Make-Believe Monday with Lisa Campbell

Today on Make-Believe Mondays my guest is Lisa Campbell

Lisa: Please accept this lovely bouquet of virtual tulips. It's my way of thanking you for having me on your wonderful blog! Aren't they gorgeous? I had them flown in from Amsterdam early this morning~

Debra: Thank you, Lisa, they are beautiful! So bright and cheerful too. I was just thinking the other day how ready I am for spring.

Lisa, please tell us a little bit about the manuscript you’re working on now.

Lisa: If you could see my desktop icons right now, you’d count at least six stories in progress. In addition to writing historical romance, I also write paranormal erotica under my pen name Marie March. It usually makes for an interesting day, as I often skip from my medieval Highland clans, to post-Napoleonic England, with a stopover in present day Eastern Europe where all sorts of evil activity abound. There are days where I happily do away with two or three villains at a crack---it's very cathartic.

Debra: Yes, I can see how that would be! Also a good way to never be stuck on a story then falling into writers block.



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: Booze and lots of it---hey if it was good enough for Hemingway, it's good enough for me. Okay, that's not true. While I do take a nip every now and again, I'm nowhere near boozehound status. So, how do I keep my creative cup filled? Well, I'm a voracious reader and avid eavesdropper! I once made it a goal to read every book in the fiction section of our local library. Unfortunately, I moved to another state not long after (whew!). Really though, I glean a lot from newspaper articles, magazines, ads, and random conversations. For me, sparking ideas has always been the easy part; focusing on just one idea is my biggest challenge.

Debra: Well, your way will be a whole lot healthier than following in his footsteps so I'm glad to hear it. I have to wonder how many books were in that library. :-)

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

Lisa: All too often my characters decide to change the story in mid-stream. This is the main reason I have never written an in-depth outline. Just when I think I have a handle on the story's outcome, one of my main characters', usually the hero, changes the plot in midstream and I have to go back and revamp the whole premise. This happens every time I begin a new manuscript. I know it's going to happen, I'm just never certain when it'll transpire. I could be in the story by five or six thousand words and end up salvaging a few pages. It is quite annoying.

Debra: Yes, it certainly makes more work for us when that happens! The hero has to take charge and determine his own fate I suppose.

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

Lisa: I read every Agatha Christie, I could find---Miss Marple being my favorite of her sleuths. I also couldn't get enough of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Daphne Du Maurier and Dashiell Hammet. However, Agatha Christie captured my imagination with the well-crafted contradictions between Miss Marple's cunning, methodical mind and her proper demeanor, which is the hallmark of the quintessential British matron. I mean, who else could get away with investigating a murder before breakfast and neatly solving it by teatime?

Debra: Miss Marple made it look so easy didn't she?


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: Interesting question! Hmm…possibly an epicurean mystery with an alternate universe made entirely of dark chocolate where the Queen of Torte banishes all milk chocolate. When suddenly, a Hershey's kiss is found in the very same antechamber where the Duke of Cadbury and the Lord of Lindt are fighting over Lady Godiva's hand. In moments the galloping gourmet descends on the trio and---well, I'll save the rest for another day.

Debra: Oh now you've made me hungry for chocolate! Luckily my husband gave me a bar of Lindt dark intense orange the other day. (It has pieces of orange and almond slivers.)

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. I must be off to find that chocolate bar now.

Readers please visit Lisa at

Historical Romance site: lisacampbell.net
Paranormal Erotica Romance site: www.myspace.com/mariemarch
and her blog Damsels at the Gate: www.damselsatthegate.blogspot.com where Debra's interview will appear soon.


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Debra's News/Debra is watching:

I was pleased to be invited to attend the Book Blogger and Publishing Online Conference because of this Make-Believe Mondays blog. To learn more about the conference visit www.romanceinthebackseat.com/bbpcon.html

This is a two day online event that will feature Blog Talk Radio Discussion Panels and open Forums for more inclusive debate on subjects raised. Attendees can listen to panels live or using the links provided at a later more convenient time. The Forums will remain open and those speaking on the panels will be in the forums afterward to answer questions. The Forums will be held in a private Ning for the Conference.

Here's an idea of the time frame.

Friday March 19th

11:00 - 11:30 am EST - Opening Radio Show
What Panels will be going on. How the Conference is set up and works.
12-1:30pm EST Panel 1
2-3:30pm EST Panel 2
1 hour break - Publisher Forums - Publishers can Schedule a Live Q and A Forum
4:30 - 6pm EST Panel 3
6:30 - 8pm EST Panel 4
End of the day - 9pm EST Forums - close - no longer monitored.

