Writing Processes: Blog Tour Relay

            Preslaysa Williams at www.preslaysa.com asked me to participate in this blog relay game. I'm to answer four questions and then pass the baton to the three bloggers announced below. So here we go:

What am I working on now? I'm working on a second sequel to my mystery novel Rhapsody in Red. (The first sequel is under contract.) This is sending me into new (to me) fields of musical research. My hero in the mysteries is a professor who has musical hallucinations—constant music running through his mind so that his life is like a movie mismatched with the music score from another. Through research, I keep giving new music to his hallucinations. The heroine's specialty is comparative religions, so I have to keep researching that, too. I'm also looking into possible settings for another suspense novel.

How does my work differ from others in its genre? I have to give two answers because I write suspense as well as mystery. The mysteries are set on a college campus, which gives a good opportunity for comedy. But the difference is that behind the comedy is light-hearted satire of today's intellectual poison, political correctness. In my suspense novels, The Lazarus File and Deadly Additive, I add more historical and (at times philosophical) depth than is usual in the suspense genre. Deadly Additive, for example, includes a conversation contrasting the ancient Greek and Hebrew hero types. I also like to gratify the reader with an unexpected chuckle: In The Lazarus File, an elaborate hoax played on the villain takes place in the Red Herring Bar. I've also begun working in the historical genre, with the first novel being released late this autumn. But I'd better let it release before commenting.

Why do I write what I write? The short answer is that it just comes out that way, but the question of motive runs deeper. When I retired from college teaching, I wanted to prove that I could write good-quality poetry. And I'd always wanted to write a suspense novel. I hadn't thought much about subjects for the poetry, but much of it came out as Christian. Something similar happened with the suspense novel: It started out as just spies and airplanes, but during the writing something took hold and made it Christian. That's where I've been ever since, whether in poetry, suspense, or mystery. It seems that the Lord must have shaped my mind so that its thoughts place any subject within a Christian context. And there's also something built in that drives me to write. I don't think I could stop if I tried.

How does my writing process work? To be honest, I wish I knew. The inspiration, if you can call it that, usually strikes when I'm concentrating on studying something. That's when the seed of an idea for a poem or story comes. I stop and write down a sentence or two and then return to studying. The seed sentences go into a file I call the Compost Heap. I begin researching the promising ones. When I have main characters, a firm setting, and a general narrative concept, I start writing. From there on it's just working scene by scene, letting the work expand until it's finished. I usually have to go back and make a few plot adjustments, and I do a good bit of revising to make the sentences flow.

That's enough about me. On June 9, look for these three cohorts of mine who will carry the blog relay forward:

Deborah Dee Harper (http://www.deborahdeetales.blogspot.com) writes inspirational, humorous books for both kids and adults. Quake of Echelon Press published her six-part children’s adventure series, Laramie on the Lam, in 2012. More recently, Deborah signed a 3-book contract with OakTara Publishing Company for her adult contemporary Road’s End series (Misstep, Faux Pas, and Misjudge), which will be released soon. Currently, she is working on the first book of her next series which explores the many and insidious ways sin invades our heart, mind, and soul to steal not only this earthly life, but our eternal life, as well.

 

Regina Smeltzer (ReginaSmeltzer.WIX.com/ReginaSmeltzer) writes: My passion growing up was reading. I would immerse myself for hours in Nancy Drew or Cherry Ames. When I couldn’t get to the library I would grab the next volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica off our family bookshelf. Back then, every family had a set.

I became a registered nurse, married, and had four children – one homemade and three international adoptions. We became our own United Nations! During those years I wrote short stories for my flock, puppet shows for my church, and grants for my job in public health and nursing education.

The path seldom taken is my favorite place to be, and thus my excursion to Egypt where a camel ran away while I was on his back, trekked the rainforest in Brazil where I fished for piranha from a dugout canoe, and was robbed at knife-point in Colombia. Mostly I stayed at home, dreaming of adventure while I raised my children. Without dreams one would be dead. My dream today is to share my savior with others by crafting fiction I call Suspense with God’s Intervention.

In addition to freelance writing, the Cuffe sisters (www.cuffesisters.com/off-the-cuffe/) run a small farm in Maine's Unorganized Territory.  They bring Jane-of-all-trades life experiences to their work, and believe God gave them this background to write squarely to the heart of real women who don't always wear a size 2, and who prefer boots to high heels. If you want to "talk shop" about family, rural life, livestock, music, God, house construction, or girl stuff, they'd love to hear from you.  They believe with God anything is possible; and that some of the best stories aren't hatched in creative writing class, they're composed on the seat of a tractor. 

For more writing process explanations, visit those three blogs on June 9, 2014.