LEFT TO DIE by Lisa Jackson: “…I knew I wanted to write a ‘back-woodsy’ kind of story…”

My latest book LEFT TO DIE was an idea that evolved over the years. I knew I wanted to write a “back-woodsy” kind of story peppered with unique characters. I grew up in a small timber town and thought, after writing stories about New Orleans, San Francisco and Savannah, that I’d go back to my roots. Well, kinda. Montana has always held a certain appeal for me. Hence, the setting.

Also, a couple of years ago my editor came up with the idea that I should create a story with two women cops as the protagonists and I thought he’d lost it. Cagney and Lacey, the old cop show from the eighties came to mind and I thought “I’ll never pull this off. What did he want? The female version of The Odd Couple? I back-burnered that idea. Big time. Actually I put it in the wood stove in the guest house on the north forty of the property.

Anyway, years later, as I was coming up with characters for LEFT TO DIE Regan Pescoli, a twice married single mom of a cop entered the scene. A few pages later, her partner, Selena Alvarez, uptight, with secrets of her own, sauntered in.

Everything really came together when I met Jillian Rivers, the heroine of the book, who is driving hell-bent to Montana to find her louse of a first husband who let her think he was dead and also left her to deal with the investors he’d swindled.

These women absolutely intrigued me. Add to the mix a madman who leaves his victims to die along with a sexy loner who has a shady past and I was off and running with this story that truly was fun to write. You can read an excerpt and learn more about the book at www.lisajackson.com

Lisa Jackson is the author of the romantic suspense novel, LEFT TO DIE. You can visit her website at www.lisajackson.com.

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READ WELL, THINK WELL by Hal W. Lanse, Ph.D.: “..the entire experience was a satisfying but labor-intensive project.”

I’m a longtime reading instructor and teacher trainer. For years I’ve given
workshops to teachers and parents. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback
from parents after my workshops. Parents are aware that their children will
need world-class literacy skills if they are to survive in the information
economy. After my workshops, I’m often asked if I’ve written a book or if I
can recommend one. I never could recommend a good book because most books on reading are filled with confusing jargon and are written in a user-unfriendly manner. (How ironic for books on literacy.)

I never could recommend anything worthwhile to parents. When I conducted
workshops, I would always provide informational packets but these, by their
nature, couldn’t provide the broad spectrum of ideas and activities that I’d
learned over the years. I toyed with the idea of writing a book about
reading—one that parents would find accessible. Finally, I decided I was
ready.

I’d published a couple of children’s books, without much success, and when I decided to move onto something new my publisher, who focuses solely on
fantasy novels, recommended me to an agent. In collaboration with my agent, Irene Goodman, I decided at long last to write my book on reading. Irene was phenomenal. For three months she worked closely with me to develop an effective proposal, which included a sample chapter and an outline.

We sold the book and I signed the contract in June of last year. In late
June my publisher asked Irene if I could finish the manuscript by September
1st. Thank heavens for summer vacation! I lived at my desk for two months.
Somehow it all got done. I must have impressed the editor with the speed of
my work because in November, I was asked to produce one more chapter—in two weeks. The entire experience was a satisfying but labor-intensive project.

I’m very proud of the result. I believe that Read Well, Think Well will be
very useful to parents and to teachers, as well. If the book does well, I
hope to write several more books for parents and some books for teens as
well.

Hal W. Lanse, Ph.D. is the author of READ WELL, THINK WELL. You can visit his website at www.readwellthinkwell.com. If you’d like to win a copy of Hal’s book, visit Book Marketing Buzz before August 30!

I’M WATCHING YOU by Mary Burton: “I’m a sucker for a good, scary novel.”

I’d been writing western historical romances and Silhouette Romantic Suspense novels for several years, and I loved it. But I’d always had a hankering to write a longer, darker suspense story. I’m a sucker for a good, scary novel. The character Lindsay O’Neil, the heroine in I’m Watching You, kept popping up and prodding me to tell her story. Even though I was on deadline, I decided to carve time from my day and work on Lindsay’s story. I’d work on the contracted novel by day and plot I’m Watching You by night. This must have taken eight or nine months. When I finally had the first three chapters and a synopsis, I sent it off to my agent. She was able to sell it to Kensington within a couple of weeks.

