Research and Writing

Good morning, world. Today, we are discussing the importance of research when writing. I know that sounds horrifically boring, but it's actually not.




You see, fellow readers and writers, research is a HUGE part of what we do. In fact, research came up during my signing event this past weekend.




I was asked how I did my research for Unbreakable Hostage as far as the CSI and police work. To which I jokingly answered, "CSI."


It's true. I'm a CSI junkie. The original, though. And I was addicted to that one LONG before my stint out in Vegas.





In all seriousness, though, in addition to my CSI addiction, I have 10 years of medical experience under my belt. Two of my partner's brothers are cops. I guess I was just lucky that I didn't really need to do much research for that book. Now yes, some did need to be done - about algebra, GPS, California geography and yes, some CSI stuff.

Why?

Because EVERY BOOK NEEDS RESEARCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Being a nerd, research is quite enjoyable for me. I love to learn new thing, and it makes me break out those uber-sexy nerd glasses!




For Imperfect, I had to do a lot of research about AIDS, AIDS research, AIDS treatment, the physiological effects of medicines on AIDS patients and so on.



Let me make this fun for ya, k?





If I had not done my research and had someone come up positive for AIDS as a result of a blood transfusion in 2000, that wouldn't be believable, now would it? No. Because by then, HIV/AIDS testing was standard across the country and had been for some time. I set the transfusion to take place in the early 1980s when AIDS was just being discovered, and testing was no standardized. Some places were beginning to test donors' blood, but it was not across the board.



Now, by the same token, if I had set this in the 1920's, it wouldn't be believable because AIDS was not a known disease back then. Polio, maybe, but not AIDS. Antibiotics hadn't even come out onto the market yet. People were only just beginning to learn the differences between virsuses and bacterium. Not gonna work well with my AIDS theme, huh?



I also had to do a TON of research on the evolution of computers, various viruses that shut companies down and all that jazz. That bored me to tears, but it is crucial in the time line of Imperfect. We may not always want to research certain topics, but if it's in our story, then we must.



Albeit a quick blog today, I want you all to consider the importance of research in writing. If you don't know your subject, your readers will figure that out quickly. Be honest with them! They bought your book - they gave you money! The least you can do is give them the truth! They need and deserve the facts. So do your characters. So please, before you venture off on your next great novel, be sure that your information is correct. Fiction is great, when it's believable!

Happy reading! :)

Mid-day News Report

Happy Monday, world!






Sorry this is coming to you so late. To say I'm wiped out is an understatement. Though, not bad, It means I've been busy and actually PRODUCTIVE (versus just being productive on Farmville! LOL).





This week's news is minimal 'cause my little brain is about to explode! LOL.




First off, the BIG news for this week is that I will be in Turn Around Media's Review magazine next month in a really neat interview. It was one of the most interesting and thought provoking interviews I've done so far. I'm really excited! Can't wait till it comes out! You can bet that I'll keep you posted! :)





Our other big news is that the FANTASTIC Lee Libro will be here for an APA author interview on Friday! She is amazingly talented and A LOT of fun to talk to! I really think you'll like her interview! Since she's coming up on a Friday, I will hold off on my next character interview until NEXT Friday, k?





Alrighty, I am off to go find some sanity! LOL.

Happy Monday & happy reading! :)

Character Interview: Tony

Good Friday morning, y'all! I am QUITE wiped out from writing, interviews and prepping for TOMORROW'S book signing in Suffern, NY and then Sunday's interview on Wake Up America. I'll post the info on those at the end of this blog.

Today's character interview is with Tony from Unbreakable Hostage.






Good morning, Tony.

Hi.






Tony, let's just jump right in here. You are not well-liked because of your role in the story. What would you like to say in your defense?





I did nothing wrong. She turned me down - she needed to see what a great guy I am. The police have no right to take me away from my wife like that! I will appeal this to the highest court!





Tony, your brother calls you a perpetual student. How does that make you feel?





Well, he's right. I've taken an infinite number of classes. I have all kinds of degrees. I just haven't found my nitche in life yet. I guess I'm a late bloomer. But Lareina understands that. She accepts me as I am.





