Thursday, June 28, 2012

The 777 Challenge





I was tagged by Jude Johnson along with six other authors. My challenge is to go to page 7 of my current work in progress and post seven lines. When I'm done posting, I get to tag seven other authors. Hmm, who shall I tag? Oh and once I'm done, I challenge those seven to do the same and tag seven more.Heh heh, keep the vicious circle spinning!
And now for my excerpt. This is from my current un-edited, When th Dam Breaks, signing contract today. 
Page 7, 7 lines: And remember, un-edited...


He carried me up the stairs toward the bedroom. Before laying me on the bed he stopped to turn on the television. I thought that odd, especially when he turned the channel to the news. A broadcast came on that seemed to ignite Bob’s sexuality into a raging force.


“Buffalo Homicide Detectives have identified the bodies of two victims brutally murdered today in their home. Police have been left baffled as they can find little evidence and no motive for the slaughter,”


My Seven Authors to tag:

Linda Rettstatt

Linda Smith LaRogue


Richard Hacker


Ashley Barnard


Donica Covey


Patricia A Florio


Daniel Audet





Monday, June 11, 2012

Spotlight: Richard Hacker

















Today’s In the Spotlight features the award winning author Richard Hacker. If any of you have missed Richard’s bio your in for a treat. He sounds like a very interesting man.


Here he talks about flying in his plane; Spinning toward the ground from 5000 feet, my stomach somewhere in the back of the plane and my inner child screaming, I pondered why a writer would intentionally put an aircraft into spiraling dive toward the extremely hard earth below.


I love adventure but Richard seems to go over the top.


Good morning Richard, how are things in Seattle?

First of all, thanks so much for this interview. I’m very pleased to have a chance to visit with you and your readers. Things in Seattle are cloudy and damp, but we’re all excited about clear skies coming by July 5th. Having lived most of my life in Austin I’ve been working hard to go with a few less days of sunshine. If anyone has some extra vitamin D, please send to the address at the end of this interview. Please.

You seem to have a real adventurous sprit Richard, tell us what drives Richard Hacker?

I firmly believe you don’t live life standing still, so while I’m not anywhere near a daredevil, I do like to get out in the world. In my writing, I love to tell stories and entertain. I’ll often look up in a coffee shop and notice folks staring at me -- the guy with the laptop laughing. Hopefully readers will find my stories, often littered with unusual characters in odd situations, entertaining and at times, humorous.

When did you first know you were destined to become an author?

Third grade. I wrote short stories to read at show and tell and I remember thinking about how I’d like to write stories when I grew up. Interestingly enough, I think many writers have a similar history of some moment in their childhood when they knew they had stories to tell.


Where do you get the ideas for your stories?


Sometimes I’ll wake up at three in the morning with a story idea rolling around in my head, so I’ll jot it down and go back to sleep. When I get up the next morning, many of those ideas are the ravings of a dreaming loon, but occasionally a plot line forms on the page and I’m off. I also draw quit a bit from life experience of a place. For example, TOXIC RELATIONSHIP is set in what used to be my hometown, a little bedroom community of Austin with the odd name of Pflugerville. The place gets its name from a Swedish family, the Pflugers, who settled northeast of Austin in the 1800‘s. Many of my characters have been lovingly constructed with bits and pieces of the people I’ve met. (I suppose I should be clear, especially for readers with a law enforcement background, I’m not talking about actual bits and pieces.) And of course, Central Texas plays a role as well.


Tell us a little about your new book Richard, I understand it’s set to release in August but has already received recognition.


TOXIC RELATIONSHIP is a thriller with a humorous twist set in the Hill Country of Texas. Nick Sibelius, moves to Pflugerville to set up a private investigation business, find some peace and maybe, himself, after a murdered partner, a cheating wife and a lost job in Houston. When a young couple disappears and a bass fisherman turns up dead, he finds himself drawn into a web of toxic relationships: MaryLou, a beautiful woman with a mysterious past, Junior, a failed farmer whose best intentions seem to always result in a dead body, and Barry, a sociopathic dentist turned illegal toxic waste and methamphetamine entrepreneur with visions of grandeur. When the felon who killed his partner in Houston joins forces with Barry, Nick must not only stop the toxic waste dumping while finding his client's missing daughter, but keep from being killed in the process. In the end, MaryLou's dark secret will either help him or kill him -- whichever comes first.


Thriller with humor sounds like my kind of book.

Thank you so much Richard. I wish you all the success. Anything else you’d like to add?


