Meet the Contributor: T. W. Fendley

I would like to introduce our readers to T.W. Fendley. Her debut novel is due out . . . why don't I let her tell you:

Your debut novel, Zero Time, has just been released by L&L Dreamspell. What was the driving idea behind the novel? By now, many people know that the Mayan calendar (the Long Count) ends on Dec. 21, 2012. Is that a time of catastrophe on Earth or one of ascension? What could ancient Mesoamericans have known that we don’t, and how did they come to know it? Through the Association for Research and Enlightenment, I learned what the “sleeping prophet” Edgar Cayce said about 2012 and the Pleiades. I was also fascinated by quantum physics and Gregg Braden’s concept of the divine matrix. Adding these to the rich legacy from Mesoamerica cultures gave me inspiration for the path I eventually took in my historical fantasy novel. The Mayan calendar became the timeline for an expedition to save Pleiadians from extinction and our own world from an unending cycle of war, pain and poverty.

When did you start writing Zero Time? I first got the idea in 1997 while researching story ideas at the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing workshop. My imagination ran wild as I read about the Mesoamerican culture, mythology and archeology. It quickly became apparent the story I wanted to tell would need to be a novel. For a decade I spent more time doing research than writing. I took courses, read a lot and even went to Mexico and Peru to see the ancient sites.

What is Zero Time about? It’s the story of the relationships between mothers, daughters and sisters, with time-traveling Great Serpents and Mesoamerican mythology mixed in. Told from the perspective of two women, it brings together a quest for a cure for a genetic malady with a woman’s experience of coming into her mystical power. Here’s the blurb: As Zero Time nears, only Keihla Benton can save two worlds from the powers of Darkness. But first she must unlock the secrets of Machu Picchu and her own past.

In 2007, you decided to write full time. How easy was it to take the leap of faith from steady paycheck to full time writer? I wasn’t so daring. I had just reached my company’s minimum retirement age with 20 years of experience when I applied for a job swap with another employee whose job was being abolished. It was approved! She took my job, and I quit with a (decreased) pension and health insurance intact to pursue the writing career I wanted. A win-win solution for both of us!

What drove you into the field of fiction? I give a lot of credit (blame?) to my boss. During an annual evaluation back in the 1990s—I was a communication manager at the time—my boss said I needed to be more creative. Getting accepted to one of the nation’s top sci-fi and fantasy workshops dispelled that misperception pretty quickly. Actually, I’d already been taking a few writing and watercolor classes because I needed an outlet for pure imagination that you just don’t get in corporate communications or journalism (no matter how creative you are). It felt a lot like returning to the “true me” of my youth. About this time, a co-worker invited me to join a fantastic group of women—the Crescent City Writers. They inspired me to pursue my interest in writing fiction.

Did you have to find that you had to change your writing style when you started to write fiction? Yes, and I’m still working on it. I tend to be very straightforward and give the summary first. Like now. J To write fiction, you have to know about points of view, story arcs, characterization and motivation, conflict, world-building and showing-not-telling. Thankfully, some things carried over. My love for research helps with writing both fiction and nonfiction.

What is the latest project you are working on? What is it about? My young adult contemporary fantasy novel is now in the hands of a few Beta readers. In Acceleration, two teenagers who telepathically receive messages encoded on engraved stones by an ancient race find themselves tasked with proving humankind’s worth when the First Men return. Oh, and there’s a Peruvian dog named Boss Lady who helps.

If there was one piece of advice that you could give those writers who are still working to break in, what would it be? For me, pitching to agents and publishers at a writers’ conference made all the difference. I’d been sending out queries and getting nowhere, but after five minutes of face-time, I got requests from two agents (one partial, one full) and interest from a publisher that led to a small press contract. Just keep trying different things until something works for you!

The Writers’ Lens is about Bringing fiction into focus–what brings your writing into focus, the characters, the stories, the love of words? The philosophy or motivation behind the stories is what brings the work into focus for me—that keeps the characters and the action moving in the right direction. With my novel, Zero Time, it’s all about the creative power of love.

