired law enforcement.

MA:  It sounds like law enforcement is certainly part of the family history, so I can see the connection to your work.  Tell us about your current projects.

MM:  Dispel the Mist is number eight in the Tempe Crabtree mystery series.  While helping in the investigation of a popular county supervisor with ties to both the Mexican and Indian communities, Tempe finds herself in deep trouble and has an encounter with the legendary Hairy Man.  Our local Indian reservation, which is often the setting for many of the books in this series, has a place called Painted Rock which is a cave of boulders with a pictograph of the Hairy Man–the only Big Foot pictograph in California.  When I visited I knew Tempe would also go there.

No Sanctuary is number five in the Rocky Bluff mystery series. I like to say it’s about two churches, two ministers, two wives and one murder.

MA:  You mentioned you have had two major protagonists throughout your writing career.  Tell us about them.

MM:  The heroines in both series are strong women though very different.  In both cases, the women lost their first husband and raised a child alone.  In Tempe’s case, her son is grown now and off to college and Tempe is married to the pastor of the local church..  In No Sanctuary, Officer Stacey Wilbur’s boy is only five and she’s still single though she is romantically interested in one of the Detectives in Rocky Bluff P.D.

Tempe always sees things differently than the detectives she works with, often going off on her own to make sure the right person is being blamed for the crime, a strength…but one that often causes her problems.  Her Indian heritage comes to play often–in this particular book it’s the legends her grandmother told her and dreams that may prophecy the future.  Officer Stacey Wilbur is small but able to defuse bad situations without relying on her physical powers and she’s willing to take on new challenges which she does in the latest book when she’s asked to help trap a pedophile.

MA:  Since you write mysteries, I assume you have a fair share of “bad guys,” but are there any particular ones that pop up throughout the series?

MM:  There are always bad guys in every book–the murderer.  But an ongoing character who has caused Tempe problems in the past has a turnaround in this book, Detective Morrison.  In the Rocky Bluff novel, one of the police officers, a friend of Stacey’s and Doug’s is a bit on the bumbling side, sometimes to the detriment of a case.

MA:  Your depiction of the Painted Rock is a fascinating real-life experience and feature you embedded in your work.  What about others?  Do you include aspects of other real laces or people in your novels?

MM:  When I had the opportunity to visit the Painted Rock site on the reservation and see the pictograph of the Hairy Man, I knew this all had to be included in the plot of Dispel the Mist.

I’ve been a member of several churches over the years, and known good ministers and a few who weren’t so good, and I’ve known their wives, church secretaries, female choir directors and of course a lot of this is part of the plot of No Sanctuary.

MA:  What’s next for Marilyn Meredith?  Are you going to continue the series?

MM:  I have another Rocky Bluff P.D. book called An Axe to Grind coming out after the first of the year, and my next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery will appear in September.  I just finished another Rocky Bluff novel and I’m starting a new Deputy Tempe mystery right now. Both series are available in all the usual places–except I’m the only one who still has the first two in the Rocky Bluff series which can be purchased from my website.  The middle two are only available as e-books on Kindle. The latest and all of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mysteries are also available as e-books.

MA:  Marilyn, thanks for coming by the Child Finder Trilogy and sharing your background and your writing with us!  I am in awe at all you have accomplished in your life, especially the fact that you have published over 25 novels!

I love a good mystery and I encourage everyone to visit Marilyn’s website to learn more about her and her stories:  http://fictionforyou.com

MA:  My guest today is arguably one of the most interesting writers I have had the pleasure to feature on the Child Finder Trilogy blog.  Michael Cogdill is blessed as one of the most honored television storytellers in America.  His cache of awards includes 24 Emmys and the National Edward R. Murrow for a broad range of achievement, from live reporting to long-form storytelling.  His television credits as a journalist include CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and The Today Show, and Michael’s interview history crosses a wide horizon:  The Reverend Billy Graham, Dr. Mehmet Oz of Oprah fame, Dr. Henry Kissinger, Abby Hoffman, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator John McCain, Howard K. Smith, James Brown, Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops, and many other newsmakers.  His coverage credits include Presidents and Vice Presidents of the United States.

Michael spent ten years writing She-Rain, letting it evolve into a world of fiction drawn from his upbringing in Western North Carolina but reaching far beyond.  His other writing credits are Cracker the Crab and the Sideways Afternoon – a children’s motivational book available at www.CrackerTheCrab.com,  and a self-help volume, Raise the Haze. Michael makes his home in South Carolina with his wife, Jill (a children’s book publisher), and their golden retriever, Maggie.  He’s currently working on his second novel and works of non-fiction as well.

Michael, I am truly honored to have you guest-blog with me.  Your credentials are extensive and impressive (we’re not talking about one or two Emmys…24!), and your background in the media intrigues me.  Please tell us more about that.

MC:  My television career started only a few days out of my college graduation, and those who saw my early work would never have guessed the success I’ve been blessed with twenty years later.  I was an angst-infused stiff with big hair, terrified eyes, and a devotion to delivering bad news in the worst possible way.

