Creativity in Prose & Publicity

Nov. 6, 2009

What a busy week and so much of it about writing! My kind of week.

Worked on 'Stephen's Boy's' every day this week. Not too much research required in this segment. Mostly it's brother to brother dialog laced with a lot of distrust and accusation. I do love dialog. So much can be revealed to the reader without the long sentences and paragraphs of telling, when the reader responds so much better to showing.

Got an email from Jude who is reading 'A Meandering Road - Lita's Story'. She said she has finally stopped crying and is ready to discuss the book. We set a date for Thu. 11/12 at Denny's. She said the crying was for Lita and Michael. Seems those characters worked for her. Had a friend who said that it's been about five years since she read 'After the War, Before the Peace', but she still remembers Deborah, the bad girl and wonders what ever happened to her. Funny, how the 'bad' characters always seem to bring out emotion in the reader.

Then, Thurs. nite was the WNEA Sales Extravaganza. Cindie showed up with her book, so we had three choices on our table - 'ATW,BTP, Hannah and her Ask Me No Questions.' I sold three books, she sold two. The folks who bought them weren't strangers so I don't think I picked up any new fans, although several said they'd come by Hastings for my book signing on Sunday. Hope someone shows up!

Today I talked with Kelly about the requirements for 'novel group'. Right now we have about five folks interested. Kelly is an interesting person to talk to. She seems to have the instincts of a novelist. We talked about writing what it selling versus what our 'characters' whisper in our ears and about sex in our novels. We agreed. No doubt about it. Sex sells. Then, it was the reading of the subs for tomorrow's writer's meeting. I still need to get something ready to turn in.

Oh, nearly forgot, the local newspaper finally put an article in the paper about Hastings on Sunday. Nice blurb about 'Hannah', a picture of the book and a picture of me. Peter, the book liaison at Hastings, is an easy guy to work with. He said there are so many folks requesting book signings that he's had to turn some down. I guess it's true, everyone has a book in their head and wants to start writing.

Oh, Cindie is going to be on blog radio with Newoka tomorrow at 1:00 p.m., just as our writer's meeting starts. Good thing she tapes it and I can hear it later tomorrow night.

So, this week seems to be about a lot of creativity. Working with 'Stephen's Boys', thinking of ways to attract readers at the book signings and deciding what to turn in for the writer's group tomorrow. So, I must go with these words of Carl Jung to close out this update. "The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves."