Interview with Dan Hays

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend, and I hope everyone who had to change their clocks back remembered to do so. Where I live, we changed them back last week, and I'm just now getting adjusted.

Today I've got an interview with a terrific writer to share with you. We're chatting with the author of FREEDOM'S JUST ANOTHER WORD, Dan Hays.

Welcome, Dan. Tell us a bit about yourself.

I live in Fort Worth, Texas. I've been in the oil and gas and real estate title insurance industries for about 30 years, and writing on the side. I've done project work for most of those years, and I have approached writing and publicity as a work project. I'm very methodical - a spreadsheet guy!


I love running, dancing, watching sports, and visiting with other people - I've especially enjoyed connecting with other writers through social networking.

How long have you been writing?

:) Well, I started my first novel when I was 14 - something about a plot to kidnap the President. Then the movie Seven Days In May came out and stole my plot, so I stopped that project. But I had 5 poems and a short story published in a literary magazine in junior high, so my writing days go back that far.

Tell us about "Freedom's Just Another Word."

It was a memoir I had known for a while I'd have to write. It's a book about healing and hope and forgiveness. It is set in Houston, Texas in 1987. At that time, my world was spinning alarmingly out of control, and I was mystified as to why. I was walking around with many of the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but I didn't have a traumatic event I could point to. I was like the man in the Bourne Identity - having flashbacks to a past I didn't know existed. It was terribly puzzling.


In the middle of that time, my Dad died. In the process of grieving his death, I remembered a violent incident from my teenage years that explained the events in my world and the PTSD, and led me down a path of healing my relationship with my Dad.

Do you find it difficult to pour your emotions into a memoir for the world to read, or do you find it more a way to express your feelings and maybe get closure?

Excellent question, Dorothy! It was very tough to write in ways. Although it had been 17 years since my Dad had died, it was the first time I'd ever gone through and chronicled the events of the week when my Dad died. That was tough to write, but immensely cathartic. And to write about remembering the violence helped make it all more real for me, and brought a closure, for sure. It helped heal my relationship with my Dad - notice that the book is dedicated to him.


I did the book mostly for those reasons, but have been very surprised by how much it impacts other people. The second half of the book is about the things I did to move beyond the abuse, and readers really connect with those parts. I've even had several people call it a "road map" for how to move beyond abuse. A completely unintended consequence of this book, but I'm very grateful that people are benefitting in that way from reading Freedom!

Sounds like you're helping people who need it, which is great. What's the hardest part of writing for you?

LOL! Since the next book I'm writing is about a writer's block that has plagued me for about 25 years, I would say every aspect of writing was tough for a while. Just sitting down to write was sometimes a stretch. Then when publishers were interested in my books, that was fearful, and I didn't know why. I had publishers interested in books I had written twice, and was totally perplexed to find myself walking away from the opportunity.


It is apparent that I've moved beyond that block now. I've had about 5 chapters of the next book flow out very easily over the last month or so, and I'm thrilled by that. I had to do therapy, and it was a second source of PTSD, so this was a writer's block with a very deep and specific origin. Yet with hard work, I've gotten past it! When I publish this next book, it will signal how much I've healed. That I can publish the book will be a big step forward, and the origins of the writer's block will be revealed.

Let's get to know you on a deeper level. What do you absolutely have to have nearby when writing?

I have to have an extra legal pad or a note pad. I may be typing on the computer, or even writing longhand. But sometimes I'll have a thought occur, and if I don't capture it right then, I lose it, so I take notes in the moment. I may be writing chapter 1, and have a scene in chapter 4 present itself, and I want to keep it! The way my creative process works is that I'll have scraps of ideas, thoughts or scenes appear any time or place, so having paper available is invaluable.

If you could have any super power, what would it be?

It would have to be flying! When I have flying dreams, those are the most breathtaking dreams I have, and I'd love to be able to do that live! :) My most recent flying dream I was soaring about 40 feet above a road, and it was clear I could fly as long and as far as I wanted. I took that as a very positive sign.