But a teacher in the sixth grade, on the heels of an unintentionally terrifying command that I stand and read a creative assignment out loud in class, cast a calming look onto my red-facedness and said, “You are going to be a writer someday.”  No matter how often I failed as a television writer and performer in my early career, her belief in me, ever alive in my subconscious, stood me in the good stead of never-give-up.  24 Emmy Awards later — with a bio no one saw coming — I owe the cosmos a word of thanks on every breath I draw.  Seeing what the good Lord has done in my life, where I’ve arrived from where I started, the most avowed atheist might say, “Surely, this small-town southern boy took a lift on some Almighty hand.  He gives me not choice but believe in miracles.”

MA:  Isn’t it fascinating how certain teachers and their encouragement stick with us throughout our lives?  I, too, had a similar experience early in life which nudged me forward to my writing career.  But writing is about much more than just one or two supportive comments.  It’s also about life itself.  Tell us how your life inspired your decision to write fiction.

MC:  It began as a catharsis.  My father was a violent alcoholic whose pathway to sobriety led through a black and low thicket, very near the swamp of an early grave.  Only after I left at seventeen – abandoning the house of my rearing in search of a home of reliable peace — did my dad decide on living rather than soon dying.  In his journey to a new way of life, I saw discipline, real faith, astounding humility and gratitude, a graceful man emerging from nearly hopeless swale.  Having heard stories about my maternal grandfather’s opium addiction — which killed him early — I decided to explore the healing that seems inherent in the writing of prose.  Something about writing a thing down grants the heart a harness over its tormentor.  I wanted a novel, but had no great story.  So I began with the telling of small stories, linking them with humanity as I knew, and imagined, we can be — at our worst and finest — letting the people of my only-child imagination lead.  And to She-Rain they have shown me the way.

People ask, in no small wonder, how I arrived at so radical a love story, so wild an adventure into the deep nature of humankind.  I tell them – I was raised by strong women.  They helped me imagine strong women.  The hands and hearts of women governed the hand of this writer to “the end.”

One more point on why the novel.  Fiction celebrates the striving for beauty. I’m pretty desperately in love with trying to write a sentence that shines a warm light on the eyes of the mind.  A light running to our innermost humanity, surprising us with how gracefully we can rise off the hardest times to a living art.  Fitzgerald is among my heroes, his own addiction aside.  A man who can write of a sea the color of blue silk stockings, a hotel the shade of roses, or a yacht in the repose of youth; anyone who could imagine the beauty and tragedy of Gatzby’s longing is an artist who must inform the work of my soul and hands.  If someone finds Scott Fitzgerald’s hand, from way beyond his grave, somehow brushes the slightest touch against She-Rain, I’ll consider the book an artistic success.

She-Rain is a southern novel, compared to Cold Mountain, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the work of Pat Conroy.  I’m very humbled by such company.

MA:  Wow.  Yours is a powerful story of life, love, challenge, faith, forgiveness and redemption.  Many people look at a landscape and see a few trees, perhaps a hill, and two or three colors.  But you are the kind of person who can look at the same scene and see a painting, the graceful brushstrokes of God as He continuously perfects Hs masterpiece, three-dimensional, multi-colored and with an orchestra playing in the background.  You have a great gift.  Your personal life obviously inspired She-Rain, but what about your professional life…any influences?

MC:  Definitely.  Countless figures in She-Rain take their seed from across my experience.  Big Ms. Ed draws from an extraordinary woman whose stunning philanthropy I covered on television.  Rev Lew grows from two radical Christian ministers — one of whom I count among my greatest friends and confidants.   He can hold a sermon out over a crowd with a magnetic eloquence, letting it fall at times with jarring hilarity, right to the brink of the profanity that is his everyman vocabulary — one that draws far more people than it repels.  He’s deeply learned, kind as a saint, with a lore that made some beautiful history, shaking up the church in the name of civil rights.  And to those who may fear She-Rain is a religious book, I can assure you, Rev. Lew is a truly transformative figure who speaks in a language everyone can grasp.

But two women truly lead She-Rain.  Mary Lizbeth, a white girl considered a nothing from nowhere, and Sophia, an African American child of scandal raised in world-altering privilege, come from so many great women I have known.  They remind each of us we’re capable of a greatness reaching far beyond the walls of our times.

One more derivative from my career as a television journalist.  As a news anchor, I hold human grief in my hands — on my very breath — night after night.  It streams through that screen into millions of lives, overflowing too many minds with a notion of hopelessness.  Human beings can live out a ruthless unkindness toward one another and themselves.  You’ll see this, in some “high-def” prose, through more than one scene in She-Rain.  In fact, my co-anchor said one act of violence in the book came with such vivid power off the page, she had to put the book down to rest for a moment. Yet it is, too, my experience as a journalist that we human creatures are vested with a capacity to work tremendous good into the world, and we ache to do so. We’re a compassion democracy, our majority longing to see a love prevail among us.  The light of our times always outshines the dark, and I’ve had the joy of telling such stories of forgiveness, caring and seemingly boundless human greatness on television. She-Rain rose as a physical legacy I want to leave the world.  It’s a tome of my desire not merely to spread around bad news as a journalist.  I want to do something about it.  To become a living solution of hope.  In She-Rain, you’ll ultimately see humanity at some of its highest beauty as I imagine it.  That imagination lives distilled and inspired by real people I’ve been blessed to know.

MA:  Tell us about She-Rain’s hero.