Follow T.W. at www.twfendley.com or on Twitter @twfendley.

Writing for Entertainment Doesn’t Mean You Aren’t Writing about Critical Issues

In a nation, and a world, that seems to become more and more divided every time I turn on the news, there is no wonder that people turn to books, short stories, various TV shows and movies to escape from the political and social realism that surrounds our everyday lives. As a writer of fiction, my number one job is to entertain. Though this entertainment, I want my reader to sit or lay back and relax, delve into the universe of my creation and leave their world behind for as long as they have the pages open. I want them to turn the pages and feel suspense or to laugh. I want them to come back time and time again to read the story that I have written and to share it with friends and family members. While this is my number one job, it is not my only job as an author.

Have you ever sat down at a table for a meal and all you were served is junk food? If all I ever did as a writer was to serve up stories of just pure entertainment I would be as guilty as the person who served up such a meal—and soon you would decide it was time to go on a “literary diet” and maybe never return to my stories. While entertainment is the number one job, it must serve as the base for more critical issues such as social justice, viewing the world through the eyes of another, educate and to make the reader think—even if they are not aware they are thinking. If it doesn’t do that, then the story is not often remembered.

While I admit I am oversimplifying things, every genre of storytelling, as well as every writer, has a different approach to the critical issues. Science Fiction and Fantasy have a way of looking at society(ies) and history by recreating them and looking at them a new. Mysteries and Thrillers look at the roles of crime, acts of terror, and the role of the police (or other investigator) has on the world and the disrupted lives in that society asking if that world can ever be brought back into balance. Romance looks at the gender roles and explores the conflicts between two people who are in a romantic relationship while trying to keep a normal life—work, family, whatever society tosses at them. Paranormal can blend all of the above and use “other” beings to represent some part of our society (like Science Fiction and Fantasy does with aliens or mythical races). Horror explores the macabre and society.

Each story explores character change and some aspect of social issues. For some stories the social issues are blatantly exposed to the reader. Other stories interweave and disguise in the background the social issues or define the universe in which the characters are in. These issues can be equality, racism, sexism, human rights, caste systems, liberty, education, war, health care, elder care, diseases, scientific discoveries and pushing the boundaries, redemption, restoration, social classes, prison reform, drugs, crime, slavery (traditional, child, sex, or mental slavery), teen pregnancy and so much more. It seems to me that the writer who leaves the social issues out of their story disappoints the reader and is soon forgotten, while those who bring it in to the story are often remembered even after the writer him or herself have turned to dust.

I understand that there are doubters who may be reading this blog, so let me indulge in a small list of authors or entertainment (radio shows, movies, and television shows) that explore social issues. See how many of these you recognize, still see on bookshelves or in reruns.

Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, Charles W. Chestnut, Kate Chopin, Alex Haley, Michael Crichton, Alexandre Dumas, The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Alex Haley, James Clavell, Star Trek (any), Babylon 5, The Wire, The Shield, Dragnet, The Rockford Files, Maya Angelou, Georges Simenon, Isaac Asimov, Mark Twain, Lin Yutang, Umberto Eco, Hill Street Blues, Josh Wheadon, Battlestar Galactica (either version), H.G. Wells, Law and Order (any), Jules Verne, Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King, Walter Mosley, PD James, The Shadow (Radio Drama), Suspense (Radio Drama), William Faulkner, M.A.S.H., Psycho (movie or book), Vertigo, John Le Carre, John Grisham, Qiu Xiaolong, Mary Shelly, Miami Vice, Arthur Conan Doyle, Elmore Lenard, To Catch a Thief (movie or book), and Harper Lee

This is a list I developed in two minutes of brain storming. It is by no means exhaustive, nor does it contain every writer, TV show, movie, or radio show that I can think of. (Honestly, I am fighting the urge to add to it.) Please feel free to add to this list in the comments. It would be fun to see what fellow readers (and writers) come up with.

If you are a fellow writer and you haven’t broken in yet, ask yourself if you are handling and how you are handling social issues. I do it all the time as I work on breaking in myself.