Let's talk about Lareina for a minute.



You tried to kill her; you raped her; you stalked her, and you kidnapped her. She fought you; she hid from you, and she used her cell phone to get rescued from you. Do you really believe that you have any kind of healthy relationship with her - or anyone for that matter?




Women just need to be controlled some times. She's Hispanic, and those women are fiesty. They just need a good man to put them in their place. And she understands why I am as hurt as I am. I explained all the problems my family went through. She understands. And she loves me. I know she does.






Tony, your time is extremely limited due to prison regulations. This is your chance to explain yourself and possibly even gain some sympathy.





I am a good guy. I would never hurt anyone. I just did what I needed to do. Lareina was very weak and sick, and thus delirious by the time the police found us. I know that she is working hard to be reunited with me. I'm incredibly smart and I am a good husband. That's all you need to know.



Ok, Tony. Thanks.




To read more about Tony, Lareina and everyone else in Unbreakable Hostage check out the book on amazon.com and barnes and noble.com. It's available in e-book, Kindle AND print!




If you're in NY or northern NJ, please stop by the Raider Book Store in Suffern, NY on Saturday (4/17) at 2 pm! I will be there reading excerpts, signing books and giving away a ONE-OF-A-KIND Unbreakable Hostage prize! It's REALLY cool! I'd love to see you there!

Raider Book Store, 99 Lafayette Ave in downtown Suffern (next to Lafayette Theater). Contact (845) 533-4340




Also, please don't forget that this Sunday, 4/18 at 8 pm Eastern I will be on Wake Up America's Blog Talk Radio Show! This is going to be an INCREDIBLE conversation, and I would love to have you join us! :)
Sunday 4/18 8 pm EST/7 pm Central/6 pm Mountain/5 pm Pacific.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wakeupamerica2010

APA - Lee Libro

Post 4/23
Good morning, everyone! This morning, we're talking to Lee Libro, author of Swimming with Wings, from the Authors Promoting Authors program.



Good morning, Lee! :)

I like to offer my guests virtual coffee, tea, cookies, pastries, etc.
Anything in particular you'd like? :)
How about a mint julep, paying homage to my southern roots?


Sure! Just hope this is good (I'm a Yankee through-and-through!)




Let's get right into things. Your website says that you are a visual artist. Did you create your website? It is absolutely gorgeous!


Yes, I am a visual artist. I paint in watercolors and acrylics. One can see much of my art at www.leelibro.imagekind.com. Though I do create some digital art, and I have created websites, I rely pretty heavily on templates as a springboard. I'm just not that HTML savvy. The website www.swimmingwithwings.com was created at WIX.com, where the choices for templates are very much geared to visual artists. The one drawback is that these sites are made with Flash files and I'm not sure but I don't think flash files are as easily crawled for SEO purposes. So while it looks pretty and it is a nice support tool for the book, the jury is still out on whether it will procure new fans.





I'm also very interested in the title of your book, Swimming with
Wings. Where did that come from?


The title, Swimming with Wings, was inspired by three sources. First the Dead Pearl Diver, which is a sculpture permanently exhibited at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland Maine. I first saw it when I was only about 9 years old and to this day, it has the same intense effect on me. When you stand next to him, just as I've described in the story, he does seem to breathe. As I've grown older, I've always revisited my translation of the meaning of the statue and what the sculptor, Benjamin Paul Akers, might have intended when he created him. I can't help but think that just as he was carved in stone, the Pearl Diver represents a very deep interpretation of the human condition, that we are indeed really ephemeral beings, spirits, immersed in the "water" of life.






The second inspiration of the title then springs from this first one in that earth's interpretation of spirit, religion, is often too structured for the true immensity of spirituality that humans are meant to embrace. I believe that, in a sense we are all like angels mired down by that element. Knock down the structures of religion and what you have is universal spirituality, the sky, so to speak, where all tolerance exists, where we are all connected. The difference between religion and spirituality is basically the root of the tension that exists between the two main characters, Lark and Peter.