MC:  I grew him straight out of my boyhood, my father’s times as a boy who went hungry during the Depression, and my uncle, who lived with that opium-addicted grandfather I never knew.   His greatest weakness is living down to the low expectations around him, steeped in fear, malice and victimhood.  His strength becomes a willingness to let courageous women help break the hell out of his life.  They help him turn the breakage of it into a life he never saw coming.

MA:  Given the nature of She-Rain, the telling of a story about life, love, humanity, I assume all is not rosy.  You must have an antagonist or two, someone who torments your main character?

MC:  The single (and truly nefarious) bad guy — A.C. — emerges into a living stand of evil who comes to represent the worst of us all.  The villains in She-Rain sweep across the full horizon of humankind.  They remind us all to answer a calling not to be, entirely, ourselves.  Yet this love story actually celebrates the best of our possibilities.  Even in a love triangle, beauty can emerge in lives willing to own up to our deepest longings and live out a radical kind of love.  Very topical in times of scandal surrounding governors, senators and a certain golf superstar.

MA:  Very contemporary indeed, but then, aren’t the scandals of today the story of mankind itself?  We exist on a planet where forces of good and evil, love and hate, forgiveness and shame all “duke it out” in ways that torture souls to seek the nourishment they need.  I get the sense that She-Rain comes not just from your own personal story of your father, and the many life stories you “covered” as a journalist.  What other influences are at work in the novel?

MC:  The living with addiction as a child and being brought up by the hand of great women.  My experience growing up during the Civil Rights movement and seeing people scarred by racism, class battle, and language-literal religious fundamentalism — all this makes a mark on She-Rain as well.  She-Rain draws its breath, also, from old family stories — and a few I’ve heard from friends, including the living octagenarian minister who inspired Rev. Lew.   I believe every writer draws story through the prism of someone’s experience, then casts that experience around.  When you read of Rev Lew in She-Rain, for example, I pledge you’ll share my experience of unstoppable laughter.  I owe that not to myself but to that man I’m blessed to know.

MA:  You mentioned plans to write beyond She-Rain.  What comes next?

MC:  I’ve started another novel — The Belles of Honeysuckle Road — and am completing a non-fiction piece — Raise the Haze — taken from my experience covering the seismic impact of so-called ordinary people.  Doing my job is a schooling in extraordinary humanity.  My work as an inspirational speaker finds its way into Raise the Haze, and I hope it inspires in its audience a belief in the seismic nature of a life live far beyond its place and time.  A life committed to the improvement of other lives.  It’s about the legacy we see in the likes of Herb Kelleher, Richard Branson, Mother Theresa, Billy Graham — though the people I speak about are anti-celebrities.  Utterly anonymous in the current media age.  Yet the difference I’ve seen them make has a way of elevating an audience at the heart level.  Inspiring people to live up to a hidden greatness within.  It’s about leadership toward a legacy that will improve lives long after the breeze of our final breath.  I’m working Raise the Haze with a terrific co-writer in London, Chris Dines — a great young man who’s a living symbol of heroic giving of the self.  In a world of sometimes flimsy life coaching and prosperity theology, Chris is a breath of real hope.  We don’t quite know what we’ll do with the book yet, but we’re heartened by our reviews!

MA:  That’s an entirely new and different project, and one that also sounds as inspiring as She-Rain.  But with so many colorful characters in She-Rain, is there any chance you will return to them and continue their stories in future books?

MC:  My wife, Jill, vows I will write a sequel.  When you get to the end of She-Rain, I invite you to tell me if you’d like me to fulfill this vow.  I believe in being a writer deeply connected with readers.  I want to hear from you.  Please, get in touch.  I work in television, which means it’s impossible to hurt my feelings!

MA:  Michael, I have to tell you that speaking with you has been inspiring.  Just getting some hints and flashes of She-Rain has been uplifting.  I read the sample pages of She-Rain that you posted on your blog and found just this snippet to be engaging.  There’s no doubt you have a bestseller on your hands.  I invite my readers to visit Michael Cogdill’s blog for more information about him and She-Rain: http://she-rain.blogspot.com/

I’ve also done something for Michael that I’ve not done for any other author I’ve had guest with me on the Child Finder Trilogy.  I’ve created a separate post dedicated to She-Rain that includes its synopsis, reviews, and more information about this special author.  Please visit it here:  She-Rain Dossier

Michael, thanks again for stopping by to visit with me and my readers.

I am pleased to present the She-Rain Dossier, a repository of information about author Michael Cogdill and his novel, She-Rain.  Here you will find reviews, a synopsis about the novel, and information about and by Michael Cogdill.

I recently interviewed Michael for the Child Finder Trilogy’s blog, and I invite you to visit this particular post to read more about this fascinating author and his story:

Mike Angley’s Interview with She-Rain Author Michael Cogdill

She-Rain Dossier

She-Rain Reviews:

From Actor/Writer/Director, Peter MacNicol http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001493/:

“I’m reading your beautiful novel, and if I may add to what you’ve undoubtedly heard, such gorgeous prose, such beautiful writing, such singing speech!  So Southern in its music and perfect word choice.  You write like no other living Southerner, certainly none that I know.  Only among the dead can I find your forbearers – somewhere between “A” for James Agee and “W” for Thomas Wolfe.  It is so exquisitely sounded out on the page that oddly I find myself muttering certain passages out loud to myself — common enough occurrence when I read poetry, but rarely prose.  Bravo!!”