Thanks again for the interview. As you mentioned at the top, I currently live in Seattle, which is a stunningly beautiful place -- snow capped mountains, Puget Sound, forests -- crazy beautiful. Before moving here I lived in the Austin area for over thirty years and continue to go back to Austin regularly to visit family, friends and the Hill Country. There's a strange beauty to the place and I hope my other character, Central Texas, shines through in the book. TOXIC RELATIONSHIP will be released by Champagne Books in August, 2012. Pick up a copy, pop open a cold Shiner (or as close as you can get, wherever you live) and kick back. Sex, murder and toxic waste -- nowhere else but Texas!


You can find Richard at:

http://www.champagnebooks.com/

Website: http://www.richardhacker.com/

Blog: http://www.richardhacker.wordpress.com/


Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RWHacker


Twitter: @Richard_Hacker














Monday, June 4, 2012

In the Spotlight Judy G Gill

















Today’s In the Spotlight interview is with Judy Griffith Gill


Judy Griffith Gill is the author of over fifty published novels. She’s a novel- writing teacher, Editor/Acquisitions Editor, and proof reader. I personally am published because Judy as Acquisitions Editor with Champagne Books liked my book, After the Mist and gave me a chance. I’ve since read a couple of her books and have found them well written and extremely captivating.


Please join me in welcoming Judy. Good morning Judy sit back in your favorite chair, or your hammock and let us begin.

Tell us something about Judy Griffith Gill, we have only wondered about.


People often ask “Where do you get your ideas?” If I’m overtired, stressed out, or just plain feeling skittish, I’ve been known to reply: “I subscribe to a secret Idea Generating Service. It’s terribly expensive and very exclusive. No, I can’t put you in touch with them.” In reality, however, my ideas come from news items, snippets of overheard conversations, dreams—a lot of them come from dreams—my subconscious talking to me; and just plain lolling in that hammock and asking myself “What if…’”

When I read your book Perfect Partners (I loved it!) there was a delightful part which took place on a boat in a cove. At the end of this book you said while writing Perfect Partners you were on a boat in a cove, is this a norm for you?

Between the beginning of April and the end of September, yes. Neither my husband nor I like marinas, so we do a lot of anchoring-out where it’s calm and quiet and often secluded. I’m an unrepentant skinny-dipper but don’t like to offend others.



I love your answer so I'm keeping it, but what I meant to ask was, is it the norm for you to incorporate a place or situation you are in into the story you are writing?


Actually, no. I seldom write about a place I'm currently in or have lived in until I'm away from it and can see it from more distant perspective. Somehow, that allows me to pick out details without being overwhelmed by minutiae. For instance, though we spent a total of eight years in Germany, I didn't set a book (Golden Warrior) there until much later.


You have a long line of credentials, from author, to editor, to writing teacher, which do you find to be the most rewarding, and why?


Aw, Cathy, cruel! I love all aspects of the writing life, so it’s really hard to choose a favorite. To my mind editing and teaching are often the same thing (as many of my long-suffering authors would tell you). When I make a change or suggest one in author’s book, it’s because I’ve slipped happily into teaching mode and have to control myself so as not to write pages and pages of lecture material. I guess, on reflection, the most rewarding is to read my own finished manuscript for the ninety-ninth time, sit back with a sigh and hear that little voice inside say, “Damn, that was fun!” But helping an author through the process of getting a book into shape is nearly as rewarding in a slightly different way. When the author appears happy with our combined effort and tells me I’ve helped, that she’s learned from what I told her (or him) I hear that same little voice say the same thing. For me, that is the entire basis of this career. When it quits being fun, I’ll stop doing it. I understand you have two homes, one in BC and one in Costa Rica which place most holds your heart?

My heart, corny as this will sound, is wherever my husband of nearly fifty years is. Since he does the yard work and grocery-shopping in Costa Rica to give me time to work, and drive me to Cahuita Park to swim in the Caribbean (which is only 500 yards from our house, but the swimming’s better and safer in the park) and captains the boat when we’re in BC, that means I want to be where he is because I need him. (Um, don’t tell him, but wherever my computer is also holds a warm place in my heart.)

You sound like a very busy lady, how do you find time to also write?


I just do it. I lead a pretty sedentary life on the whole, my main activity in CR rocking my hammock with my foot against a table, and in BC, playing deckhand to the captain and paddling my kayak. This lack of outside activity gives me plenty of time to all the writing, reading and editing I choose to do. I have cut back on my private editing jobs, but still take on the odd project I feel is worthwhile. My novel writing is slowing down these past few years. I find myself doing more short articles for writing magazines and trying the odd novella here and there.


When did you first realize you were destined to be a writer? What inspired you?