Sound's like a positive sign to me too.

Quick writing test! Use the following words in a sentence: jumping jacks, hurricane, and pudding.

As the windows of his house blew out from the wind of the horrible hurricane, Jim was astonished to watch his daughter's jumping jacks fly past him and stab into a bowl of pudding that had fallen onto the kitchen floor.

Oh my gosh, I cannot stop laughing. Heehee.


Anyone you'd like to give thanks to?

I'd like to thank my friend Joan, who started me writing in the first place. Thanks to my mentor, Bob Kizer, who taught me so many life lessons. Thank you Dad - you illuminated my path to healing by your example of perseverance in sobriety.

And finally, where can people find you online?

My website is http://www.danlhays.com. It has links to my blog, my Minute to Freedom radio spots, our Dialogues With Dignity radio show. Check out the latest big news - a review of Freedom's Just Another Word by the New York Journal of Books. That one is in big red letters on the front page - I was jazzed about receiving that review! :)

Excellent! Thank you so much for chatting with us, Dan. I look forward to reading your memoirs.

Interview with Henry Lyons

Today we're chatting with Henry Lyons, author of poetry book DEEP THOUGHTS. Henry's new work is a book called SUPERNATURE. Let's get to know him.

Welcome, Henry. Tell us a bit about yourself.

Well I’m a New York City Special Education Teacher. I also design websites and graphics for advertisements as well as edit short films and music videos. Of course I also write first poetry and now novels.

How long have you been writing?

Most of my poetry was written over a fifteen year period. During that time I did have some ideas for stories but I never wrote any of them down until last year when I started work on Supernature.

Tell us about SUPERNATURE. What’s the story about?

The story starts off as a simple police investigation which uncovers mass mutations that are caused by an unknown substance. As the mutations spread they begin to threaten the entire planet. A team of scientists and investigators work together to halt the spread of the mutated creatures.

Sounds intriguing. I bet it would make a cool movie too. How did the idea of the story come to you?

To be honest with you I got the idea for the story way back in the nineteen seventy’s. A disco song was popular at that time called believe it or not, “Supernature” by a French artist by the name of Cerrone. As I listened to the lyrics of the song I noticed that it talked about Man’s manipulation of nature and finally natures revolt against man. Here’s a few lines from the song:


Once upon a time
Science opened up the doors
We would feed the hungry fields
'till they couldn't eat no more

But the potions that we made
Touched the creatures down below
And they grew up in a way
That we've never seen before

supernature supernature
supernature supernature

They were angry with the man
cause he changed their way of life
And they take their sweet revenge
As they trample through the night


I started to think about how genetic engineering has become common place within our society and how if abused what impact the technology could have on our environment. I played with the idea for years and then in 2009 I finally decided to put pen to paper.

Do you have a critique group/partner or beta readers, or do you self-edit?

I had a number of friends that helped me edit the book and give me some critical feedback.

What’s the hardest part of writing for you?

I think one of the hardest things to do is to create believable characters that people can identify with.

Let’s get to know you on a deeper level. What do you absolutely have to have nearby when writing?

A photo of my beloved deceased daughter. Her memory gives me my drive.

Sorry for your loss. That's got to be the worst pain someone can endure. I'm glad she's giving you inspiration.


Here’s the part where you thank the people who are supporting you.

I would like to thank my wife Shanell who has supported me patiently while I write. I would also like to thank my father who has always been my ROCK and role model. He is also one of my most enthusiastic fans. I would also like to thank my buddy and business partner Alvin Grant.
Also LULU.com, and all of my family and friends

And finally, where can people find you online?
http://www.HVLYONS.com
http://stores.lulu.com/hvlyons
http://hvlyons.blogspot.com
twitter.com/Hvlyons

Henry, thank you so much for chatting with us. I wish you success with all your publication endeavors.

Thank you!