And finally the third inspiration for the title comes from M.C. Escher's woodcut Water and Sky, depicting fish metamorphosing into birds. I've always loved that particular woodcut, because not only is it an example of his wonderfully geometric ideations, but it speaks to me of evolution and transformation, and implies to me the same idea that I've described in my second inspiration in the above paragraph.





I love your openness on your website about your beliefs. One thing
that struck me was the choice in names for your characters. Lark is
such an interesting and unique name and Peter has such strong roots in
Christianity. Was that intentional or did it just kind of happen?



Well, it occurred spontaneously. Stream of consciousness is my greatest creative method, if you can call it a method. I came up with the names without really thinking them through analytically. They were the names that formed at the "tip of my tongue" so to speak and then after the fact, in analyzing them, I saw how perfectly fitting they were for the characters. Another example of this sort of thing occurring in my writing is with Peter's last name, Roma. It just came to me naturally, and then one day while I was researching the gypsy culture, I found out that a Roma is actually a type of gypsy. The serendipity of this just knocked me over, but more importantly, it taught me to trust the process of creative writing more fully and relax through it. Somehow, though I may start a story knowing the ending I want to achieve, but not fully knowing how I will get there, the connections will come forth. The way I'm describing this process I know sounds pretty out there, a fairly mystical process, but I think it's the root of all creativity. This is not to say, I didn't have any structure at all, no plots lined up or outlines made. I did, but with a lot of flexibility in mind to allow for the organic process from which my best writing results.



You talk a lot about opposites, the Yin and Yang, balance and such.
You even discuss the Civil War roots for the gypsies. Were those
ideas of opposites and even the idea of the Civil War a main focus for
you as you wrote the story? To me, they seem to support your theme so
greatly, so it's interesting to hear your thoughts on it.



Yes, the Civil War does, to a large degree, support the idea of opposites, but really only as a setting into which Lark was born. Having grown up in the 1960's in the deep south myself, like Lark, I got to know a not-so-pretty side of the south, a side that was very provincial, filled with what I viewed as childish pride and indignation, racial divides, but even more so a prejudice against the whole remainder of our country and I never understood it. It felt antiquated, mismatched to the wonderful free and open thinking that was emerging at that time, what I still think of as the dawning of the "new age" generation.




You say that your book is "about searching for direction, the hidden
influences of ancestral roots and the forces that shape beliefs."
It's very interesting that you chose to tackle those topics. Is there
any particular reason why you chose to write about them?


Well, I know that it may seem like a huge topic to tackle, but I think that it's a topic that is very timely too. Differing structures in belief systems seem to be at the basis of most socio-political conflicts and the wars we undertake. I was compelled to reduce the theme down into the relationships between characters in "Swimming With Wings", because when I was growing up I struggled with questions about belief systems. Having grown up with the first half of my childhood in the south and the latter half in the north, and raised by my grandparents, who were born in 1898, the contrasts to which I was exposed afforded me a view into the mechanism of how ancestral roots influence thinking. And so the story is very much a story of my own "coming of age" experience, but in the case of Lark and Peter, their experience only shares a shadow of similarity with my own.





From what I've read, it sounds as though you and I think very
similarly. Have you met many people who concur with your opinions or
have some people been rather skeptical?


The more people I have spoken with, the more I see that this is not an uncommon "coming of age" experience. No matter where you live or who raised you, often the same sort of topics are at issue as you become an adult. As far as the actual conclusion to which one may come, of course we all differ. I've never had anyone say that Lark's universal spirituality was "better" than Peter's religiosity or vice versa. On the west coast of the United States, I would say that I've met more people who are hungry for this story. So often those who do not wish to use the term "God" in civil arenas are misunderstood. The story "Swimming with Wings" is an illustration of the "non-religious" person's desire to be free of religious tags. It's not an atheistic impulse, but rather a call to a more open freedom of spirituality.



Tell us a little about Swimming With Wings.






Here's a brief synopsis of the novel:
What do a light healer who can raise the dead, an eccentric, would-be dubutant teen and a fanatic cult follower have in common? A story of human brotherhood released only through the colliding dogmas surrounding their shared tragedy from long ago.



