Beyond Words

Posted on July 23, 2011 by mtmuse As I finished writing my debut novel, Lucidity , I had difficulty determining what genre the story fit into. I was stuck. It certainly didn’t meet the criteria for the traditional romance genre, nor was it an exact fit for the realm of paranormal. Eventually I was given a bit of advice and it was determined that Lucidity would be categorized as mainstream fiction containing a love story. Ah…a love story. Of course. And what exactly is that? I suppose a love story could be considered a new term for the old tragedy. True to its name, a love story must contain, well, yes, love. But it is the element of misfortune that sets apart this unique sub-genre from most romantic stories. A love story doesn’t guarantee a happy ending and yet, it is the critical component of tragedy that makes it unforgettable. Life is full of contradictions – the night versus the day, the winter cold versus the summer heat, femininity in contrast to masculinity. To recognize...

I'd like to welcome Vanessa Kelman author of Chasing Fate and Accepting Fate to discuss her adventures in publshing.  Tell us something about yourself and how you became a writer. If you believe in fate, I was destined to be a writer since before I was born! While my mother was pregnant with me, she was actually taking a writing course. To the best my knowledge, she's never had anything published, but I guess the interest was there, and the course was all it took to determine my life's work.             I've been writing stories since I was a child, though I didn't make the decision to have it be my career until relatively recently. When I turned 30, I found myself unhappy with what I had accomplished so far in my life. I didn't seem to be getting anywhere. So I made the decision to take charge of my life. And a big part of that was taking charge of my career. The only thing that had remained consistent in my life...

In celebration of the release of my novel, Invisible , I'm going to give away five kindle editions to the first five people to leave a comment. Please leave your email address with your comment. Here's the blurb - Lola’s not pretty. Lola’s not popular. Lola wishes she could disappear … and then one day she does just that... For seventeen-year-old Lola Savullo, life is a struggle. Born to funky parents who are more in than she could ever be, Lola’s dream of becoming a writer makes her an outsider even in her own home. Bullied and despised, Lola still has the support of her best pal Charlie and Grandma Rose. Not only is she freakishly tall, Lola’s a big girl and when forced to wear a bathing suit at her summer job as a camp counselor, Lola’s only escape from deep embarrassment seems to be to literally vanish. Soon after, she discovers the roots of her new “ability”. Slowly, with Charlie’s help, Lola learns to control the new super power. The possibilities are endl...

I’m pleased to welcome author, Tim Andrewartha to my blog. Originally from the UK, Tim now lives in Tokyo. Like many native English speakers there he teaches his mother tongue, as well as finding the time to write fiction. He gets inspiration from reading books by authors such as Philip K Dick, China Miéville and Haruki Murakami. Tell us something about yourself and how you became a writer. Growing up in Dorset in the UK I tried various ways of expressing myself creatively, including drawing cartoons and playing guitar in a band. I went to university in Southampton and studied Media Writing. After graduating I made a short film about a paranoid milkman using a script I’d written before realizing I wanted to focus on my prose. I moved to Japan in 2006 to teach English and I found the different culture and lifestyle provided a good environment for nurturing my ideas. After finding my style though writing short stories I progressed onto my first novel, Vitality. Now I live in Tokyo wi...

It’s my pleasure to host a good friend and fabulous author, J.L. Campbell. I know her as Joy, so that’s how I’ll refer to this prolific writer and generous woman. Joy’s the author of several books and has just recently decided to take things into her own hands and self-publish. She’s here to discuss her experiences in the publishing world as well as to discuss her novels. Tell us something about yourself and how you became a writer.  I’m a Jamaican, Catholic, wife, mother and devoted learner. I believe in learning something new everyday, and I usually do. My writing career began in high school with self-manufactured romance novels – read that as exercise books taped together and filled with bad handwriting. My school mates enjoyed the stories, and they made the rounds in the classroom. I stopped making up stories for over two decades before I remembered that I used to write. I started off writing craft articles, moved to short stories and then novels. What have you had published...