Mary Burton is the author of the Zebra Romantic Suspense novels I’M WATCHING YOU and the upcoming DEAD RINGER (November 2008) and Christmas Past in the SILVER BELLS anthology (November 2008). She has also written twelve historical western romances for Harlequin Historical and four novels for Silhouette Romantic Suspense. For more information stop by her website at www.maryburton.com.

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WHAT’S WRONG WITH MORMONS by B. Jay Gladwell: “…inspiration…grew out of the countless falsehoods and gross inaccuracies being perpetuated by the opponents of the Church.”

The inspiration for What’s Wrong With Mormons? grew out of the countless falsehoods and gross inaccuracies being perpetuated by the opponents of the Church. In the year 2007 (when the book was being written) we had a member of the Church running for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. There was the broadcast of a lopsided, inaccurate documentary about Mormons on PBS. There was a weekly television program, about an obnoxious doctor with a supporting character who is a Mormon that perpetuated misinformation about the Church. On top of that, a group of evangelicals produced a video, distributed it on DVD, and claimed it was produced “out of love for our Lord Jesus Christ and love for our Mormon and Christian friends.” Yet the video contains a thoroughly dishonest portrayal of the Mormon faith, using smear tactics and religious bigotry to perpetuate the same tired half-truths and misinformation that have been used for over 175 years. As a result of all this, the Church has been brought to the forefront of the news. And, if I may speak frankly, it got very tiresome reading and hearing and seeing what other people—non-members—outside the Church were claiming our doctrines to be. How ridiculous! The only thing more ridiculous is giving credence to such individuals and their falsehoods and half-truths.

As I mentioned above, a member of the Church was running for the Republican nomination for president. There were endless articles about that candidate and nearly each one, in one way or another, brought up the issue of “Mormons as Christians.” This concern was most prevalent among evangelical Christians. One such article spoke about a recent survey that showed many of these evangelicals were drawn to this candidate’s values but repelled by his Mormon faith. Can you see the irony in that statement? Isn’t that like saying, “I like apple pie, but I am repulsed by apples”? How can one accept the teachings of Jesus Christ but reject the Savior?

Think about it. How many times have you read or heard how people really admire Mormons for their family values, yet their teachings are abhorrent. Mormons are held in high regard because of their work ethic, but the Prophet Joseph Smith was a scoundrel. Mormons are respected for their moral points of view on chastity, honesty, abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, and drugs, yet their doctrines are of the devil. Mormons are appreciated for their humanitarian contributions and the goods and services provided in the wake of natural catastrophes around the world; nevertheless, they aren’t Christians. Where has there ever been a greater contradiction of thought?

In light of the above, this book was written as my attempt to answer the simple question: “What’s wrong with Mormons?”

B. Jay Gladwell is the author of WHAT’S WRONG WITH MORMONS? You can visit his website at www.whatswrongwithmormons.com.

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LIFE AFTER COLLEGE by ChaChanna Simpson: “…if you want to write a book, stop talking about it and just start writing.”

Life After College: What Your Parents and Professors Never Taught You is actually based off of my website, Twentity.com, which is a place for twentysomethings to go to learn how to enter the real world. Every other week, I post articles on topics that are not taught in college, such as searching for an apartment, managing finances, choosing life insurance and more. And although my site is doing well, I needed a different medium to reach my target audience: recent college grads. I was really thinking what type of book should I write that will help them. Should I write one on the job market? No, because there are plenty of books that do that. Should I write on motivation? No, there are far many experts on that topic. I really struggled to find a topic and one day I had to slap myself on the forehead when I realized I had been slowing writing the book over the past couple years that I’d been writing the articles for the website.