Lark Jennison is a free thinker and imagines she has wings! Set in the 1970's in a small southern town laced with folk mysticism, faith healings and the evangelistic zeal of the era, Swimming with Wings is her coming of age story. Orphaned, seventeen-year-old Lark and her brother are the last generation of the illustrious Jennison lumber family, and her uncanny ability to read a person, along with her eccentric ways as a budding artist, shine a spotlight of scrutiny upon her. When she falls for Peter Roma, a river gypsy from Summerville, she finds in him an equal, but is soon disturbingly set on a collision course with his fanaticism.



The drowning accident that had killed their father remains a mystery, a harbinger of ill feelings between the Romas and the Jennisons. Is Peter Roma, a scammer, a real gypsy or Lark's personal savior? To protect her, Lark’s older brother sends her to art school in Maine, the home state of their mother’s family. Uninvited, Peter follows but eventually considers their relationship a danger to the beatification of both their souls. His grandfather had been a mystical light healer and heralded the rising tide of a new age; however, Peter's “being saved” interpretation of this leads him into cult and a world of corruption. Through it all Lark and Peter remain in love, but in the end who will save who?



An arresting blend of literary fiction, mystery and romance, this is a story about searching for direction, the hidden influences of ancestral roots and the forces that shape belief.






If there was one thing you'd like readers to know about you, what would it be?


I would just want people to know that I think I'm just a human soul like everybody else, no better, no different.


Could you please give us some links and info about you and your work?



The book is available Amazon.com also available at Powell's Books and Barnes & Noble and can be also ordered at any brick and mortar bookstore across the U.S. One can discover more about the writing process on my blog www.literary-magic.com

And you can follow me on my virtual tour dates around the internet:

April 26 - Author Interview at Conscious Discussions http://consciousdiscussions.blogspot.com
April 29 - Author Interview by Fiona Ingram http://fionaingramauthor.blogspot.com
May 5 - Author Interviewed with Kiki Howell http://authorsbyauthors.blogspot.com
May 13 - Guest Blog at AZ Publishing Services http://azpublishingservices.blogspot.com
May 19 - Guest Blog with Louise Wise http://louisewise.blogspot.com
May 21 - Spotlight Feature http://bkwalkerbooks.weebly.com
May 25 - Interview on Blog Talk Radio http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bkwalker
June 9 - Guest Blog at BK Walker Books Etc http://bkwalkerbooksetc.blogspot.com
June 11 - Author Interview at Paula Zone http://www.paulazone.blogdrive.com


I would like to thank Lauren Harvey for allowing me this guest appearance on her blog. It's been a pleasure and a wonderful opportunity to be able to share with her readers my answers to her well thought-out questions.

Well, thank you so very much, Lee! It was great having you here! Your book sounds amazing and you're fascinating to talk to! :) Thank you so much for joining us today! :)

Happy reading!

News, news and MORE news!

Good morning! Here we are starting a new week once again!





April continues to be an etxremely busy (albeit positive) month for me! Here is THIS week's scoop! :)





I am listed in Turn Around Media (TAM)'s featured authors! Check out the link to read about yours truly, and of course, Unbreakable Hostage. :) Click here, yo!








Second, this Saturday, 4/17 at 2 pm I will be at Raider Book Store in Suffern, NY . Come meet me, get books signed, hear me read excerpts and...There is an AMAZING prize I am giving away. I am SO ridiculously excited about this one! You do NOT want to miss out! :) The info is below:



Raider Book Store, 99 Lafayette Ave in downtown Suffern (next to Lafayette Theater).
Contact (845) 533-4340








Last, and certainly not least is that I will be interviewed on Wake Up America's Blog Talk Radio this Sunday, 4/18. The interview will be at 8 pm Eastern/7 Central/5 Pacific. Wake Up America is a FANTASTIC organization about EQUALITY. Equality for all. TRUE human rights. I am honored and excited to be a part of this. Yes, we'll be discussing my books. I'll be talking about using my books to get my beliefs out there to the world - to use them to hopefully help break down some social barriers. It is going to be a PHENOMENAL conversation! Don't miss this one! It's at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wakeupamerica2010







Thanks so much, everyone! Have a great week and happy reading! :)