From Dr. Cheryl McClary,  author of The Commitment Chronicles:

“Once in a great while something unflinchingly beautiful touches our lives and we are forever changed.  Such is the gift of She-Rain, Michael Cogdill’s first novel.  He weaves a masterpiece of woundedness, love, death, and redemption that breaks your heart as it mends your soul.  Just as the mountains embrace the cool breath of the she-rain, the novel cradles you until the final word.  A soon-to-be bestseller!”  Cheryl McClary Ph.D., J.D., Professor, attorney, and author of The Commitment Chronicles: The Power of Staying Together.  (National Library Book winner, 2007)

From John Jeter, author of The Plunder Room:

“Michael Cogdill has managed to do what few journalists have done before:  Move with stylistic grace from the formulaic demands of television to poetic prose that shimmers through his debut novel. Some of us have taken more than a decade to break the enslaving bonds of journalism’s tried-and-true habits so that we might be able to write serviceable fiction. But many don’t get close to the mellifluous beauty the author here seems to pour out as effortlessly as crystal-clear moonshine. At the same time, Mr. Cogdill has retained his reporter’s keen eye and his sharp ear … that of an orchestra’s maestro (or, more accurately, the sub-decibel hearing of a blue-tick hound dog). On a vast and multilayered canvas, Mr. Cogdill takes us into the brutal lives of harrowingly real characters — some we’ve seen in other places in other circumstances, wrought by other hands — yet he carves them deeply into our souls so that we bleed with each of them in every aching step toward their redemption.”

From Ruta Fox, Writer, Editor, Entrepreneur (Creator of the AH Ring, made famous by Oprah):

“Michael Cogdill is the heir to Pat Conroy. His feel for the nuances, ear for the language, and ability to vividly describe the beauty of rural North Carolina are astounding. His storytelling ability, his infectious characters, and his authentic Southern soul permeate this marvelous, monumental, and moving book.”

She-Rain Synopsis:

A child living as prey to an opium-addicted father, drowning in a gene-pool of lowest expectations, feels shackled for life to the tobacco farms and cotton mill poverty of 1920′s western North Carolina.  Some of the only beauty he knows rises in the eyes of a girl, surviving times harder than his own.  Emerging from their adolescent love, the narrative rises far out beyond that opening milieu of violence, ignorance, and language-literal religious fundamentalism.  It branches toward likely the least expected figure ever in a Southern novel.  Her mystery begging the question — what might have been, had an African-American infant born of scandal been placed on the arms of one of the grandest American fortunes of the early 20th Century?  Raised utterly cloistered in the clefts of Appalachia, steeped in her adoptive mother’s Vassar education, classical piano, the refinements most mountain people considered as distant and alien as the stars.  When that son of an opium addict happens upon her — each in uniquely desperate times – they set off the beginnings of seismic change to the worlds they’ve known.  Driven by what Faulkner might call human hearts conflicted deep within themselves — the feel of it terrifying and beautiful at once.  What overflows them distills to ways of life that melt the hard rocks of racism, classism, the self destruction of living down to the worst human expectations.  By its contemporary end, the telling of this story has moved readers of both genders to tears of our best human possibility.  I’m deeply humbled by this, and by how the story entertains with humor, the grit of real adventure, and forms of love least expected.

Writer’s Statement, She-Rain:

This book evolved into that rare piece that bridges the hearts of men and women.  Diverse readers report that it changes them for the greater, they never want it to end, even comparing it to the work of Scott Fitzgerald.  But it’s unique in its bi-racial content — reaching out far beyond the bounds of race so common in the book market.  The novel ultimately begs the question what might have happened had an African-American infant of scandal been placed on the arms of a great American fortune in the early 20th Century, raised cloistered in Appalachia in a home lush with books, classical piano and the love of a Vassar-educated mother.  What follows when she’s set loose on the world around 1929, in confluence with a white teenage boy from the wells of mountain poverty?  That thread twines with the isolation of North Carolina textile mills and affairs of love running from the clefts of Tarheel mountain living through one of the soaring mansions of Newport, Rhode Island.

The manuscript already finds readers pounding tables for the film, calling it an instant classic, a WOW, a joy on each page.  While writing it, I carried on my career as a seasoned television performer and producer, public speaker, and writer with 24 Emmys and the National Edward R. Murrow Award.  Beyond the art of the piece, I am an entrepreneur who believes in ownership of the intellectual property.  Thus, my commitment to place under the book’s launch a major publicity blast, including on-line book signings via Skype and a dedicated web presence to generate intimacy with readers around the world.  I am determined to grant the book a success that somehow measures up to the gift of so many who have delved into the manuscript and emerged gracing it with praise.