Saturday March 20th, 2009

11:00 Forums Open - Publishers Feature
12-1:30pm EST Panel 1
2-3:30pm EST Panel 2
1 hour break - Publisher Forums - Publishers can Schedule a Live Q and A Forum
4:30 - 6pm EST Panel 3
6:30 - 8pm EST Panel 4
End of the day - 9pm EST Forums - close - no longer monitored.

I'll be posting more about this and other events on my schedule for 2010. For more about what's going on visit www.debraparmley.com or my fan page on Facebook

This coming weekend my husband and I will be celebrating our wedding anniversary with a couple nights in Hot Springs, AR. I'm really looking forward to a little R & R and to stepping back in time at the Arlington Hotel. Hot Springs is a very romantic city and full of inspiration for this romance novelist. :-)

Until next time
Love and light,

Debra

Make-Believe Monday with Stephanie Cowell

Today on Make-Believe Mondays my guest is Stephanie Cowell.

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

Stephanie: It’s based on a true nineteenth-century romantic love story. I am fascinated with the relationship between men and women, the wonderful courting period when they are not quite sure if the other one is really interested, and then the complexities of love after marriage. The complex balance of life and how love travels through that! But my next novel is coming out very soon (Claude and Camille) so I feel very torn between the bohemian world of the struggling impressionists and this very different English world.

Debra: Yes, this fascinates me too and I'm intrigued by your struggling impressionists.

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?

Stephanie: Well of course the creative cup isn’t always full; to slip into another metaphor, creativity has to go fallow like a field in winter but under the earth things are stirring. Often my great creative bursts come after a very dull period when I think I will never put a noun and verb together again. The best thing to restore myself is long walks, and watching old movies I love (some of my DVDs are almost worn out I think!) and just lie around on the sofa. Sleep, wander aimlessly in the park or museums. Sit by the Hudson River.

Debra: I quite like your metaphor. What a wonderful gift to yourself and your muse, that permission to wander.

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

Stephanie: Characters come alive for me from the beginning, but I see them more clearly as the drafts go on. I have to shape them so that they are clear for the reader. It is plot which comes last for me.

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

Stephanie: Oh absolutely! My four favorites were A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, and a beautiful shorter book (and beautifully illustrated) called Petite Suzanne by Marguerite De Angeli and of course Heidi. I still love them today. The great author Madeleine L’Engle was my mentor and friend and once when we were together, we started to talk about A Little Princess; we were like two little girls, talking about the story, and quoting the final great scene where the poor waif Sara is discovered. We quoted it line for line. Madeleine was near eighty at the time. I still feel thrilled by the story. I read all four books when I am very weary of things; I curl up in bed like a child and read them.

Debra: Oh, what a lovely story of your time with Madeline L'Engle. Thank you for sharing it here and for sharing the glimpse into your life and the boosk which feed your soul.

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?

Stephanie: I seem to be making a small specialty of writing about historical artists and writers and musicians. I find it fascinating to create the ordinary life of these people. I wander in museums and see objects and try to write them into the story. When I was writing about the young Claude Monet, I had to go down to the river and watch the light change every day and the many colors of the water. I think I’d say, try to see the everyday world through the eyes of your characters. I escaped into other worlds as a child because I felt I really could not express who I truly was in my own world, and I guess that is the main reason anyone becomes a writer. Everyone has special worlds inside them, a unique way of seeing things and stories to tell. I am always enriched by the worlds within my fellow writers! They can write things for me that I would not think to write!

My web site is www.stephaniecowell.com and my blog Everyday Lives of the French Impressionists is everydaylivesfrenchimpressionits.blogspot.com. My new novel Claude and Camille: A Novel of Claude Monet will be published by Crown on April 6th, 2010.

Debra: And what beautiful worlds you have to share with us as well, Stephanie.
Thank you for joining us here on this Make-believe Monday to share a little bit of the magic of writing with our readers.

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Debra's News/Debra is watching:

Authors wishing to be interviewed on Make-Believe Mondays, please email me at debra@debraparmley.com or visit my website www.debraparmley.com and fill out the form online.

Upcoming events:

I have been invited to be a part of the first Book Bloggers and Publishers conference March 19th to 20th because of my Make-Believe Mondays blog, which I've been doing since 2005. I'm looking forward to being on panels there.

One of my panels/workshops has been accepted for the Romantic Time convention in Columbus, OH the last weekend in April. As Columbus is my birthplace and I still have family there I'm quite excited about traveling there this year.

More details on these and other events to come. In the meantime I continue to work on my novels, with the occasional book signing as time allows.

Love to all,
Debra

Make-Believe Monday with Velda Brotherton

Today on Make-Believe Mondays, my guest is Velda Brotherton. I met Velda at the Ozark Creative Writers Conference which is held every year in Eureka Springs, AR.