I really felt like an idiot because I had wasted all that time thinking of a topic when it was right there in my face all the time. The book evolved from a collection of articles to becoming a guide for recent college grads to use from the moment they graduate and have to move back home to getting their own place to getting a job to managing their finances to taking care of their health and more.

When you think about it, in college, they teach you to be proficient in your major but they don’t teach you life preparation skills. When you graduate college you realize there is more to life than having a job. Yes, a job takes up a huge chunk of your day but those days you are not at work, what are you doing? You’re balancing your checkbook, you’re trying to get your first place, you’re looking for a job, you’re making new friends. But no one teaches these things, those who have come before us have learned by trial by fire because no one told them. And instead of telling their children what they learned, they just take for granted that everyone knows and the cycle continues. I decided I wanted to stop the cycle from continuing.

And the more I told people about what I was working on, they got really excited and were already looking to buy the book and I hadn’t even gotten through half of it. That helped me continue writing because I knew there was a need for this book.

I made my outline and then had to rewrite some articles with updated information or completely write something new. I used to think that when someone said they just used material they already had that that was a simple job. But I quickly learned it’s not. At least for a non-fiction book you have to do research to make sure the information you are giving is up-to-date, as of printing it.

Writing this book took a long time, about a year and two months. But now that it’s all done and I have to work on promoting it, I find that selling a book is a lot harder than I thought. And I wanted to make sure that I mention that because some authors think that when they post their book on the Internet for sale that everyone is going to step over others to get to it. Unless you are already established, you are going to have to get out there and promote the heck out of your book.

One final piece of advice I’d like to offer to would-be authors is that if you want to write a book, stop talking about it and just start writing. It’s never going to happen if you don’t take some action.

Good Writing!

ChaChanna Simpson is the author of LIFE AFTER COLLEGE: WHAT YOUR PARENTS AND PROFESSORS NEVER TAUGHT YOU. You can visit her website at www.lifeaftercollegebook.com.

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THE FACE OF DEATH by Cody McFadyen: “…I didn’t want anyone to read it and come away unscathed.”

The Face of Death is one of those disturbing things that I have to take responsibility for as coming wholly from myself. There’s no specific inspiration I can point to. I had to write my second novel, and I was lying on the couch, twirling a pen in my hand and staring at the ceiling, when the following came to me:

What if a killer, instead of killing his victim, leaves her alive, but - follows her throughout her life killing anyone and everyone she ever loves?
Heck, the TV wasn’t even on, so I can’t blame it on the box.

Ideas, the good and the bad, the moments of beauty as well ugly in what I write, come from within me. It doesn’t mean that’s who I am. It just means that when I half-close my eyes and sort of blur my vision and really reach for a concept, I usually find it. And there’s no one else there, so I guess it comes from me.

But then, that’s only the two-dimensional, grayish truth. More completely, the idea comes from the me that’s formed of everything I’ve ever seen, every book I’ve ever read, every movie I’ve ever watched, every song I’ve ever heard or sung. It comes from the times I’ve told people I loved them, and the times people have told me they hated me. It comes from the ideas of right and wrong I was imbued with by those who raised me, which I have either stuck to or betrayed. It comes from the terrible and wonderful things I’ve witnessed personally or heard about second hand. We’re all a bunch of moving parts, constantly changing based on what we come in contact with. Somehow, my moving parts came up with The Face of Death.

I am constantly fascinated by the ability of people to survive their suffering, and to thrive after recovery from difficult pasts. I decided I wanted to explore this theme in The Face of Death, and I ended up really plumbing the depths of that.

Which I guess, is kind of the selfish part of my books. They fit firmly into the thriller genre, no doubt about that, but…the who-dun-it aspect is always secondary for me to the examination of what happens when you put someone very, very bad against someone very human. I love an excuse to do that.

But beware of making judgments without all the facts in hand. The killer in The Face of Death has his own story of suffering, and once you hear it, you might be disturbed by your own inability to hate him. Then again, you might be disturbed by how much you hate him, after all.