Catching up: Blog Awards

I'm so honored to have received some lovely blog awards from really awesome people. I'm tickled to be included in the blogging community, and it's a pleasure to pay it forward.

Let's get right to it, then.

The wonderful Erica Chapman, whom I interviewed back in July, presented me with the Strange award. Very original, and quite fitting. I shall go forth and celebrate my strangeness every day, as a matter of fact.

Kelsey Sutton has awarded me a beautiful Life is Good award. This one comes with questions I'm supposed to answer, so I'll try to make them short and sweet:

Questions:

1. If you blog anonymously are you happy doing it that way; if you are not anonymous do you wish you had started out anonymously so you could be anonymous now?
I'm perfectly happy not being anonymous. :)

2. Describe one incident that shows your inner stubborn side:
Hehehe, just ask my kids. I'm sure there's more than one incident there.

3. What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror?
A woman trying desperately to hold on to her youth.

4. What is your favourite summer cold drink?
Sparkling water.

5. When you take time for yourself, what do you do?
Read a book.

6. Is there something you still want to accomplish in your life? What is it?
Getting published is pretty much still at the top of my to-do list.

7. When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever , the shy person, or always ditching?
I was a gleek, actually. But I won 1st place in a talent show singing with my classmate who is now one of the members of All 4 One.

8. If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment of your life what would you see?
Poignant as in touching, not poignant as in sad: the births of my children.

9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people or events?
I'm a Leo, so I'm all for sharing. ;)

10. If you had the choice to sit down and read or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?
Sit down and read. Enjoy the silence!

Okay, now that that's taken care of, I have two more super awards to share. The One Lovely Blog award and The Versatile Blogger award come to me by way of Marieke at Marieke's Musings. I'm supposed to add seven things about myself, but I figure I've probably covered that in the questionnaire above. ;)

A big hug and thank you to these magnificent writers/bloggers. You all rock.


These awards of course come with some rules, so here they are:

1. Add the logo of the award to your blog post. 
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3. Nominate seven other blogs telling us why you think the recipient is strange enough to deserve the award. 
4. Leave a message for those nominated on their blogs.


And here are my pay-it-forward recipients for all four awards:


Shelli at Market My Words: Shelli is so generous and helpful. Her blog is full of awesome and I love the contests she holds.
Eleni at La Femme Readers: Such a pretty blog (from a pretty lady) and her give-aways are fab!
JA Souders at Angels and Demons and Portals. Oh my! Talk about fantastic, this blog is a must-follow.
Anne Riley: She's a writer, she's having a baby, and she still finds time to share the joy. Oh, and I interviewed her back in March.
Tawna Fenski at Don't Pet Me, I'm Writing: Love Tawna. Plain and simple.
Jenn Johansson, whom I interviewed back in April. Definitely check her out.
Nikki Katz, whom I interviewed back in June. Nikki's great, so please visit her blog.


And there you have it. Whew!
.

Idle Engines

Hello, my dear friends.

I'm back from my vacation, but still trying to get back into the swing of things. I didn't want to leave you hanging though, so I thought I'd post an "I'm back" announcement and let you know I'll have some interviews for you again soon.

Thanks for sticking with me. :)

Aaaaaand BREAK!

Okay, my friends. Here's the deal. My family and I are going on vacation starting tomorrow. We will be in Singapore for two days, then flying to the Philippines where my mother's side of the family has put together a huge reunion. I mean HUGE. She has ten siblings, and they all have kids, and their kids all have kids. So, um, yeah. HUGE. But I'm very excited. My hubby and kids haven't been to the PI yet (that's short for Philippine Islands, in case you couldn't connect the dots) so it should be very interesting.

So all that to say, I won't be updating the blog while I'm gone. However, I will be back in two weeks with more awesome interviews for your reading pleasure. And if you're a writer who might want to be interviewed, leave me a comment with contact info and I'll get back to you when I return.

Until then, I wish you all a great mid-October!