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

Velda: Happy to. A few years back I wrote a mystery that I hoped would be a series. Then I became caught up in works on contract and set it aside. This story, I find now is too blah for today's marketplace, so I'm rewriting. Working title is Katt and Mouse.

My main character, Charity Katt, has come home to close down her brother Willie's Detective Agency in Wichita, Kansas. She's a channeler and performs a bit of magic occasionally, never having settled down in one place. At home, she finds her dead brother's ghost "living," and a request from an old friend of his whose father was murdered several years earlier. Her brother Willie urges her to take the case and offers his ectoplasmic assistance. Reluctantly, because she is curious about this famous man who has been in hiding, she decides to "consult" with him about the murder of his father. This leads her into a bizarre adventure in which her abilities are challenged to the limit to save her own life.

I'm having a lot of fun changing the old dull story into what I hope will be a salable mystery series.

Debra: And if you're having fun with the story that will come through. It sounds like a fun story.

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

Velda: Most definitely. That occurs along about the third or fourth chapter. I'm so attuned to this happening, that I'm thoroughly prepared at that point to begin anew with my "alive friends" now able to act and react the way they should. I prefer this way of getting acquainted to making up pages of characterizations before beginning my story. It helps me create characters who are capable of handling everything I'm going to throw at them throughout the book because the story has begun to spin away in my head by the end of three or four chapters, and I know what it will take for my characters to survive.

Debra: It's similar for me. Chapter three is when my story comes to life and so often those first three chapters are either rewritten or the first two I just carve away. I wonder how many authors also find this to be true of chapter three? Would love to have a poll some time to find out.

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?

Velda: Besides fiction, I write a lot of historical nonfiction based on people who have long gone into the next world. I find many times they actually talk to me, especially when I visit their homesite or grave. I once carried on a long conversation with an 11 year old boy who had been buried more than a hundred years. I find cemeteries to be very peaceful and conducive to this type of visits.

My fictional characters are often then based on some of these real people I've chatted with. I used to think I might be a bit crazy, until I learned many writers do the same thing. I recall one day I sat down at my dining room table to drink a cup of coffee and began to gaze out the window into the valley below, it's stream flashing in the afternoon sun. I actually left my body and began to live an imaginary story that was taking place in that valley. I was totally surprised to come back to myself and see it was dark outside and several hours had passed. My coffee was cold and I had cramps from sitting so long in one position. I no longer think I'm crazy. I'm just another of those writers so immersed in the worlds I write about that it comes alive. It's best, however, to be sitting at my computer when this happens so I can record everything as it is at first look.

Debra: I wonder what would happen if every child grew up thinking that the things unique about them weren't crazy but simply made them unique and special. I keep hearing adults say this and have to think something happens between childhood and adulthood to make them think so. Of course if you said something happened in your dreams no one thinks that is crazy. Can get away with more saying it's a dream or daydream.

Velda: While I do dream a lot, my imagination creates much more interesting worlds than my dreams, which are disjointed and frankly not very interesting.

My website is www.veldabrotherton My blogs are vbrotherton.blogspot.com and veldabrotherton.blogspot.com

Velda, thank you for joining me here on this Make-Believe Monday.

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Debra's news/Debra is watching:

Well,currently I'm watching the snow outside my windows and wondering if we'll get more or get ice which they're calling for. If we do and the yoga studio I work at closes down, I'll have the evening free and will work on the manuscript. I make my snow days into writing days which to me is both work and play. :-)

Stay warm and drive safely if you have to go out!

Love and light,
Debra

www.debraparmley.com

Today my guest on Make-Believe Mondays is Clinton Foster.

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

Clinton: Well, I have just this last year published a novella, Willing to Believe, detailing the profundity of true love and what it takes to keep that love alive, especially in the absence of the other. Also, As part of the NaNoWriMo contest, I completed a semi-biographical piece, By the Wayside, about a little girl, abused at the age of six, and the hardships of her life as the years pass, when no one wants to believe her because to listen to what she has to say would be too inconvenient, too troublesome. I had intended to write this for some time, but as the contest requires the writer to write 50,000 words in 30 days, I used the challenge to take a break from my current manuscript. I concluded the book at just under 90,000 words.

Just now, I am readying to finish Namesake, a historical drama set just at the outset of World War One. The story concerns a poor family in an impoverished coal mining and farming community. As war looms and a drought strikes, the town roils in strife as the two major employers are both Germanic and the wages they offer to their workers seem to be aiding the enemy. The plot intricacies are as complex as John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, but the story line is as personal as James Herriott’s non-fiction. I hope to have it released by mid-spring of this year.