In the end, one of the most basic, underlying things behind the book was this: I didn’t want anyone to read it and come away unscathed. I hope I accomplished that, but leave that judgment, humbly, in each reader’s capable hands.

Cody McFadyen is the author of THE FACE OF DEATH. You can visit his website at www.codymcfadyen.com.

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HERMETICA by Paul Kiritsis: “…nothing but a concept to me many years ago.”

Hermetica: Myths, Legends, Poems was nothing but a concept to me many years ago. Back then, if somebody had stopped me down the street to tell me I’d be writing sequels to popular ancient Egyptian tales, myths and legends associated with hermetics and esoteric knowledge I probably would have told them to take a hike. But the ability of time to morph us as individuals is somewhat of a miracle, and what began as a slight interest in Egyptian history, mythology and its relation to biblical events many years ago soon sprouted into an obsessive fascination with hermetic philosophy, alchemy and old tales and legends which had long been absent from the consciousness of the Western world.

Sometime in 2006, I began delving into Egyptian mythology and noticed that many of the myths and legends seemed disjointed. Those familiar with world mythology would know about the love affair between the sibling deities Isis and Osiris, the subsequent Contendings of Horus and Seth and other stories about gods and mortals but has anybody ever stopped to ponder if other relevant literature once existed which bridged all of these myths together into a single, cohesive worldview? What is true is that during those times the word of mouth was much preferred to the written word. It is also true that much has been lost from ancient Egypt. What can be inferred from these conclusions is that the majority of folklore was passed down from the elders of communities to their offspring by word of mouth. In time, many of these literary treasures were lost to the inheritance of humanity. What was left behind were only remnants of the more popular ones but even they were not preserved in their original form. The love story of Isis and Osiris was first communicated to the Western world by the Greek writer Plutarch (C. AD. 46-c. 126) millennia after it was first conceived, so it is possible the original oral version was completely different to the one we learn about in mythology and history textbooks today.

After pondering on what other literature might have existed, I began writing verse drama which connected many of the myths together and expanded on some of the better known ones. My keen interests in alchemy, astrology and philosophy where also thrown into the mixing bowl and what I ended up scooping out of it was a hybrid book of both poetry and prose that explicated what that world of oral Egyptian mythology might have been like before it was extinguished forever. The book’s main focus was oral and written folklore, although alchemy ended up as one of the main pillars supporting the entire work. In fact, three of the stories in it – Creation Myth, The Contendings of Hathor and Anti, and The Flawed Mirror are all about spiritual alchemy, the magical transformation of consciousness into the material universe. The last of these is also the aorta of the book’s heart. It is the piece most influenced by hermetics and esoteric knowledge and was based on a lucid dream I had where a woman swathed in black clothes and a veil told me the meaning of life and why the universe had come to be. As you might imagine, when I woke up I’d forgotten everything. The language of the unconscious mind only makes sense when you’re sleeping. When you awake, it either seems illogical or you’ve forgotten it altogether.

In time, Hermetica: Myths, Legends, Poems shaped up to becoming a literary collection comprised of an assortment of folkloristic devices; a testament to the fact that ancient folklore found expression in variant literary forms. I made good use of the sacred number seven as well, ensuring that the poetics section was divided into seven categories – alchemica, astrologica, mythologica, philosophica, musica and erotica. Similarly, I picked only seven for the verse drama despite having written more. A symbologist reading this book would be quite impressed by the obvious and sometimes not so obvious symbols that appear throughout the stories. I feel I’ve layered it beyond belief.

Oral and written folklore, old or new, continues to influence and shape our lives unconsciously. It matters little whether the compositions originate in ancient Egypt, medieval Europe or modern-day America – they may well speak our under different guises, but they always communicate the same morals and archetypal themes. It is to this world that we return to every night; an irrational world of epic and dramatic poetry. We all exist someplace there – in one of the verses of Hermetica – treading a fine line between reason and magic.