Bio:

Michael Cogdill is blessed as one of the most honored television storytellers in America.  His cache of awards includes 24 Emmys and the National Edward R. Murrow for a broad range of achievement, from live reporting to long-form storytelling.  His work proves the power a message can hold when it reaches the human heart.  Michael’s television credits as a writer/performer include CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and The Today Show.  His interview credits are about as varied as you can get:  The Reverend Billy Graham, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dr. Henry Kissinger, Abby Hoffman, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator John McCain, Howard K. Smith, James Brown, and countless eminent members of Congress along with other key newsmakers around the country.  His coverage credits include Presidents and Vice Presidents of the United States and major figures in entertainment.

Michael is a sought-after inspirational speaker, whose messages deeply move the most diverse audiences.  Much of his speaking draws from the extraordinary heroism of seemingly ordinary people Michael has covered in more than twenty years in television.  He inspires with fun, and the pathos of deeply personal storytelling, leaving audiences with astounding power to change destructive ways of fear, despair, and even the meanness that makes news.  They leave with an utterly new lens on life and the events within it.  A world-changing view of themselves, empowered to build human institutions and human lives into soaring stories of success.  Michael carries the wisdom shared with him during some of the worst of times to help people rise to their personal greatness.  Thanks to the great souls he’s been blessed to know and cover, Michael’s speaking helps people change their times with new and magnetic leadership.

Michael is a writer working across genres that include children’s literature, the Southern novel, and self-improvement non-fiction.  His latest completed work, a novel entitled She-Rain, will launch in 2010, with a global publicity blast.  Michael is currently at work on two self-improvement pieces of non-fiction:  God’s Contact Lens (which has the attention of writer Philip Yancey) and Raise The Haze (an e-book in partnership with peak-performance coach and coming Bob Proctor Youth Movement speaker, Chris Dines, in London).

Michael was born in Asheville, North Carolina, June 11, 1961 — the son of a truck driver and a mill worker.  He is extremely proud of his working-people roots, drawing on their deep wisdom and life lessons in his reporting, writing and public speaking.  Michael is a cum laude graduate of the University of North Carolina at Asheville with a degree in communications, emphasis on the liberal arts.  He married Jill Kremer Cogdill in 1985, and together they’ve founded a company, Cracker the Crab LLC, publishing children’s literature and offering a product line with emphasis on raising self-esteem in the young.  Michael currently anchors the 6:00 and 11:00 news weeknights on WYFF News 4, NBC in the western Carolinas and Georgia.

Today’s guest is novelist Kathleen Cunningham Guler.  She is the author of the multi-award winning Macsen’s Treasure Series.  Drawing on a long background in literature and history as well as her Welsh and Scottish heritage, she has published numerous articles, essays, reviews, short stories and poetry. Kathleen is a member of the Historical Novel Society, the International Arthurian Society and participates in various writing organizations.

She’s written a four-part series of spy thrillers set in fifth century Britain. She’s also just completed a blog tour that coincided with the release of the fourth and final book, A Land Beyond Ravens.

I have to imagine that you must have some research or academic credentials in history to be able to write about such subjects, even if fiction.

KCG:  My background is rooted in history, literature and art, plus a little drama and music.  One of my degrees is actually in Art (the other being Business Admin).  I’ve always loved the interconnectedness of these various disciplines in the humanities.  When I started with one facet, I found branches that carried me into the others.  I probably have enough study under my belt to have earned a couple more degrees.

In the midst of all this, I wrote—journals, short stories, poetry—casual stuff, just for fun.  It was something that always came naturally and helped me keep my sanity.  A long period passed before this became serious—had to earn a living in the meantime—but when I started my first attempt at a novel, I discovered I finally had a place for all that study of history, literature, art and so on.

MA:  That’s a nice eclectic blend of experiences and academics.  So why novels?  Why not write an historical book?

KCG:  I love the novel-length story.  It seems to be how my mind works—I need the space to get inside the characters’ heads and work through their story.  While poetry has a great appeal as well—the brevity and immediacy bring a strong impact to a specific point— my preference is for the longer work.

MA:  When you were not writing, what did you do to earn a living as you noted previously?  Did any of your professional experiences influence your writing?

KCG:  In the past my professional career mostly encompassed corporate/governmental accounting.  Currently my husband and I have four small businesses that keep us busy, plus my writing.  My books are historical spy thrillers set in fifth century Britain, so that’s a wild difference in setting and occupation (!).  Indirectly, some of the inspiration comes from observing human nature in both the office politics of ‘Corporate America’ and the government as well as dealing with the public.  Of course the mindset of fifth century folks was different than twentieth or twenty-first century people, but they are all looking for gain, to achieve their goals by whatever means gets them there, and to seek that thing that makes them feel good.

MA:  Tell us about your novels.

KCG:  The most recent book, released September 30, is A Land Beyond Ravens, the fourth book in the Macsen’s Treasure Series.  Like all the other books in the series, it’s a historical spy thriller set in fifth century Britain.  It continues the story of master spy Marcus ap Iorwerth’s efforts to keep the country free from oppressive Saxon dominance and to aid in the fulfillment of Myrddin Emrys’ (Merlin) prophecy that a great king called Arthur will one day take the crown.  In this, the final installment, Marcus discovers the emerging Christian church is gaining enough power as an independent faction to dangerously shift control of Britain.  At the same time, his beloved wife Claerwen, gifted with second sight, is plagued with strange dreams that connect inexplicable doom to both Arthur and a long lost grail sacred to Britain’s high kings.  But as Marcus struggles to distract the church, he and Myrddin also set up the very doom Claerwen sees.  It seems they accidentally set things in motion that will send a lot of folks off chasing something called a grail…

MA:  That’s an interesting twist …having a spy protagonist in a medieval setting like this.  Of course, spies have been around since forever (world’s second oldest profession?), but you don’t ordinarily read novels about them in this period.  How did you develop his character?