Debra: Quite a few writers enter the NaNo WriMo every year and I always wonder what the end result of that is for them. I started to do it this year but then decided I'd better concentrate on the novel I was revising and since NaNo is supposed to be for new writing it didn't fit my time frame or needs. But, maybe next year. It's interesting to know you did indeed get a whole novel out of the experience.

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?

Clinton: I day-dream a LOT! I love to stare at the stars and the moon, especially. As a child, I would spend hours on the front porch in the evening, summer and winter alike, just staring at the moon, wondering of the other people throughout the world looking at the moon at the very instant. I wondered whom they are, and what they were doing. I was curious to the details of their lives. Why were they looking at the moon, was it a quick glance or a prolonged scrutiny? Were they wondering about me? I would make up names and places and reasons and what they had done that day and what their plans were for the morrow. I still do that to this day at times. I also like to watch and listen to people, their word choices, their mannerisms and the like. The only problem with that, however, is if you find an interesting subject, your notes have to be made quickly in your mind - women think you are ogling them, and men get accusatory, if you watch one subject too long. A quick glance, a sharp eye, helps to increase your imagination as you try to fill in the blanks.....

Debra: Oh, that pull of the moon, I know it well. :-) Yes, it wouldn't do to let a woman think you were ogling her or to rile a man that way. The opposite is true for a woman writer. To let a man know you are watching him could bring unwanted attention your way.

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

Clinton: A funny thing, a writer friend of mine e-mailed me one morning saying she was so mad at her characters she was ready to break up with them and have them suffer a purposeful but horrible death. The evening before her character had done something entirely out-of-character. I know how that feels. When I begin a story, I generally know where it is going, but not always. I plan to take the story from point A to point Z, but occasionally anywhere between point B and Y you find yourself veering way off course to a thousand unnamed letters of a non-existent alphabet, just to work your way back to Y to finish with Z. I like that, it makes the writing interesting. There have been many times I have found myself dumbstruck as to how I can continue the intended story with what my characters have just done. It is at these moments I just walk away from a project and let it simmer. It is during these breaks that I suddenly "brainstorm" with these ideas out of nowhere as to how to continue the story on its course, or conjure a new plot course which is in keeping with the story intent, if not the original story line itself. Generally speaking, when I write, I consider myself to be the first to read my work, as I am open to every possibility of the story, just as a reader picking up the book for the first time would be.

Debra: Ah, but when you become frustrated with your characters, then you also know they have become more real and not simply some puppet figure. Your friends characters were probably full of life, though frustratingly so. I too, am a seat of the pants writer, not a plotter, but I have also heard those who simply must plot first say that their stories also tend to take new routes as they write.

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?

Clinton: Once in a while I do, when I know the word I need is the right word but its context would appear misapplied to linguists, I use it anyway. A writer’s first job is to write for his or herself and the readers, linguists be damned! Also, I create onomatopoeias when needed, if the word I write makes the precise sound that no other word might suggest, I’ll do it. But, all these devices, meant to accentuate a work, I try to use seldom and very sparingly, as too much of it would distract a reader from any piece.

Debra: Perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky that the average reader is not a linguist and simply wants to read a good story. I feel that way and happy I am that I'm then able to play with my stories and with the words within should I choose to.

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?

Clinton: I do not recall any given example, but I have had ideas I have toyed with for a while and abandoned, only to find ten years later in someone else’s book or in a movie.....

Debra: 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?

Clinton: One project I have considered off and on for the longest but have no intention to write would be a personal history of the world. Beginning from the earliest prophets - or maybe even earlier, I don’t know – I would lead one character to the point where he or she meets the next character, being the most profound impact on his life, and as the next character’s story is told, it would conclude the story of the previous character. I would highlight one character through each generation, and thereby in snippets elaborate on the whole of world history through the ages until the present day to conclude with a "forecast" for the future. I haven’t thought it through in too much detail because the one thing I’m certain of, is that it would have to be an elaborate and time-consuming work. Too it would require an ungodly amount of research. So, there’s an idea for any ambitious writer looking for a subject.

Debra: With so many cultures in the world and such rich histories within each culture, I'm not sure any one person could live long enough to do it. Though it would be fascinating if they could.

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?

Clinton: Write, write, write! Read everything, from kindergarten books, to romance, to medical journals, to magazine ads! Read! Write! Keep going, and my very best to all in their endeavors.

Also, please visit my website
www.clintonfoster.com. Leave me a message and sign the guest book. I’d love to have you. Thanks.

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

Clinton: Thank you Debra for this opportunity to promote my work.

Debra: It's been my pleasure.

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Debra's News/Debra is watching:

This Saturday I will be at Davis-Kidd in Nashville, TN signing books at 2:00 p.m. with Imagicopter I would love to see you there!

www.debraparmley.com