Interview with Rebecca J Clark

Hello again, blogosprites. Are you ready for another interview? I can't hear you. Oh wait, I don't have my speakers turned on. In any case, I've got a great interview for you with an awesome author. Please welcome Rebecca J. Clark, author of BORROWED STILETTOS.

Welcome, Rebecca. Tell us a bit about yourself.

I live in the Pacific NW with my husband of 23 years and two teenagers. My day job is personal fitness trainer and group exercise instructor. I teach Zumba, Turbokick, Pilates and yoga. Thank goodness for a job where I get paid to work out -- supports my Cheetos and chocolate habit. :) My job now is a far cry from my bachelor's degree in graphic design, eh?

I'd say you're rather diverse. You had me at chocolate, lol. How long have you been writing?

I've wanted to be a novelist since I was 11 years old and read my first Harlequin romance. But I didn't start writing for publication until after my daughter was born. She's 18 now. When you realize I just got my first sale in 2008, you'll know it took me a LONG TIME to sell. Okay, so I wasn't writing full-time and raised two kids and moved several times over those years, but still. It took me a long time. I made so many mistakes along the way, I really should write a book called, "Everything You Need to Know to Sabotage Your Writing Career and Take Forever to Sell."

You really should! I'd buy it. Tell us about BORROWED STILETTOS.

Just thinking about this book makes me grin. This was one of those stories I just had to write and had a blast doing it. It's about identical twins who switch places in order for one to break up with the other's fiance. One twin is flamboyant and outgoing and very popular. The other twin has always been quieter and shy and more conservative. I got the idea from my own childhood. I'm not a twin, but I always lived in the shadow of my more beautiful, more popular sister. On more than one occasion, boys would use me to get to her. When I told a writer friend that, she said, "You have to put that in a book." So I did. I'm still living in my sister's shadow, by the way. Her name's Laurie London and her first book comes out next year with HQN. :)

I'll keep an eye out. What was the most challenging aspect of your publishing journey?

Everything's been a challenge, to be honest. But the hardest thing, at least for me, was to get "so close" (in my case, making it all the way through the senior editor with one big publisher) only to be rejected at aquisitions. You're so close you can almost taste it, then BOOM. The rug is pulled out from under you. It takes a while to recover from that, let me tell you. You start to question if you'll ever sell, if you're good enough, is all the hard work worth it, etc. This industry will kill you if you let it. I've almost let it a few times.

Any tips you've learned about writing you want to share?

I heard this once somewhere: "If you want to sell quicker, write to the market. If you want to enjoy what you're doing, write what you love." Right now, dark paranormals are hot, as are urban fantasy and steampunk. For writers who love those genres, their chances of selling soon are probably a bit better than someone like me who writes straight contemporary and romantic suspense. Unfortunately for me, the markets I love to read and write aren't hot right now. I've toyed with the idea of trying my hand at one of those genres, but if I don't enjoy reading them, that would probably come across in my writing.

Let’s get to know you on a deeper level. What do you absolutely have to have nearby when writing?

I must have my notebook nearby, for any ideas or notes I might want to jot down. I must have coffee, unfortunately, or at the very least a hot cup of tea. I would have Cheetos if they weren't so messy. What I can't have around is my husband--he's worse than the kids at interrupting me. :) Oh, and my thesaurus--the real thing, not the online version.

If you could have any super power, what would it be?

Wow, I've honestly never thought about this before LOL. Let's see, in my best dreams at night (at least the ones that aren't TMI), I can run like the wind, and it's an amazing feeling. So, I'll go with that. Boring, I know, but imagine how cool that would be.

Not boring at all. In fact, if I could run like the wind and not get sweaty - even better!

Quick writing test! Use the following words in a sentence: gown, race, and quarantine.

Oh, great. You're making me think. I'm really not a writer but a REwriter. Sigh. Okay, here goes:

Struggling not to trip over the long train of her gown, Matilda raced out of the church before the cops could quarantine the wedding party.

Awesome. Here’s the part where you thank the people who are supporting you. Let's hear your shout outs.

