National Award, Now What?

Wow!  What a summer it’s been!  I was a presenter in the Jacksonville Public Library’s summer reading program, won a national writing award, was published in two literary journals and made my local newspaper twice—the second time, the front page no less.  I’ve been a busy girl and honored by the accolades.  What I haven’t been much of these past few weeks is a writer.

I felt the funk that I’ve found myself mired in of late coming on the very morning after being presented with my first national award since the Presidential Physical Fitness certificate I received in gym class in 1991.  Taking first place for First Chapter of a Novel in the Alabama Writers’ Conclave annual writing contest was thrilling, but I awoke the next morning at the Huntsville Marriott in the super comfy bed that I’m pretty sure is stuffed with honest-to-goodness clouds from Heaven to an unexpected visitor:  depression.  I’d anticipated feeling energized to finish Daddy’s Girl—for which I won the award—and motivated to continue my quest to find a publisher for The Genie Chronicles.  I never imagined that I’d close my laptop for over six weeks while I concerned myself only with what the underside of my writing desk looks like.

             I spent most of my free time this summer lying slug-like and despondent on my bedroom floor pretending to be exercising in case any of my children happened to wander in looking for their next serving of chicken nuggets.  Couldn’t have them thinking I was drunk and passed out in my yoga pants or anything, naturally.

A killer case of writer’s block exacerbated my foul mood.  Or maybe it was the depression that drained me of my creativity faster than a pack of vampires in a blood bank.  I wish that I could say that I’m over it.  That I’m as happy as a lark once more and writing more than ever, but it just ain’t so.  I’m making strides, though.  Employing the strategy of “Fake it ‘til You Make It”, I’ve started attending the writers’ meetings I avoided all summer, absorbing the energy of other literary minds and participating in the writing prompts.   My creative juices are flowing again, albeit slowly.  I’m at least back to having conversations with my characters in the shower again…and I’ve returned to the blog.  Hooray!

What helps you get on your feet emotionally and back to the things you love?  Any tips for working through writer’s block?  I’d love to hear from you.

My *ahem* NATIONAL AWARD WINNING story Daddy’s Girl can be found online at www.alalit.com as well as in Jacksonville State University’s 2011-2012 edition of Something Else.

Here I am with Alalit Editor Marian Lewis at the AWC Conference in July.

You can also read my feature in the Jacksonville News at www.jaxnews.com. 

Happy writing!

A Welcomed Curse, Author Interview: Susan Abel Sullivan

A few weeks ago I heard about a local author with a soon-to-be-released anthology.  “My fitness instructor has a book coming out,” my aunt informed me. Sighing in response, I added the Mystery Instructor and the creature living in Snooki of Jersey Shore’s womb to a mental list of those that would certainly be achieving publication before me.

The green-eyed monster inside me sneered.  “Some kind of diet and exercise book?”

“Speculative fiction…werewolves, witches, magic.  It sounds right up your alley.  Her name is Susan Abel Sullivan.  She’s on Facebook and Twitter.  You should check her out.”

I did just that and, being fascinated by perfectly normal-looking and functioning people with whole worlds of magic and fantasy creatures bouncing around inside their brains, I was intrigued.  These are My People and I seek them out whenever I learn of them.

I am proud to say that I was one of the first to purchase Susan’s book Cursed:  Wickedly Fun Stories, the debut release from World Weaver Press, when it launched March 5th.  Cursed is an anthology of the best speculative fiction short stories that I’ve read.  Some are deliciously creepy, and all are so much fun that I’ve already reread them a couple of times.  With a long reading list and writing deadlines of my own, it’s unusual for me to revisit a book so soon simply for the sake of savoring it before jumping into the next title on my list, but Cursed, with its cast of memorable characters, is special.  My personal favorites are Getting the Curse and Kudzu, for their clever points-of-view that so effortlessly propel the reader through each story.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Susan Abel Sullivan a few days ago to talk about Cursed, writing, and the genre of spec fic in general.       

Michelle:  I’d like to start by clarifying for readers of the blog the genre of speculative fiction.  What is spec fic?

Susan Abel Sullivan:  Speculative fiction is the new term for fantasy.  It encompasses all fantastical fiction and magical realism.  In terms of my writing, it’s a mash-up of cross genres like Southern Gothic, Southern chick lit, urban fantasy, paranormal romance and science fiction.

Michelle:  There are many fun and memorable characters in Cursed.  I’ve read that you consider characters to be one of your writing strengths.  How do you come up with them?

