Writing Process & Celebrate

Oh no!!

I have no book features to hide behind this week. I must actually write something for a blog post!
 
Luckily, my friend, Jeff Chapman has tagged me in the Writing Process Blog Hop where they give me the questions to answer.  (Whew.  Close one.)

1)  What am I working on?  A thriller with a theme of medical ethics.

2)  How does my work differ from others of its genre?  My books are all set in Egypt with realistic details about the people and the culture.

3)  Why do I write what I do?  I've always loved reading  horror/thrillers. They keep me glued to the page because their stakes are the highest -- life and death.

4)  How does your writing process work?  It's different with every book.  I don't believe in hard and fast rules. A writer should be open to doing whatever works best for them.  :)

Here are the two Fabulous people I'm passing the Writing  Process Blog Hop onto:

TF Walsh writes fantasy, romance and paranormal stories for both adults and young adult. CLOAKED IN FUR, a paranormal suspense, is her debut novel from Crimson Romance.  Buy it here:   AMAZON    B&N    iTUNES    KOBO    ALL ROMANCE    GOOGLE BOOKS    ADAM'S MEDIA

 

Kate Larkindale is the author of 8 YA contemporary novels (5 of which other people might one day be allowed to see) and one terrible historical romance. Her debut, An Unstill Life, is available now.  

CELEBRATE THE SMALL THINGS

This week I'm celebrating:
1)  I've written 4 posts for the A-Z.  I know I need to get cracking, but at least it's a start!
2)  I added another 5k to my WIP -- before coming to a dead stop.  I confess I'm a world-class procrastinator.  Like a child that doesn't want to clean its room, I'm great at finding anything to do other than write, like:

• Facebook?  You betcha.  Never met a LOLCat I didn't like.
• Email stalking?  Yup.  I'm not expecting anything important, but even the spam begins to look interesting when I'm supposed to be writing.
• Forum Posting?  Oh, yeah.  When procrastinating, I turn into a non-stop Yakity-yak Monster and get disappointed when peeps don't reply at the supersonic speed with which I can post crap in my forums.
• TV.  'Nuff said.
• Household Chores?  The bane of my existence.  Yet suddenly vacuuming, mopping, and even scrubbing the toilet jump to the top of my To-Do list.

Does anyone else need to join Procrastinator's Anonymous?  What do you do when you should be writing?

 

This post is part of VikLit's blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. To be part of this blog hop, all you have to do is follow the link and put your name on the Mr.Linky list, and then be sure to post every Friday about something you're grateful  for that week.  It can be about writing or family or school or general life.  This is the funnest and easiest blog hop ever! 

Radio Hope & Celebrate

Today, I'm happy to have Sean McLachlan's guest post about Egypt and its connection to his new book, Radio Hope!  Take it away, Sean!

Image from Dennis Jarvis via Wikimedia Commons

Ancient Egypt and the Apocalypse

By Sean McLachlan

Don’t worry about the title, I’m not about to start talking about how aliens built the pyramids and left a secret hieroglyphic code predicting the end of the world.  If you want New Age archaeology, watch cable TV.

Instead I’m going to tell you about the first time my mind was blown and how that indirectly affected my writing a post-apocalyptic novel twenty-four years later.  For some reason the Discovery Channel didn’t want to do a documentary about that.

Back when I was twenty-year-old archaeology student, I visited Egypt. I spent a wonderful month traveling up the Nile seeing every ancient site I could along the way.  The most impressive by far was the temple complex at Karnak.  At its heart is the Grand Hypostyle Hallway in the Precinct of Amun-Ra.  It’s a forest of towering columns all covered in hieroglyphics.  I sat in there the entire morning, awed, watching the light and shadows move over the ancient writing.

I’ve been to hundreds of archaeological and historical sites since then, but that place has always remained vivid in my memory.  Its grandeur, its mystery, its sheer size, all made a permanent impression.

In my post-apocalyptic novel Radio Hope, the action takes place barely a century after the fall of civilization, and yet that civilization seems almost as remote to my characters as ancient Egypt seems to us.  Only the very old had grandparents who remembered when cars sped down highways and the skies were full of airplanes.  Only a few settlements have electricity and virtually no one has seen a functioning computer.  In fact, most younger people think all the stories of a global communication network that brought libraries and movies into people’s homes are just fairy tales.  Sure, the Old Times were great, but the people were only human, not miracle workers.

And yet, there’s something magical about the ruins from the Old Times.  In this new toxic world the largest “city” has only three thousand people, while the ruins of the Old Times looked like they could house tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands.  Stories that the bigger cities had populations in the millions are exaggerations, of course.

And what will the great-grandchildren of my characters think?  By then all the computers will be dead, the photovoltaic panels degraded, the old magazines all faded away.  How much more mythical will those old ruins seem then?  If they wander through the rubble of London or Los Angeles, will they even recognize that human beings had built these great cities?