KCG:  Originally I saw Marcus ap Iorwerth as sort of a Dark Age warrior, maybe in the employ of some high ranking nobleman and having a bunch of adventures related to Arthurian legend.   Then I went, “yeesh, that’s awfully hokey.”  Then I hit on the idea that he should be a spy, somebody like James Bond.  Ok, keep going…but he couldn’t be just another Bond character running around in a tunic and carrying a sword.  This was where my background in history began to kick in.  I discovered that Britain was likely composed of around fifty small, petty kingdoms in those days.  I also discovered the bickering, jealous, cliquish and tribal mindset of the rulers (and the people) of those kingdoms prevented them from uniting against the encroachment of dangerous outsiders like the Saxons.  Here was the opportunity to portray a character who desired above all else to set things right to keep Britain free.  Sure I could have given all of Marcus’s traits to a King Arthur figure, but I wanted to write of the period preceding Arthur’s taking of power and have Marcus, as a spy, be instrumental in that rise to power.

MA:  Amazing!  Tell us more about his character.

KCG:  Marcus is an iron-willed, blunt-talking man, tough, courageous and loyal to his ideals and principles.  He has the capability to love very deeply and does care for his wife so much that he tends to be over-protective, which actually sometimes puts her in danger by not telling her everything.  He has a hard time to trust that she can better help herself—and him—if she knows what’s going on.  He also drinks too much, usually out of a deeply buried guilt he won’t even let himself think about.

MA:  Is there a particular nemesis, someone who is a constant thorn – er, sword, in Marcus’ side?

KCG:  The ‘bad guy’ is defined by the ‘situation’ in fifth century Britain rather than any single antagonist.  It’s the fluid, unpredictable dynamics of the many stubborn, irascible minor-ranking kings, clan-lords and even the high king who can’t come to terms with each other and who can’t understand if they don’t unite against the oppressive Saxons, those Saxons will eventually conquer them.  This attitude drives Marcus nuts and is what he works to resolve for nearly three decades.

MA:  You sure have been prolific with your writing…can I assume you have some more projects in mind for the future?

KCG:  Right now I’m re-editing my first novel, Into the Path of Gods.  Now that the fourth book is out, my editor wants to re-release the whole four-book series in electronic format next year.  She feels, and so do I, that my writing style has matured since the first book came out back in 1998.  (Different editor then as well.)  It also needs some corrections in the historical end of it—my research skills have improved, too.  And if sales go well with the new book, they may give me a contract to reissue the whole series in trade paperback!

After this re-edit is done, I have another project I’ll be ready to start: a multi-period historical told through several interconnected stories.  I’ve also wanted to write a novel about Owain Glyndwr, the national hero of Wales, for a long time. Beyond that, I have a whole drawer full of ideas to explore.

MA:  Will we see Marcus or any of his cohorts in your future writings?

KCG:  The Macsen’s Treasure Series will stay at four books.  I’ve been asked numerous times if I will do a fifth installment, but in my mind the story is done.  Conceivably, it’s possible that a descendant of the characters in this series could figure in another book or series set in a later period.  At this time I have no plans for such a series, but…never say never!

MA:  Never indeed!  What do you want readers of your books to walk away with?  I like to inspire with my writing, what about you?

KCG:  The one thing I’d like readers to take away from my work is that human nature really doesn’t change over the centuries.  No matter what the time, place, culture or technology, human nature will always strive to find happiness, comfort, hope and what feels like normal.  Culture may dictate what constitutes how that happiness is perceived, but like water seeking its own level, human nature seeks what feels good.  I’m always amazed how, in the middle of devastation, be it war or a natural disaster, people will still look for hope and try to make things as normal as possible.  Just shows how resilient we can be.

MA:  Well, that is inspiring in and of itself!  Thanks Kathleen for dropping by the Child Finder Trilogy and spending time with me and my readers.  I encourage everyone to visit Kathleen’s websites to learn more about her and her books:

Blog: http://kathleenguler.blogspot.com/

Website: http://kathleenguler.com/

This is a fun article!  Mary Deal outlines one of the secrets to her success as an author…her ability to compose prose using proper grammar and the right amount of eloquence.  When writing, it’s important to sound credible.  It’s one thing to use poor grammar when you are inside a character’s head or quoting her speech.  After all, a poor, uneducated, person isn’t going to talk uppity.  But the words you use as an author to cement your story together had better follow proper rules of grammar.  Read Mary’s article for her take…and remember, talk uppity, then visit Mary’s website:  Write Any Genre.

Talk Uppity

by Mary Deal

Someone once asked, “I was told to write how I speak in order to make my stories conversational. So why can’t I get them published?”

I took a look at that woman’s writing style and it instantly triggered a memory of my own experience.

The language with which we’re most comfortable doesn’t always produce the best writing style.