Thank you for reading and please also visit www.davidalanlucas.com

Win a Copy of The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers

It is that time again when you, our reader, have a chance to start your week with a wonderful award. You have met me now, thanks to Ansha. Allow me to introduce you to a fantastic St. Louis author, Angie Fox, by offering a copy of one of her novels, The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers (Book 2 in the Accidental Demon Slayer series). Angie Fox is a New York Best Selling Author who likes to write (tongue in cheek) about things that go bump in the night.

"Demon-slaying powers should come with an instruction book…

Seriously. Why does a new hair dryer have a twelve-page how-to manual, but when it comes to ancient demon-fighting hocus-pocus, my biker witch granny gives me just half a dozen switch stars and a rah-rah speech? Oh, and a talking terrier, but that’s another story. It’s not like my job as a preschool teacher prepared me for this kind of thing.

So I’ve decided to write my own manual, The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, because no one tells me anything. Dimitri, my “protector,” may be one stud of a shape-shifting griffin, but he always thinks he can handle everything by himself. Only he’s no match for the soul-stealing succubi taking over Las Vegas. If I can’t figure out how to save him—and Sin City—there’ll be hell to pay."

To enter the contest, simply leave a comment or question on The Writers' Lens blog between October 31st, and midnight November 5th, 2011. Please include your email so we can reach you if you win. The more comments you leave, the greater your chance of winning the contest. The winner will be chosen after midnight on Saturday and the announcement made on Sunday, November 6th.

Thanks for entering, and Good Luck!

If you wish to learn more about me, please visit www.davidalanlucas.com.

The Winner of Darkness Never Far

The winner of Brad R. Cook's October 16, "Win a Book of Poetry!" was Maeve Alpin! Congratulations! She won a signed copy of Darkness Never Far by Matthew Freeman.

Enjoy!

Meet the Contributor: David Lucas

Today, I'm interviewing David Lucas, one of the contributors to Writers' Lens.

David, your website mentions that you write in a number of genres, Spy/Crime, Horror and SF, would you say you have a unifying theme in your works or do you work for something different with each work?
I work on something different for each piece, but a common character is the jagged anti-hero.  They are dealing with something--PTSD, addiction, regrets for not being the person they thought they would be when they were children--that gives them a ragged edge that is a part of their character and their world.

Do you have a process when you write?
I do.  I start with the idea--which may come from the news or a conversation or be a collision of ideas from various sources.  I then focus on the main character and nine questions I learned from reading a book on Earle Stanley Gardner, the author of the Perry Mason novels and many other novels.  These questions form the beginning of my plot.  I then plot my story, loosely.  I write the first draft.  The first draft is really my true plot.  From there, I rewrite.

Rewriting, that's when the real writing happens.  Which line do you struggle with more, the first or the last? 

 It's not a line that I struggle with; it's where the story begins.  Where my plot starts the story, and where it really starts, may be in two different places.  Sometimes it may be off by a few chapters and sometimes it may be the right scene, but not quite in the right part of the scene.

Beginnings of stories are a challenge for me too. But somehow when you get it right, you just know.  Until then it takes some work.  The Writers’ Lens is about Bringing Fiction Into Focus – what brings your writing into focus, the characters, the stories, the love of words?
It is the story--the journey and the unusual development of the character.   To me the journey is one that follows a quote of Robert Lewis Stevenson, "In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be we are."

So, David, of the many genres you work in, what are you working on now, and can you tell us a bit about it? 
I have three projects I am working on. 

I am currently writing the first draft, or plot draft, of a paranormal crime drama, working titled ­THE DEVIL'S BOUNTY HUNTER, which is about Detective Reo Pennington,  a consequential moralistic cop who is killed and finds herself in Hell.  There a devil makes a deal, she can either stay in hell or return to Earth.  But there is a catch.  The devil wants certain people to be sent to hell.  Oh, and to stay alive, she has to kill someone every forty days.  She agrees to the deal and finds herself in a Machiavellian game of cat and mouse as she must keep her badge, stay alive, and deny the devil what he wants.