Maybe they’ll think up aliens to explain it all.  It will be a post-apocalyptic version of New Age archaeology.  At least there won’t be TV shows about it.

Sean McLachlan is an archaeologist turned writer who is the author of several books of fiction and history. Check him out on his blog Midlist Writer.

Blurb:  
In a world shattered by war, pollution and disease. . .
A gunslinging mother longs to find a safe refuge for her son.
A frustrated revolutionary delivers water to villagers living on a toxic waste dump.
The assistant mayor of humanity's last city hopes he will never have to take command.
One thing gives them the promise of a better future--Radio Hope, a mysterious station that broadcasts vital information about surviving in a blighted world. But when a mad prophet and his army of fanatics march out of the wildlands on a crusade to purify the land with blood and fire, all three will find their lives intertwining, and changing forever.

BUY LINK:  AMAZON

CELEBRATE THE SMALL THINGS

This week I'm celebrating:

1) I only wrote 2k on my WIP this week *facepalm* but 2k is better than nothing, right?  And there's always next week to try, try again.
2) I finished a guest blog post for Tara Chevrestt's blog Book Babe.  She does a special feature every week on a strong heroine from a book. So if you have a book with a strong heroine, TARA WANTS YOU to write a piece about her.  For more details, go here: Book Babe: Seeking Strong is Sexy Heroines for 2014.
3) A lovely 5-star review popped up on Amazon from Lori at Contagious Reads Reviews.  Normally, I don't crow about my reviews here, but since I just did a HUGE read-for-review giveaway on Library Thing, and Lord knows what will be coming down the pike in the next few weeks *cowers in the corner* I'm going to celebrate this great review now!

Do you think an author should read reviews on their book?  What about strong heroines -- do you write them or like them in the books you read?

This post is part of VikLit's blog hop, Celebrate the Small Things. To be part of this blog hop, all you have to do is follow the link and put your name on the Mr.Linky list, and then be sure to post every Friday about something you're grateful  for that week.  It can be about writing or family or school or general life.  This is the funnest and easiest blog hop ever! 

IWSG: Doris Day

Doris Day, 1957 (public domain photo)

Doris Day may seem like an odd choice for an encouraging writer's post, but bear with me.

Anyone who's ever seen a Doris Day movie will never forget her.  From her thousand-watt smile to her ultra-feminine voice, she embodied sweetness and sunshine.  But contrary to her cheerful and angelic demeanor, her personal life was full of hardship and tragedy.

CRIPPLING ACCIDENT

Doris was a child dance prodigy and performed locally in Cincinnati in her early teens.  She was well on her way to becoming an excellent professional dancer until a car she was in was struck by a train.  Her leg was crushed, as were her dreams of being a dancer.

Did she give up? No.  She began to sing.

ABUSIVE MARRIAGE

In her early twenties, she was working as a singer and got her big break when she was hired by Les Brown, a very famous bandleader of the time. Shortly after, she fell in love with and married his trombone player, Al Jorden.  It wasn't a happy marriage.  In her book,  Doris Day: Her Own Story,  she says he abused her and was so angry when she got pregnant that he repeatedly beat her in the stomach to cause a miscarriage. 

Did she give up?  No.  She had the baby, divorced Jorden, and two years later recorded her first big hit, "Sentimental Journey."

FILM CAREER AND FINANCIAL RUIN

Doris Day and Jimmy Stewart in "The Man Who Knew Too Much"

While singing at a Hollywood party, Doris was "discovered," offered a screen test, and immediately cast in "Romance on the High Seas" (1948).  In 1951, she married her agent, Marty Melcher and had a stellar film career, earning an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe award and receiving millions in film and recording deals.  But when Melcher died in 1968, Doris discovered he'd mishandled her money, leaving her broke, deeply in debt, and with a contract commitment that forced her to do a TV series -- and she didn't even like TV.

Did she give up?  No.  The need to clear her debts convinced Doris to go ahead with "The Doris Day Show," which was a huge success and ran from 1968-1973 and won her another Golden Globe award.

Doris Day and Rock Hudson in "Pillow Talk"

If you're still with me, here's the payoff.  

Doris Day is still alive and ninety years old.  Despite her traumatic past, she survived, she rose to the challenge of learning new things, and adapted herself to the changes forced upon her.  

As writers, we all struggle with personal setbacks, frustration over our own limitations, and career disappointments.  Things rarely go as planned.  Don't be afraid of change or disappointments.  Roll with the punches, do the best you can with what you have, and you'll find success even if it's not necessarily the way you'd planned.



This is a post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group, the brainchild of Alex J. Cavanaugh.  It exists so the community of blogging writers can share and support each other, blog-hopping to cheerlead and commiserate.  To find out more, visit: Insecure Writer's Support Group.  Plus, check out the IWSG Website for lots of helpful info and links.