Make-Believe Mondays With Annie West

Today on Make-Believe Mondays our guest is Annie West.

Annie, first tell us a little bit about the manuscript you're working on now.

Annie: Hi, Debra, and thanks so much for having me on your Make-Believe Monday.

Debra: It's a pleasure to have you here.

Annie: I'm currently working on the story that I hope will be my seventh book for Harlequin Presents. No title as yet - it keeps changing! It's about a heroine who believes she will never earn the love of a good man and a hero who has loved and lost and never expects to find love again. Of course they're both wrong, as I insist on a happy ending! At the moment I'm immersed in their growing passion and confusion as they grapple with their preconceived ideas and face their feelings for each other.

Debra: This is the kind of love story most of us can relate to. It's wonderful to see that risk taking rewarded in the end.

Ray Bradbury said, "We are cups, constantly being filled. The trick is, knowing when to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out." How do you keep your creative cup filled?

Annie: I wish I knew for sure because I'd certainly do lots more of it! I'm only now beginning to get a feel for this and to realize how important it is to have time when I'm not focusing on the current or next book. I need time to allow my mind some freedom to enjoy what's going on around me. Things that I find help are reading (of course), simply relaxing in the sun, getting outside and active - like walking by the lake or the sea or tackling the garden, talking to friends or family, traveling, going somewhere different - to a play, a concert, a new place I've never visited or trying something entirely new!

Debra: Getting outside and away from the computer is vitally important.

Is there a point when your characters begin to come alive and you can see and hear them?

Annie: There are several moments when this happens. Often I'll start a book and not know the story. I have a scene playing in my head and I have to get it down on paper. It's such fun. Even though I don't know the details of what will happen later, those characters are incredibly real to me. I may not know exactly why they react in certain ways, I'll often discover that over time, but I do know how they react, how they feel. It's a wonderful, fabulous and utterly inexplicable. I see and hear them right from the start. It's as if I've opened a door in my mind and there they are, real and fully formed.

Later on in the story, I get more details of their history and their futures and then I have a more complete understanding of them. It's fascinating as sometimes small points I've included in that first scene turn out to be integral to their story and I hadn't even known it!

Debra: Sometimes it's very much like meeting the new next door neighbor.

For some writers, dreams play a role in creating fiction. Has this been true for you? Have you ever dreamed a scene or an image that later wound up in one of your books?

Annie: I can't remember ever dreaming about one of my books, but I do know there's something powerful about the subconscious working while I'm asleep. You know those niggling plot points that can cause so much trouble? Often you can resolve them by chatting with another writer friend and brainstorming ideas. Another way that has worked for me is to sleep on it. Literally. I spend time thinking about the issue and why I need a different solution and then put it aside. Often I'll wake in the morning with some new insight to the problem that allows me to go forward with the story. The results can be quite stunning.

Debra: Yes, the subconscious is incredibly wise. It's amazing.

Is there anything else you would like to add about the role of imagination, and dreams in creating fiction? Any other message for our readers?

Annie: I've always been a reader, an avid, totally-absorbed-in-the-story reader. It's one of the great joys of my life when I find a book - a new world - I can dive into and explore. I believe that imagination is as crucial to readers as to writers because we create this new reality of the book in our minds

My only message is to wave hello to fellow readers and to ask that you take time to think about how you might encourage other people, particularly younger ones, to discover the joy of great books too. It's a wonderful thing to share.

Annie, thank you for joining us here on this Make-Believe Monday to share a little bit of the magic of writing with our readers.

Annie: Debra, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you!

Debra: You're welcome. I'm so glad we finally connected.

Please pop over to visit Annie at her website to find out more about her stories and her life as a writer.

http://www.annie-west.com

Make-Believe Mondays With Art Noble

Today on Make-Believe Mondays I am pleased to introduce my friend, Art Noble. I am going to start out a little differently, beginning with Art's Bio, because it is so fascinating.

Born in Los Angeles, Art Noble grew up in Key West where he lived for four years in the Hemingway Home. He is the son of internationally known artist, Van Noble, who opened the Hemingway Home as an art gallery before it became a museum. He still writes under the Hemingway lamp he acquired when he moved from the home.

