Category: Lessons Learned About Writing

Writing Music

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 3 Comments

I don’t like to listen to music when I write. I find it creeps into my work. The tone of the music seeps into what I am writing.

I remember one Nano, at write in at a local cafe where they really support local artists, they were playing a CD that was super repetitive. And when we all broke after a word war and looked at our materials, almost everyone realized they had written lyrics into the story from the repetitive music.

It’s not always that dramatic but…if I’m listening to something slow and melodic, I find it hard to give my conflict umph. Contrarily, if the music is pumping, I write fast, but everyone is pissed at everyone else.

No music for me.

Although, I don’t like silence either. Must be a hold over from my early days writing while my kiddo was at co-op and parkour. Noise is good.

#AuthorLifeMonth

Reader/Fan Love

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

I thought for this, I might share my favorite reader comments and why I love them.

“Henry combines excellent research and writing talent as she builds a story that includes lots of action, adventure, and intrigue along with bits of romance and the inner workings of bureaucracies.”  – I pride myself on my research.

“Suspenseful, exciting, well-written, this book will keep you in the edge of your seat. I couldn’t out it down and found myself reading well into the wee hours. It is full of interesting tidbits of history, along with spy adventures and romance. Would make an excellent film.” – how cool would that be?

“I loved this book! The time period isn’t usually my favorite, but as an ex-Army nurse myself, that aspect pulled at me. I was immediately impressed by the creative way the author added in the war snippets.” – research again! Different book.

“Yes, it’s historical fiction, but don’t let that stop you. You’ll likely enjoy it even if history was that mid-day class you used to catch up on Spanish homework and naps.” – laughing, I think this reader used her crystal ball to spy on me in high school…LOL…and yes I later majored in history. All it takes is one good teacher.

I think my all time favorite is this one, full disclosure, it’s from my nephew, age 13(when he wrote this)…

“I just wanted to let you know that I got a kindle for my graduation this year, and I hooked it up to my family account.  I was scrolling through the my books section and I found your book, scripting the truth.  This was yesterday.  As of this morning at 6, I haven’t been able to put my kindle down.  I’m on chapter 36, 73% through the book.  It is truly a work of art, and I’m sad not a lot of people know about it. ”

Makes me cry every time I read it.

 

Writer Friends

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

One cannot exist as a writer without fellow journey-men or women as the case may be.

I never found my tribe when I did Nano in Cali. Despite belonging to multiple regions and going to events, no one clicked.

Then we moved to WA a couple of months before Nano. There are only 2 regions in my reasonable driving distance. One was Seattle. My first thought was oh hell no. I don’t even know where this other place actually is, but supposedly it less than 20 miles, that has to be better than Seattle.

And it was. I have never gone to what is essentially an extremely niche interest group and had people be so welcoming. Rather than be exclusive about their tiny niche, this group is as expansive as possible. Teaching free classes at the local public libraries, forming cooperative groups to market with, and hosting 2 weekly write ins year round that are open to anyone who wants to show up and talk about writing.

Here’s to you, my fellows on the path…

#FreeValleyPublishing

Sheri J. Kennedy

Kennedy J Quinn

Victoria Bastedo

David S. Moore

Natasha McNeely

This is not to slight those I know only in the ether….you matter too. But that would make this post obscenely long.

 

My Books

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment

I’m participating in #AuthorLifeMonth 2019. There’s different things to do every day in February. For the first, I’m sharing my books.

Ostrich Mentality is the first book I started writing. But it wasn’t my first publication. Ostrich was complicated for me. It took more than four years to finish. FOUR years.

Scripting the Truth on the other hand wrote itself in about 45 days and I managed to edit and publish in less than 11 months. It recently went audio.

I’ve contributed to a couple of anthologies, The Box Under the Bed and Washington’s Emerging Writers. 

If I can ever get Amazon to behave, I will publish The Body in the Pool in February.

All of my books have their own pages on my site. Happy Reading!

Writerly Wednesday 1.16

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 8 Comments

Hello my darlings,

It’s been not much writing lately and a lot of writing business. I’m trying to fine tune my back of the book verbiage for The Body in the Pool.

Maybe you’d like to help me with that?

Option A:

Seattle has seen it’s fair share of serial killers, but this time a new demographic needs to watch their backs…successful white males are losing their lives in shockingly public venues.

Detective Spencer Thomas and his task force are 12 murders deep and no closer to finding the Dismember Killer than they were when the first body appeared. The killer is taunting them without leaving in any useful evidence.