I grew up among middle-class everyday folk. Language was one thing that separated groups of people as I had come to know them. When I was young, every once in a while I’d hear someone say, “Oh my! She talks so uppity!”

Hearing such remarks from people that I liked made me wonder what uppity might mean. What I heard when those others spoke was language that seemed too proper, maybe too perfect.

As children, my siblings and I used to imitate at play. We’d throw our hands on our hips and accuse one another, saying, “Oh my! You talk uppity!”

I decided that I didn’t want someone saying anything like that about me. I didn’t want my friends and family to think I put on airs. I continued using the language I grew up with, until I began to write.

Then, every time I looked, my thesaurus kicked out words and phrases that, when spoken, sounded like speech I had heard long ago. Uppity speech. Yet, it all sounded so good when I used those terms and phrases in my stories. I started getting published more. I graduated to using a Chicago Manual of Style. My former language nuances enhance my writing style, but now what I say is more grammatically correct.

What I realized was that the language errors in the ways of my common-folk upbringing kept me using simple language and colloquialisms in my writing. The proper language I had heard from others and shied away from was just that: Proper.

So in order for me to write stories to the best of my ability, I had to learn to write and speak uppity. And guess what. Doing so improved my stories beyond anything that I could beforehand have imagined. And all it really was, and had been all along, was correct grammar usage. So go ahead. Talk uppity.

I am delighted to welcome today’s guest-blogger, author Cynthia Vespia.  Cynthia was drawn to writing at a young age.  After high school she established a successful career as a freelance journalist writing everything from features and fillers, to reviews and human interest stories.

Her first novel, a medieval fiction entitled The Crescent (iUniverse), was published in August 2005.  The novel was unanimously praised as “an engaging, descriptive read” which prompted a sell-out at Borders Bookstore in less than one hour during the first official signing.

A short story, a satirical look at the afterlife titled Death’s Grand Design (Utterpants), was published online shortly thereafter and once again met with reviews that honored her attention to detail and the flow of her prose.

In May of 2006, Theater of Pain (Lulu.com) was released.  This suspense thriller unfolds within the eccentric world of professional wrestling where competitors would do anything to reach the top…even murder.

Most recently, Cynthia has written her darkest novel to date with the release of Demon Hunter (AspenMountainPress.com) the story about a nobody who becomes a somebody in the bloodiest of ways.  Following the tradition of dark fantasy and combining the concept of high-adventure, Demon Hunter examines both the light and dark side of human nature when a man learns he is fated to hunt demons before they corrupt mankind.

You sure have been busy writing!  Has it always been in your blood?

CV:  Well I’ve been writing since I was a kid. It’s always been a favorite pastime of mine. I love the creative process and everything that goes with it…dreaming up worlds, characters, and adventures.  I like to think of my projects as character driven novels full of suspense as well as dark fantasy. Think of them as, “Real life situations that you could find yourself in but hope to God you never do.” In my spare time I enjoy reading, movies that involve strong plot/characters, and keeping active through various forms of martial arts and as an active fitness competitor.

I read alot. One of my favorite authors of all times is Dean Koontz. When I was in high school I picked up a copy of his novel Intensity and I became so enraptured by the story that I decided that was what I wanted to do. My inspiration was to have my novels touch and entertain my readers the same way Koontz had done for me.

MA:  Your professional life, even before writing novels, involved writing.  Tell us about that, and any cross-influences you experienced with the different writing styles.

CV:  I’ve used my writing capabilities to enhance my career (freelance journalist; editorial director; head copywriter) but not the other way around. My characters invariably always have a touch of myself in them but they also are a mash-up of people I’ve met throughout this journey called life. I don’t necessarily do it by choice. Little idioms in my subconscious that stand out in one way or another from a particular person will weave their way into a character’s attributes. I just go with it.

MA:  What about your current project?  Tell us about Demon Hunter.

CV:  There have been many solitary novels about werewolves, vampires, demons, and dragons in the past. My novel Demon Hunter: The Chosen One presents all of them in a dark and bone chilling adventure. It is the first in a trilogy.

Costa Calabrese has just uncovered the truth about his past. Some truths should never be revealed. When you learn you’re the son of the world’s foremost and feared hunter of demons, life’s rules inevitably change.  As his lineage is uncovered he must stay one step ahead of the demons who are intent on the destruction of his famed family. With the aide of companions he meets along the way, Costa will travel the great expanse of the land walking in his famed father’s footsteps and taking up the role his blood line now demands of him…whether he wants to or not. He is a killer of killers, laying waste to the scourge of evil that threatens the existence of mankind. He is the chosen one. He is the Demon Hunter.

MA:  You mentioned a trilogy…what will the next two books be about?

CV:  Demon Hunter was always meant to be a trilogy of terror. The second installment Demon Hunter: Seek & Destroy came out around last Thanksgiving, and it reunites our heroes on another epic journey that starts on the high seas and ends in the pit of Hell!  There is also a romance brewing in DH2.  At the moment I’m currently writing the third and final installment of the DH series and I’ll let you in on a little secret, it is going to be something completely unexpected.

MA:  That’s cool.  Now, Costa sounds like an interesting character.  Is he one of these extraordinary protagonists, almost superhuman?  Or is he more down-to-earth?