Noble holds a BS in Ocean Engineering and an MBA. Professionally, he was an adventurer on the cutting edge of technology, an executive engineer and a teacher. Like scores of other poets and authors, he has acquired and held many jobs including technical writers and commercial diver in the offshore oil field. This gives him an eclectic view of life. He ended his diving career as an Associate Professor of Underwater Technology at Florida Institute of Technology, Jensen Beach. His poetry is published in South Florida publications, The Armadillo Anthology, Underwater (trade magazine), and read on National Public Radio.

Noble has appeared as a bit actor in movies and made commercials. After his participation in the H-Bomb salvage and the first 650-foot saturation dive, he made an appearance on the Today Show and his photograph appeared in National Geographic.

Art, tell us a little bit about the manuscript you're working on now.

Art: The Sacred Female, set in sunny Fort Lauderdale, FL, is a novel of spiritual sexuality. It is the story of Richard and Jeanne, who literally bump into one another and start a dinner relationship that develops much further than either of them had intended. It is the story of how love changed them in way they would never have dreamed possible. They travel this path together as Rich unknowingly skirts involvement in a dangerous criminal enterprise and Jeanne's business grows beyond her expectations.

At times, erotic and sensual, The Sacred Female is about intimate connection between partners and explores both arcane aspects of female anatomy and physiology as well as the significance of finding a mutually spiritual path through sexuality.

Debra: What I've read so far was quite interesting. I'm looking forward to finishing the book.

Ray Bradbury said, "We are cups, constantly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out." How do you keep your creative cup filled?

Art: This is a self-published book and I work on painful feet in the hot sun to pull together living expenses. The rest of the time I am marketing the book, so my muse went on vacation. I'd like to join her.

Debra: I hope you will be able to join her soon under a cool, shady palm tree.

Is there a point when your characters begin to come alive and you can see and hear them?

Art: My characters are alive when I begin. Their character and faces develop in the book.

Debra: Some very famous authors have played with language, creating words for people or places that no one has ever heard of. Have you ever played with words in that way and if so how?

Art: Yes. I have a non-grammatical Swifty in this novel that fits perfectly. I'll let the reader find it.

Debra: Oh, fun. Something to search for.

For some writers, dreams play a role in creating fiction. Has this been true for you? Have you ever dreamed a scene or an image that later wound up in one of your books?

Art: The names of the characters came from dreams.

Debra: As a child did any particular book or author pull you into their imaginary world?

Art: The Tom Swift and Hardy Boys series; Kipling; Edward Ellsberg. Later Robert Rourke and Hemingway.

Debra: I would suspect you know Hemingway's works quite well. Kipling was also a favorite of mine.

If there were no categories for books, no reader expectations to meet, and you could create the wildest work of imagination that you could think of what kind of story would that be?

Art: A Journey to Heaven.

Debra: Now that would be a wonderful story to read.

Is there anything else you would like to add about the role of imagination, and dreams in creating fiction? Any other message for our readers?

Art: I am the strange combination of Engineer/tech writer and poet. Most of my imagination is in word usage, book structure and situational events. The book is written in sonata form, which may be considered imaginative. Commercial diving, designing a seaplane ramp for a private residence and the sexual ectasy in the book are all a part of my experience, except for the female side. I had that explained by a female and related it to the best of my ability.

The Prologue and first five chapters of the book may be viewed at
www.myspace.com/asacred female
along with reader comments about the book.

Debra: Art, thank you for joining us here on this Make-Believe Monday to share a little bit of the magic of writing with our readers.

Make-Believe Mondays With Lisa Logan

Today on Make-Believe Mondays our guest is Lisa Logan.

Lisa, first, tell us a little bit abut the manuscript you're working on now.

Lisa: That would be A GRAND SEDUCTION, an intrigue packed with schemes, seduction, betrayal-and murder. Four women decide to help one of them escape her marriage- and ironclad prenup-by setting up her lecherous husband with a phony affair. When their plan succeeds, they offer this "help" to other desperate housewives . . . and before long they've made a business of seduction.