I’ve been a book-nut since I learned to read at the age of four, but think I was about ten, maybe twelve, when I read a continuing story in a weekly magazine my parents subscribed to. That novel, The Golden Amazons (don’t bother Googling it to figure out how old I am--I just turned seventy) captivated me and I could hardly wait for the next installment. The author, whose name I don’t remember, showed, not told, to the point where I could see what was happening to that family, feel their anxieties, take part in their adventures, and began creating adventures for myself and the two cousins nearest my age, both boys. A teacher, Miss McAulley, wrote on my sixth-grade report card, “Neglect not the gift that is in thee,” but it wasn’t until high school I began to notice that not everyone had that “gift,” because other kids would ask me to look over their essays. I think I knew I was a writer even then, but it took a posting to Germany and a dearth of English language books for me to put that “gift” to work. I wrote a romance novel because someone dared me to, sent it away to a publisher in the UK and they bought it. I was twenty-nine and too naïve to know it wasn’t supposed to be that easy. Apart from an eight-year hiatus after we left military life and returned to BC, while I worked as a book-seller and landscaped our wilderness property, I’ve never looked back.


What brought you to Champagne Books as Editor/Acquisitions Editor?


Initially, an ad for an editor I saw on the EPIC loop. I’d just finished judging in EPIC’s contest and, appalled by the quality of work I’d seen, figured maybe editorial services would help improve e-books. Ms. Smith hired me. About a year later, after I annoyed her enough by complaining about the stuff assigned to me for editing, she asked if I’d be interested in acquiring for Champagne. I was. I made lots of mistakes, accepted things considered unacceptable by other editors, and learned to strengthen my “mean-gene”. Problem was I wanted to take on works other editors felt required too much editing, because I thought—and still think—that’s what editors do: they edit. I had to learn I wasn’t supposed to be a teacher and a writing coach to the degree I wanted to be, nor should I expect that of other editors. It’s been a tough lesson. It still hurts me to have to tell someone “no”, except for those who obviously haven’t done their homework about what we publish, who present badly spelled, poorly constructed queries, and show a total ignorance of our submission guidelines which are clear and concise. If you want to submit to me at the CBG, please pay careful attention to the guidelines and follow them religiously. It’s my nature to want to love you all, but there are submissions that have ended up in my “bad/funny submissions file” which will someday be the basis of an article I plan to publish widely. Believe me, though names will be changed to protect the guilty, you don’t want yours be in that group.


You have written over fifty books, a huge accomplishment, which book would you personally call your favorite?


Ah, no hesitation on that one: BAD BILLY CULVER. Carolyn Nichols, then publisher of Bantam Loveswept books, wanted me to do a longer story, and I’d wanted to do a “bad-boy” book, so it all came together.

What inspired you to write that book?

After my discussion with Ms. Nichols, and my then editor, the incomparable Elizabeth Barrett, who taught me a great deal in the near-decade we worked together, Billy perched himself on the deer-fence around my vegetable garden one morning and told me his story. I went into the house and started writing it. I still love that guy—like my husband, a “somewhat reformed juvenile delinquent.”

Billy Culver, church-mouse poor, handsome as the devil & twice as bad, driven away for something he didn't do, returns, just as handsome, now rich & powerful & out for revenge--against the town, against the girl he loved--then he sees her again. Arlene Lambert still loves him but the dark secrets she must maintain, for Billy's sake, keep them apart. Or would, if she could just say no.


Anything else you’d like to add?


If you go to Smashwords or Kindle to look for the few works I have up there, make it soon, because I’ll be taking them down in a month or two. I’ve recently signed with Open Road Media, a company interested in aggressively marketing e-book editions of a number of authors. I think it’ll be an interesting venture, and I’ll be working with Nita Taublib, whom I first met when she was assistant to Carolyn Nichols, the publisher at Bantam Loveswept. Ms. Taublib then went on to become Executive Publisher for Bantam, Doubleday, Dell. I’m thrilled to be working with her again because I trust her judgment and because it was largely due to her I became the first, and for a long time only, Canadian published by Bantam Loveswept. It nearly killed me to break with them, but editorial/author differences forced that. Then, a year or so later, BDD inexplicably folded the line and I was glad I’d established myself elsewhere. Note to authors: If possible, don’t limit yourself—break out into subgenres if you can to give yourself more options.

Cathy, thank you for this opportunity to talk to readers and potential editing clients. I should have warned you—I tend to be long-winded. But when you ask a writer to discuss writing, you run the risk of being unable to turn off her tap. And by the way, I’m pretty sure After the Mist would have been published no matter who was doing the acquiring. It’s a wonderfully well-crafted, spooky, scary book and I enjoyed it immensely.

Thank you Judy, it was such fun to have a small glimpse into your life.
Find out more about Judy:
http://www.judyggbooks.com/
http://www.theprosepolisher.com/