The second project I'm writing is entering second draft.  It is a space western, working title HERNE'S LAW, about Hernando "Herne" Castellano, a veteran of a civil war in humanity's future, who is abandoned with his troops by his government on the final battle, when a peace treaty is signed.  Herne goes into a self-imposed exile for six years, when he is forced to return by a call for help.  Battling PTSD, he returns and finds his world changed, and not for the better.   Herne's government abandoned him, so he follows only one law--help those who can't help themselves.

The third project has gone back to plotting.  DARK MEDICINE is a gothic novel, about Alexandre Levreau, who was cursed by a witch after the Battle of San Carlos (also known as the Battle of St. Louis) during the American War for Independence.   All he ever wanted was to return home, but the curse changed him--made him inhuman.  He returns home to find his wife married to his brother.  In a duel he kills his brother, only to be imprisoned alive by his former wife and his father--and reemerges over two hundred years later--only to become a science experiment of a distraught emergency room doctor determined to find a way to keep people from dying.  But, there are only three problems with the doctor's plans: The witch who cursed Alexandre was also entombed with him and is immortal; The doctor does not understand the darkness he is playing with; and Alexandre is determined to return to home.

You may learn more about me at www.davidalanlucas.com, follow my "Coffee with David" blog at http://davidalanlucas.com/blog5.php, follow me on twitter @Owlkenpowriter.

 

Tools We Use - yWriter

Today I'd like to talk about the tools we use.

As writers we all use our imagination and our brains. I know many writers use a laptop, desktop or other computer to put their words in order.  But what other tools do you use?

I’d like to share with you a tool that I use that I was lucky enough to find early on in my writing career.  yWriter.

yWriter is a free application created by a programmer who also happens to be a writer.  You just know you’re going to get something useful when an actual writer has put the application together.

And you certainly get a tool worth using.  I’m grateful to have found yWriter when I did.  Back when I started writing, every writer I met wrote in order, sequentially, from beginning to end, in Word. When I started writing, my thoughts and ideas came to me in a jumble.  I would know how I planned to end the story,  I’d have a single character’s name and large chunks of dialogue.  None of it showed up in my brain in any order that I could manage.  

I certainly couldn’t put all this information in a Word doc without losing my mind.

I remember hunting online for something, anything, that might help.  I remember someone mentioning yWriter, and I immediately sought out the website.  

Simon Haynes created yWriter to help with his own writing.  And I bet it’ll help yours too.  Check it out.  Try it out.  It’s FREE.  And if you really like it, support Simon by purchasing one of his books.  Hal Junior: The Secret Signal or his Hal Spacejock series.

What tools do you use to get your writing done?  What tools do you wish you had?

Win a copy of Hapenny Magick!

It's Monday again, and here is a wonderful way to celebrate the start of a new week, a giveaway!

Today we have the privilege of sharing an electronic copy of Jennifer Carson's fantasy middle grade novel, 

HAPENNY MAGICK.

 As the tiniest Hapenny, a race of little people, Maewyn Bridgepost spends her days from breakfast to midnight nibble scrubbing the hearth, slopping the pigs, and cooking for her guardian, Gelbane, who never spares a kind word. As if life as a servant isn’t bad enough, Mae learns that Gelbane is a troll—and Hapennies are a troll delicacy.

Years ago, a spell trapped Gelbane in Mae’s village. Ever since, Gelbane has been chiseling away the magic spells that guard the village and now Mae’s community is destined to become a smorgasbord for half-starved trolls.

Jennifer is using Kickstarter to fund her first print run of this heartfelt story. Check out the video and all the wonderful illustrations she has planned!

To enter the contest, simply leave a comment or question on The Writers' Lens blog between October 24th, and midnight October 29th, 2011. Please include your email so we can reach you if you win. The more comments you leave, the greater your chance of winning the contest. The winner will be chosen after midnight on Saturday and the announcement made on Sunday, October 30th.

Thanks for entering, and Good Luck!