I started the book for National November Novel Writing Month, then got sidetracked getting VISIONS out the gate and a couple of short stories published. I recently started on AGS again, and it's about two-thirds complete. It's been great fun to write!

Debra: It sounds like a fun read as well.

Ray Bradbury said, "We are cups, constantly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out." How do you keep your creative cup filled?

Lisa: How true. As a wife and mother, keeping that cup filled is challenge enough without adding writing to the mix. The problem, I think, is many of us take stress in, rather than letting it bead off like water from a newly waxed car. Stress should frame the good in our lives, the way parted clouds showcase the sun. It shouldn't become our focus. When I stay true to that, simple things like watering my patio garden or a breeze during my walk fills me. I also do a lot of focused visualization and meditation.

Debra: I like this image of stress beading off and your suggestion to meditate and focus on simple things. Excellent advice.

Lisa: Letting it out onto paper - that's the other trick. Truth is, when I'm feeling stressed or upset nothing will pour out, good or otherwise. I've never been one to shed my angst onto paper. So keeping filled and staying positive is doubly important to my craft. Whether all the good stuff comes out . . . I suppose my editor would beg to differ! But is is my goal.

Debra: Tapping that vein is never easy. Each author has to decide whether to pour angst onto the page or hold it in and we all have different comfort levels. Staying positive is also important to building a writing career.

For some writes, dreams play a role in creating fiction. Has this been true for you? Have you ever dreamed a scene of an image that later wound up in one of your books?

Lisa: As a matter of fact, yes. It's no accident that my slogan is Writing in My Wildest Dreams - dreams, interpretation and dream programming have been interests of mine for many years. The premise for my novel Visions came from a dream, as have several scenes from a variety of my works since.

I stumbled across the idea of programming my subconscious to write by accident. When I was new to fiction I learned a writing exercise, where you look at an ordinary object amd come up with as many desciptions for it as possible. I started doing this everywhere I went - flower vases on the desk at work, salt shakers in restaurants, etc. Soon, my mind did this on auto-pilot, whether I wanted it to or not. A portion of my brain had dedicated itself to crafting. This even works while I sleep. So now, when the daily grind keeps me away from my writing desk, I focus on scenes that need doing or problems I need to write my way out of as I settle down to sleep. Took some practice and doesn't always pay off, but my dreams will often take over. It's been a very useful way to get around my severly limited writing time.

Debra: Fascinating. I've been intrigued by the role dreams and dreaming plays in writing fiction for quite some time.

As a child did any particular book or author pull you into their imaginary world?

Lisa: I read with a passion as a child. Of course, the usual titles come to mind - A Wrinkle in Time, The Phantom Toll Booth, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Jonathan Livingston Seagull - you name it. But I have to give a special nod to an author that really pulled me in and kept me there - actress/singer Julie Andrews. I read her book Mandy so many times that the cover fell off, and it stayed with me throughout adulthood. I actually named my fifth child after the title character.

Debra: I had no idea Julie Andrews was also an author.

If there were no categories for books, no reader expectations to meet, and you could create the wildest work of imagination that you could think of, what kind of story would that be?

Lisa: I can't say I'd write anything different. The stories that come, come without any thought of what the market is looking for at the time. I'm Writing in My Wildest Dreams, after all, literally and truly!

Debra: Is there anything else you would like to add about the role of imagination, and dreams in creating fiction? Any other message for our readers?

Lisa: Pay attention to your dreams - your subconsious may be trying to tell you something important! In fact, I'm now doing a regular blog feature on lisalogan.net about it. Readers can post their dreams for a free interpretation of common dream symbols.

Also readers can visit me on MySapce at
http://myspace.com/authorlisalogan.

Debra: Lisa, thank you for joining us here on this Make-Believe Monday to share a little bit of the magic of writing with our readers.

Lisa: Thanks for the opportunity to talk with you and your readers . . . and may all YOUR wildest dreams come true.