With a pregnant wife on bed rest, brass that strips his resources, and the FBI breathing down his neck…the last thing Spence needs is a dead body at an exclusive boarding school. Except now, he’s got one…

 

Option B:

Whispering Evergreen Academy, boarding school to the troubled elite, just got the worst kind of floater dumped in their pool; a dead one. Another successful white male, left in a public place, is this the 12th body dropped by the Dismember Killer?

Detective Spencer Thomas and his task force hope this time the serial killer has left some evidence they can use.  They’ve come up empty so far – no physical evidence, no witnesses, and no surveillance. Will this body be any different?

 

What do you think? What direction would you go? What would you change? Help me finally finish this blurb so I can publish the darn book.

Writerly Wednesday: Short Stories

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 3 Comments

Greetings and Salutations! As you read this I am on a plane heading somewhere sunny and warm and boy am I ready for it.

My kindle is loaded with all sorts of short story collections as I pick out the material my students will study for the rest of the year. They have picked three genres to focus on: comedy(lord help me), alien sci fi/horror, and medieval fantasy. whew.

I have a sudden flash of understanding why teachers, when I went to school, ruled with an iron fist. It’s dangerous to let the kids have a say. LOL

I’m putting out a bat signal, if you have any shorts laying about that fit those categories, let me know. I’d love to bring some independent author’s work into our class. Widen their horizons.  And if you don’t have anything but know something good, tell me about it.

Writer Wednesday 12/12

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 23 Comments

I recently decided to really pursue writing like it was a career, rather than a fun (ish) hobby. LOL. I know, I know, it’s been years I’ve been fannying around with things.

What does that mean, treating it like career?

Well, for one, blocking solid time each week to write and to handle writerly business.

Second, investing in some decent marketing.

Three, recovering an old book and having it make into an audio book.

Scripting the Truth is out there now on Audible, Amazon, and I tunes.

Wednesday Writers 12.5

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 1 Comment

Happy Sinterklaas day my friends.

With the finish of The Body in the Pool, Wednesdays are now open. I’d like to talk about writing and writerish items again, including more interviews with great independent authors.

If you’re interested in doing an interview here, reach out and I will email you some questions.

Until then, I hope you got chocolate in klompen rather than coal.

I’ve been thinking Thursday: Supportive

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 7 Comments

I try to only be positive about my hubs in public. It’s one of those things I think is important to the health of your marriage. Praise in public, critique in private.

I’ve occasionally deviated from this. Once, fed up with his leaving his oatmeal bowl on the counter with oatmeal in it until it dried into a crusty nastiness of epic proportions, I wrote a post about secondary characters. Giving them a life of their own, rather than leaving them to serve the main character.  One of my examples was about a time traveling journalist who kept leaving his oatmeal bowl for his wife to clean. LOL

But today I want to talk about one of those ways, he is amazing.

I can not spell. And despite teaching writing, compositional and creative, at the coop, my use of grammar is fractured to say the least. But the hubs…oh man….the hubs…

When I was working on my bachelors and the hubs was getting his masters, we both had to take this lame ass writing exam. Two parts, 75 multiple choice and then an essay. Timed.  Essay was scored on a scale of 1-12.

The scoring was weird though. The better you did on the multiple choice the less well you had to do on the essay to pass, which got you into 100W, required by all majors on campus. Then there was a pass plus which got you out of 100W. And of course fail.

The hubs got a perfect score on the multiple choice, which was all grammar and sentence structure, but scored so low on the essay he had to take 100W.

I got the lowest passing score possible on the multiple choice, but scored so high on the essay I qualified to waive 100W.

Why do I tell this story? Because my husband painstakingly edits my novels, multiple times. Sure I could pay someone to do this for me, but they wouldn’t know when they came across an error, what I really meant. And he always does. He knows when I write a long string of gobble-gook that I meant to say something profound and will ask, then tell me where to put the commas or suggest alternate arrangements that make the significance clear.  You can’t pay for that.

And why does he do this? Certainly not because he has too much time on his hands and nothing to do.  bwahahaha

He does it cause he supports my writing and he shows it by giving me the help I need to make it happen.

Sorry ladies, no brothers. LOL.

 

 

#BadMoonRising: Ostrich Mentality by T.A. Henry #thriller #alternativehistory #TuesdayBookBlog — Books and Such

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 3 Comments

Fun interview over at Bad Moon Rising! Check it out.

 

Today’s author shares her alternative history thriller with a biological weapon angle – a topic that’s sure to send some chills down your spine. I love her ‘take charge’ attitude when faced with a creepy situation at home – I’d probably do the same thing in her situation. Welcome T.A. Henry! You’re in a horror […]

via #BadMoonRising: Ostrich Mentality by T.A. Henry #thriller #alternativehistory #TuesdayBookBlog — Books and Such