It's my pleasure to host author, Penny Estelle on my blog today. Penny, take it away! My name is Penny Estelle and I am a retired school secretary. During school and high school I never read. I thought it was a bore and I had better things to do. After I was married and had children – crawling, crying, children – I discovered escaping to other times/places was not a bore at all. As a matter of fact, it helped to keep my sanity in tact! The more I read, the more I thought, “I would not have ended that story that way! I would have...” And so I started writing on a regular electric typewriter. It was a historical/western/romance. It took five years to finish. That was approximately twenty-five years ago. I put the finished book in a box, put it in my closet, and it is still there to this day! My genre, at this point, is MG/YA. After working with kids for twenty-one years, I have a fondness for their sense of humor, actions, excuses, etc. They make me laugh. A year ago I wrote H...

I’ve been a follower of your blog, Quick Brown Fox, http://quick-brown-fox-canada.blogspot.com/ for quite some time and I am a huge fan. I was wondering where you find all the interesting and varied information? Do you have to look for it, or do people approach you?   Both. People who have been in my classes or workshops are always emailing me to let me know they’ve gotten something published. I post those emails, and I also check if I’ve done a post about the journal or book publisher they’ve gotten published with. So, suppose someone’s gotten published in CommuterLit or Jersey Devil , Ronsdale Press or ECW . Then I figure that’s a good place for other writers to send their work, so I make sure they can look up the submission info on Quick Brown Fox. Also, I continually get emails from agents, literary journals, organizations sponsoring writing contests, book publishers, authors with a new book, etc. The bottom line is that Quick Brown Fox is Canada’s most popular blog fo...

YA TRAILER PARK: Invisible by Jeanne Bannon : For more information about Jeanne's books, visit http://beyondwordsblog.blogspot.com/

Born in Northern Canada, Angela grew up in the Canadian prairies amid dreams of becoming the next Dian Fossey or a world famous flight attendant. Those, thank goodness, were never meant to be. Instead, she moved to Texas   and then eventually beautiful Colorado where she divides her time between writing and her other job, teaching. Tell us something about yourself and how you became a writer. Writing is something that I truly just started one random day. I'd never really considered it a possible career for myself. My sister was always the writer in our family. Once I started, though, I fell in love with it. Tell us about your novel and where readers can purchase a copy. Songbird is Young Adult novel about a seventeen-year-old girl struggling to put her past behind her. Dani Mays wants to move on with her life, to put the murder of her brother at the hands of their father and the disintegration of their dysfunctional family behind her. But her memories are a controlling ...

Lola’s not pretty. Lola’s not popular. Lola wishes she could disappear … and then one day she does just that... For seventeen-year-old Lola Savullo, life is a struggle. Born to funky parents who are more in than she could ever be, Lola’s dream of becoming a writer makes her an outsider even in her own home. Bullied and despised, Lola still has the support of her best pal Charlie and Grandma Rose. Not only is she freakishly tall, Lola’s a big girl and when forced to wear a bathing suit at her summer job as a camp counselor, Lola’s only escape from deep embarrassment seems to be to literally vanish. Soon after, she discovers the roots of her new “ability”. Slowly, with Charlie’s help, Lola learns to control the new super power. The possibilities are endless. Yet power can be abused, too… Then, when tragedy strikes, Lola must summon her inner strength, both at home and at school. She has to stand up for herself, despite the temptations and possibilities of her newfound super power. ...

Today I welcome author, Felicia Rogers to my blog. Felicia is a prolific author with many books under her belt. About Felicia Felicia Rogers, born and raised in the southern part of the United States, is a Christian wife and mother. She is just your average, ordinary woman, with a side interest - writing. For eleven years, every waking moment of her life was consumed with changing diapers, wiping noses, and kissing scrapes. But now that her children have grown and she enjoys a modicum of freedom, in addition to taking care of hearth and home, she writes! She enjoys adding a flavor of realism and humor to her all too real romance stories. For what is love without a little laughter? Welcome, Felicia...take it away How I became an author is an interesting story.   Sometimes I think it happened by chance, by accident, completely without my help.   Although if I calculate all the hours I’ve invested into my writing, I realize that’s not entirely true. About two years ago, I told m...