Dad’s Long Arm

Let’s start a war. Do you dog-ear books or use a bookmark? Do you ever make notes in your books?

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My father was a book-phile from as far back as I can remember. My mother loved to read too, but she was less fussy about her books. Dad must have gifted me with a hundred bookmarks when I was a kid. He definitely didn’t like dog-earing or, worse, setting down a book open and breaking the spine — Mom’s favorite way of keeping her place. He also didn’t believe in writing in books. He always said you should leave the book in good condition so the next reader could enjoy it.

The only exception to this was his Bible. Thankfully, he did make that exception because I now know a lot about his faith that he always refused to talk about because I can most decipher his margin-note code.

Me?

I usually use a bookmark (or receipt, or twig, or…), but if nothing is handy, I will dog-ear a book rather than lose my place. I make notes in non-fiction books, but not in my Bible. I keep a separate notebook there. That way if I need to replace my Bible, I don’t lose all my notes.

It doesn’t drive me crazy if other people make notes in a book, although I’m always perplexed by people who do it in a fiction book. I’m sure there’s a reason I can’t figure out.

Hard on my Characters

What’s the worst wound (emotional or physical) one of your characters has ever had to deal with? How did you react to writing the scene?

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I write post-apocalyptic and fantasy. It would be silly to assume everybody in a post-apocalyptic world is going to survive and the thing about fantasy is that everyone runs around with these great big swords. Sooner or later, someone is bound to get killed. Might as well just accept reality in such fiction.

Daermad Cycle

I started out killing Prince Maryn about 20 pages into The Willow Branch. His death sets up turmoil of the next century in Celdrya. It’s always in the background. I’ve got a beta reader who says she is always waiting for who dies next. Clearly, I kill my characters if the story demands it. At the end of The Willow Branch, Tamys is at the edge of death. He lives, but is blind. In Mirklin Wood, Danys falls and his survival remains a question even at the end of Fount of Wraiths.

Transformation Project

I kill 30 million Americans by the end of the first book Life As We Knew It. I kill a hundred more, including characters who had spoken, in Objects in View. Jacob died peacefully in his sleep of ordinary old age in Gathering In. In Winter’s Reckoning, Shane falls and dislocates a hip and comes close to dying of hypothermia. Everybody thought Mike died in Gathering In, but he appears at the end of A Death in Jericho, just as Cai takes a bullet across town. You’ll have to read Worm Moon, due out later this year, to find out if Mike is really alive (Shane’s PTSD has included a “ghost” of Mike) or if Cai lives.

What If Wasn’t

This series isn’t a post-apocalyptic or fantasy, but a new adult drama set in Long Island, but somehow I can’t get away from injury or death.

At the end of Red Kryptonite Curve, Peter drove a car into a tree, dislocating his shoulder and smashing Chyenne’s face. The book ends with Peter deeply depressed, admitting he’s an alcoholic, and he wants to save himself.

That desire to stay sober is not as easy to accomplish as it is in a Hallmark movie, so at the end of Dumpster Fire, Peter’s drunken actions result in Alyse’s death and potential injuries to others. Do you think an 18-year-old kid who kills his sister, even accidentally, might suffer some emotional wounds? That’s the subject of Pocketful of Rocks which comes out next month. All I can say is that I bawled when I wrote the book..several times. Often times when I write injury scenes, I try to be very clinical about it so it doesn’t touch me, but with Peter, the scenes center on him and…wow…painful. I thought Shane could be dark, but Peter….

The Worst?

I think, if I had to choose, the character with the worst physical injury of all of them is Geo, Jazz Tully’s brother (Transformation Project), who was shot in the head and is currently serving as a lab rat for his employer. He can’t move, speak or breathe on his own, so I’d say that’s the worst injury…so far. I actually woke up a few times while writing his scenes, momentarily feeling like I couldn’t move, so it is disturbing to write it.

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Announcing Pocketful of Rocks – Book 3 of What If Wasn’t — now available on Amazon Pre-Order.

Alyse died in his arms and nobody cares if he’s sorry.

Hitting rock bottom hurts, and when Peter finds himself there for the second time, he shatters. Family and friends disappear, politics and the court system conspire to cancel his future, and Peter himself isn’t sure he wants to survive.

Over a period of months following the boat wreck, Peter learns that being sorry isn’t nearly enough and some broken things can’t be easily mended — even him.

Maybe a pocketful of rocks is the answer to everybody’s problems.  

As he realizes the depths of the damage he’s done, he contemplates whether the solution to his problems might not be a pocketful of rocks.

I Like Simplicity

What are your favorite writing tools?

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I trained as a journalist, so I’m frequently annoyed by writing programs aimed for English majors. Journalism and English don’t have the same goals and even argue over the same grammar and punctuation. Journalistic writing is English simplified, so that it can come into under deadline and be understood by people with an 8th grade education. It takes a lot of precision to write to that style and it’s the one I’m most comfortable with. Think Hemingway. I’m not him, but I lean his way more than I do Joyce, for example. Because of this, I generally avoid programs that claim they’ll make you a better writer. I check them out sometimes and then I reject them as annoying.

It’s a personal choice. Do what works for you.

Three Go-To Tools

So my favorite writing tools are simple and they’re primarily editing tools. I use Grammarly to check my grammar and punctuation as part of the editing process. I don’t always agree with it, but I appreciate the advice, which I take when and if it makes sense to me.

Although I know some writers who swear by the University of Chicago’s Style Guide, I prefer the AP Style Guide. The reason is simple. I already paid for it and it’s sitting on my shelf of resource books, but I also know my way around it because I’ve been using it for +30 years (not this particular style guide. Mine’s an updated one from 2010).

A couple of years ago I adopted Text to Speech as another beloved tool. Listening to the robot voice read my text back to me allows me to catch errors even Grammarly misses. Between Grammarly and Text-to-Speech, I think I catch probably 95% of my errors. My husband will occasionally find one when he reads the print book. That’s 97%. I haven’t found an app that catches the other 3% — unless it’s my son.

Keeping It Simple

I can think of many other great tools that are out there that other writers truly love, but I’ve pared my toolkit down to a handful of tools I’m very comfortable with and I think making the writing process too complicated would make the processing of writing less enjoyable for me.

But maybe I’ll try something my fellow blog-hoppers suggest and I’ll change my mind. You never know.