CV:  Costa is something of an “everyman” that is faced with difficult choices and responsibilities. His life is essentially turned upside down in the blink of an eye. In the beginning he’s very unsure of himself, he feels as though he has no real purpose to life and longs for something better. I believe each and every one of us has felt that way at one time or another. You may wish for something to change and then when you wind up getting your wish you find out things are just as hard, if not harder than they were before. For Costa finding out he has special attributes that stem from a lineage of hunters takes him by surprise. He finds he has to face down changes in himself that he may or may not be ready for.

MA:  He sounds like an amazing hero.  In addition to his demon-hunting lineage, does he have any special gifts or powers?

CV:  Though at first he’s unaware of his particular strengths, Costa has the gift of foresight…a pretelling of certain events, almost premonitions in nature. Throughout the novel he will learn to draw upon many different strengths such as courage, perseverance, and intuition to help him through difficult challenges. It’s also nice to have your protag invested with some physical skills that make him a lethal weapon as well!  As far as weaknesses it goes back to his early days where he felt unworthy and unsure of himself. That lack of self confidence is addressed throughout the story until Costa is able to overcome it.

MA:  Now I suppose with your story’s premise, there’s all kinds of bad guys – er, bad entities, right?

CV:  Demons run rampant throughout Demon Hunter…hey it’s in the very title after all!  But it’s not just the grotesque spawn of the underworld that threaten our heroes, it’s also the demons in their own minds they have to contend with. There are past mistakes to be reconciled and future worries that plague them in their journey.  But along the way they must face foes of admirable power such as Lord LeCarde…a twisted, soulless vampire leader determined to wipe out Costa’s entire family line and anyone else who crosses his path.

MA:  I guess you probably don’t have any real-life experiences you draw from to form the characters and plotlines in Demon Hunter, or do you (please say no, please say no)?

CV:  I do tend to draw from real-life when I’m writing. For Demon Hunter: The Chosen One I used the challenges and changes I faced during my five years as a fitness competitor.  Competing helped me to understand facets of myself that I may not have uncovered otherwise. I used these learning experiences for Costa’s own journey from a simple farm hand into the new hunter of demons.

MA:  (lets out a sigh of relief) Okay, I guess those are not so bad to draw from…was worried you may have had an actual demon encounter.  So what’s in your writing future?

CV:  I plan to continue to write until I can do it no longer!  I’ve got quite a collection of ideas swarming around in my head.  I’m also focusing on rewriting the screenplay for my novel The Crescent.  I’m looking to get the film in production within the next year.  Interested parties should visit project page at: http://cynthiavespia.com/Book_Titles/Crescent/Crescent_Movie/crescent_movie.html

MA:  Well, you earned that plug!  I want to thank you for stopping by to visit with me today.  If anyone out there can help Cynthia with her screenplay project, please be sure to check out her link, above.  In the meantime, I invite all my readers to check out Cynthia at her website, as well as her publisher’s site:

www.CynthiaVespia.com and www.AspenMountainPress.com, respectively.

Author Mary Deal weighs in on an important topic…repetition in writing and how it can turn off readers.  In her article, she uses an example where description can be repetitive and potentially offensive to a reader.  I would like to add the same holds true for dialogue.  I’m sure everyone reading this post has had the experience of being in a group setting and participating in a conversation.  Fine so far, right?  But then a new person walks in the room and asks, “What’s up guys?”  Isn’t it frustrating and boring when people feel compelled to rehash the entire conversation?  The same thing holds true in writing.  Sometimes in my stories I have scenes where a character joins a conversation late, but I always find a way to “brief him up” without having to bore the reader with the same dialogue.  I may have my protagonist excuse himself to take a phone call, leaving the room after saying, “Why don’t you guys bring Woody up to speed on the operation while I take this call.”  Done!  Read Mary’s article for her insights, and be sure to visit her website for even more writing tips: Write Any Genre.

Repetition Offends Your Reader

by Mary Deal

When descriptive words are used repetitively in writing, it makes the reader wonder why they have to be told something they’ve already learned earlier in the story. Repetition can kill your reader’s interest.

On Page 2 of my new novel, River Bones, the reader learns that Sara, the protagonist, is blonde when the real estate salesman describes her to someone else:

“Some middle-aged blonde woman—a real looker out of Puerto Rico—just bought that damnable eyesore down along the river.”

On Page 9 I say,

“The breeze whipped her hair across her face and wrapped it around her neck.”

I had originally written that sentence like this:

“The breeze whipped her long blonde hair across her face and wrapped it around her neck.”

Because I mentioned Sara’s hair color on Page 2, no need exists to mention the color again anywhere else in the book, with rare exceptions, of course.

Notice, too, her hair length was not mentioned on Page 2, but on Page 9 if her hair is long enough to whip across her face and around her neck, no need exists for the word “long” to describe it. Surely from reading that one corrected sentence, a reader knows Sara’s hair is not cropped off at the nape of her neck.

The word “long” was not needed due to the description of how the hair reacted in the wind.

To further prove the point, read the sentence from Page 2 with the correct sentence from Page 9. Then go back and read the sentence from Page 2 with the incorrect sentence from Page 9.

Analyze your sentences for superfluous words. Cut ruthlessly, or improve the action in your sentence to show what you mean. Your readers will love you for it.