Susan Abel Sullivan:  I approach it almost like method acting.  In community theatre, I didn’t really know a character that I was playing until I was in costume and on set.  It wasn’t until I felt like I was in a real setting that I got to know the character.  I notice interesting people and like to pull from their history…the way they speak and things like that…but until I get into [a story], I don’t always know what’s going to happen.

Michelle:  I gather from other interviews I’ve read that you weren’t exactly a typical little girl growing up in Pensacola, Florida…that, like your character Bernie Lludd in The Accidental Poet, you loved Stephen King and constructed monster models?

Susan Abel Sullivan:  I was an artistic, highly imaginative child and liked to retreat to the kind of world that I wanted to live in.  Barbie and Ken just didn’t hold a candle to movie monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein and the wolf man.  I started reading Anne Rice and Stephen King in middle school.  On the outside I was an all-American girl-next-door, but on the inside I could have been a member of The Addam’s Family.

Michelle:  Besides Anne Rice and Stephen King, whom you’ve mentioned, what other writers inspire you?

Susan Abel Sullivan:  Carrie Vaughn is one of my favorites.  She’s a fellow Odyssey Grad.  I’m also a fan of Janet Evonovich for her fun, zany humor.

Michelle: I’ve heard that you are married, involved in theatre and have a passion for dance and fitness.  How do you balance these other aspects of your life with writing?

Susan Abel Sullivan: It is about finding a balance.(laughs)   Sometimes my head is still in a story when it’s time to transition [to something else].  Most writers don’t have the luxury to just write, though.

Michelle:  Do you have a favorite place, time of day or process that you follow when it is time to write?  Do you preplan or outline?

Susan Abel Sullivan:  I have an office where I like to write.  I start with checking my email, Facebook, other social media…in case there are any responses from agents or publishers I’ve submitted material to, but I don’t have any special routine.  My process is more intuitive.  I cannot outline to save my life…I discover things as I go.  I have the same process with all the arts.

Michelle:  I particularly enjoy the opening lines from Getting the Curse and Kudzu.  What, in your opinion, makes for a great beginning to a story?

Susan Abel Sullivan:  A great beginning needs to interest the reader, but a first-line grab can be too much like a gimmick.  I’m a fan of the slow train that builds up momentum.

Michelle:  What is your process for revising and editing?

Susan Abel Sullivan:  I see them as two different processes, with revising being more re-visioning.  I have a hand-picked group of Od-Fellows [Odyssey Writing Workshop Alumni] and readers that I go to for opinions about what works and what doesn’t in a story.   I like to know where they laughed out loud or where the story doesn’t work for them.  There are others that I turn to for elements of craft, dialogue work and plot issues.  I had a college professor to line edit some of my earlier work and that helped tighten my style.

Michelle:  And what exactly is the Odyssey Writing Workshop?

Susan Abel Sullivan:  It’s a six-week residential writing boot camp in New Hampshire held annually for those hoping to become professional writers.  Coaches work with attendees every week and give them the tools to write better.  It’s all about training and technique.  The class sizes have ranged from as small as 12 to as large as 20, but a size of about 16 seems to be what works best.  After completion of the workshop, many grads stay in contact…serve as critique groups for one another, network…it’s kind of like being in a fraternity or sorority.

Michelle:  What’s next for you?  What future projects can readers look forward to?

Susan Abel Sullivan:   I’m anticipating an April release for Fried Zombie Dee-light!:  Ghoulish, Ghostly Tales, a YA ebook similar in length to Cursed with four short stories, a couple of poems and a flash fiction piece.  The first novel in my adult urban fantasy series, The Real Haunted Housewives of Allister, Alabama has received some interest, as well.

I promised to keep Susan for only a half-hour for the interview.  Two hours and fifteen minutes later we checked the time and I apologized for holding her hostage, picturing Olympic-sized swimming pools teeming with aqua-Zumba students bobbing in boredom as they waited on their instructor/werewolve whisperer, and all the disappointed interviewers that would have to wait another day for their chance to pick the very interesting noggin of Mrs. Susan Abel Sullivan.

“Writers usually don’t talk much, unless you get them talking about writing,” Susan said with a laugh as we said our good-byes.  I left the little coffee shop where we met greatly impressed with Susan, appreciative of the time she took out of her busy schedule for the fledgling blog of an aspiring author, and incredibly encouraged to keep writing.  Susan may not know it, but she left the shop with a fan for life!