Obviously, I thank my family for putting up with a messy house and the only occasional sit-down dinner. It must be incredibly difficult living with a writer. If the writing is going well, I'm in a great mood but all I want to do is write. If it's not going well, I'm in a pissie mood and all I want to do is write. :) There are really too many other individual people to thank, so I'll do a quick shout out to my Golden Heart sisters, the Pixie Chicks; my local chapter, GSRWA; and my plotting group, the Cherry Plotters (as in Cherry Adair).

And finally, where can people find you online?

My website: www.rebeccajclark.com
My blog: www.shywriters.blogspot.com
My group blog: www.blameitonthemuse.com
Facebook: Rebecca J. Clark
Twitter: @rebeccajclark

Rebecca, thank you so much for letting me interview you. It was a lot of fun. I wish you continued success!

Thanks so much for having me here, Dorothy. You're the best!

The Call: Guest Post by Mindi Scott

We have a fabulous guest post today from author Mindi Scott. Mindi's YA debut novel, FREEFALL, about what comes next for a teen who was the last person to see his best friend alive and the first to find him dead, will be released by Pulse (Simon & Schuster) October 5th, 2010.

From the time I started writing with the intent of getting published, I knew that I wanted an agent. Once I felt that my work was ready, I set about trying to get one. Three years, two manuscripts, and 170 agent rejections later, I was way beyond prepared. I knew the questions I needed to ask. I knew all the steps that needed to be taken. I just needed an agent to call me up to give me the chance.

On January 6, 2009, I was gearing up for a new revision when my phone rang. I stared at the number on the screen, but I didn't recognize it. The caller definitely wasn't local. Whenever this had happened during all those months of querying, I'd hoped that it would be an agent calling to discuss my book. It always ended up being some kind of telemarketer or telephone-survey taker, though.

This time, I answered, expecting a telemarketer's spiel. Instead, the person on the other end said, "Hi, Mindi. This is Jim McCarthy of Dystel and Goderich Literary Management. I finished reading your manuscript. I loved it, and I'm calling to offer representation."

I would be lying if I told you that I remembered much about what I said or how the rest of that conversation went. I just stared out the window in a state of shock, running through my mind that he'd just said that he loved my manuscript.

He kept talking to me, saying a lot of enthusiastic-sounding words.

HE LOVED MY MANUSCRIPT! HE SAID, "LOVED." LOVED!

Then he paused in whatever he was saying, clearly waiting for some kind of response from me. I said, "I'm sorry, can you repeat that?"

He laughed and said it all again.

When we got off the phone a few minutes later, I wasn't quite able to process what had just happened. Something great and wonderful and unbelievable! After all this time, I had an agent call to talk about my book! And I truly comprehend only about a quarter of what he said!

Wait. Did he say that he wanted to represent me? He did. HE DID!

I freaked out, ran around the house (literally), called my husband, my mom, my sister, my best friends. I left insane messages on people's voicemails. When my hands stopped shaking enough so that I could use my keyboard and mouse, I checked my email and spotted the agency agreement that I vaguely remembered Jim saying that he was going to send for me to check out.

And we all lived happily ever after.

Okay, so as you might guess, The Call didn't go exactly as I'd imagined. I'd wanted to be cool, calm, and super-professional and it didn't happen. To aspiring authors out there, I have to say that being prepared and researching the right questions to ask an agent is a very good thing to do. But if The Call comes unexpectedly like it did for me, try not to worry too much. You can and will get a chance to get into the nitty-gritty agent/client details in emails and later phone conversations. I promise!

Even though I don't officially remember much about what was said during that initial call, I do know that it is by far, one of the best that I've ever received!

**************************

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Freefall-Mindi-Scott/dp/1442402784/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283449255&sr=8-1


Links about Mindi:

http://mindiscott.com/
http://twitter.com/mindi_scott
http://www.youtube.com/user/authormindiscott
http://www.thecontemps.com/

FREEFALL Book Trailer