Since the interview, Susan has posted images of the cover art for Fried Zombie Dee-light! on Twitter and Facebook and received the exciting news that World Weaver Press will also be publishing The Haunted Housewives of Allister, AL.  Both titles are on my reading list!  I wish her a world of success.

Cursed:  Wickedly Fun Stories is available for Kindle through http://www.amazon.com, for Nook at http://barnesandnoble.com/  and for most devices and computers at http://www.smashwords.com .  For more on Susan Abel Sullivan visit http://susanabelsullivan.weebly.com/ or https://twitter.com/#!/susan_abel.  For more on World Weaver Press and any of their forthcoming titles please visit http://worldweaverpress.com.

Writers, Writers Everywhere

Almost two weeks ago, I attended my first writers’ conference.  I’ve been a member of the Alabama Writers’ Conclave for two years and after missing the 2010 conference in Birmingham and living with twelve months of regret, I couldn’t have been more excited to make it to Hunstville for 2011.  It was such an incredible experience to turn in any direction and be greeted with a smile or handshake and the question, “What do you write?”  I held my shoulders back and chin high and never felt one twinge of embarrassment when I answered:  “Middle-Grade/YA Fantasy.  My completed manuscript is about a girl who discovers she’s the long-awaited heir of a genie.”  It’s not a statement I make at my children’s school or in a room full of coworkers without feeling the sting of at least half a dozen eye rolls, so it was liberating to say the least.

The AWC conference had much to offer.  I attended workshops by Chris Roerden, award-winning author of Don’t Sabotage Your Submission, Insider Information from a Career Editor and its original version Don’t Murder Your Mystery, 24 Fiction-Writing Techniques to Save Your Manuscript from Turning Up D.O.A., who taught me more about the impression a submission needs to make on the First Reader of a literary agency or publishing house and gave useful tips on “when to tell and how to show”; Jim Minick, poet and author of the memoir The Blueberry Years, about one of the mid-Atlantic’s first pick-your-own, certified-organic blueberry farms, who offered instruction on “Playing With Time:  How Prose Writers Manipulate Time” (helpful for all those flashbacks in HEIR TO THE LAMP when I fill-in the reader about a bit of back-story); and Rabbi Rami Shapiro, award-winning author, poet, essayist, educator and Director of The Writers’ Loft at Middle Tennessee State University, who’s workshop “What Would Jesus Tweet:  The Power of Writing Short” and presentation on his latest project “Thou Hast Mail” were hysterical and my very favorites.

I also met many delightful fellow attendees.  Two new friends, Joan Hazel and Patricia Weaver, won awards for short stories they submitted for the conference contests.  There were newspaper columnists, poets, and orators sprinkled in among the various fantasy, mystery, memoir, and literary writers, all at different stages in their writing careers.  It wasn’t until the end of the day on Saturday that I finally met up with the other children’s/YA writers, though.  They were a great group and I’m so glad to have met them.  I’ll be sure to seek out those peers earlier next time.

The highlight of my experience was the open-mic event Saturday night, when I read a few pages from my new project.  I’m calling the piece JUST LIKE MY FATHER SAID, but I’m pretty positive I won’t be keeping the title.  It’s a fictionalized story about my mother and her siblings, who lost their father the summer of 1968 when they were very young.  After their father’s death, their mother got a job for the first time and hired a housekeeper to look after them and their home while she struggled to adjust to life as a young widow.  I’ve known my whole life about the circumstances surrounding my grandfather’s death and how that event impacted my grandmother, mother, aunt and uncle.  What I only learned recently, however, was that they were shepherded through this exceptionally painful time in their lives by their housekeeper, a black woman named Queen Esther Crumb.  After getting over the initial shock of having never been told of Queen Esther, my mind was crowded with thoughts of her and I practically hummed with urgency to write the story that brought her into my family history.  I read a few pages of my first draft to a room of fellow writers and got a warm response.  Sue Walker, Poet Laureate of Alabama, even stopped by my seat afterwards to tell me how much she enjoyed what I’d read.  It’s quite different from The Genie Chronicles, but it will have an element of fantasy and I have high hopes for it.  I also had the pleasure of hearing others read some of their work.  My personal favorite was a piece called Spilled Milk by Stephen R. Edmondson. 

If I had the budget to do so, I’d attend a writers’ conference somewhere every weekend.  My first experience was the most fun, useful, constructive, motivating and encouraging I’ve had as a writer so far, and I’m already looking forward to the next.