So a writer friend of mine named Renée Pawlish (also a fellow Colorado resident), asked if I want to participate in a kind of blog chain. Now if you recall the old “chain letters” and then “chain emails”, they always had a bit of a negative connotation, primarily because they asked a large group of relatively innocent people to bother another large group of relatively innocent people and so on and so on. Oh, and the original chain letters and emails promised good luck for those who “followed the rules” of the chain and bad luck for those who didn’t.

Blog chains really don’t resemble the former at all. These are opportunities for writers’ blogs to be further reaching, and the requesting a blogger to blog is like asking a snowboarder to take another ride down the mountain of fresh powder.

Renée blogged this about her writing here, and you can read her excellent post there. She is the award-winning author of the bestselling horror book Nephilim Genesis of Evil, the first novel in the Nephilim trilogy, the Reed Ferguson mystery series (This Doesn’t Happen In The Movies, Reel Estate Rip-off, The Maltese Felon) and the short story Elvis And The Sports Card Cheat, Take Five, a short story collection, the Noah Winters kids adventure series (The Emerald Quest), and The Sallie House: Exposing the Beast Within, a non-fiction account of a haunted house investigation in Kansas.

Renée has been called a “promising new voice in the comic/murder mystery genre” and “a powerful storyteller”. Nephilim Genesis of Evil has been favorably compared to the early works of Stephen King and also Frank Peretti.

My part of the blog is to answer the following four questions. Hopefully you don’t already know the answers, because that would make this blog a pretty boring read. Here are the questions and answers:

1. What are you currently working on?

I am currently in the middle of a ghostwriting project with another writer. We are helping a wonderful woman tell the life story of her father and of her—and trust me, you are going to want to read about this woman and her colorful, amazing family. I am also trying to squeeze in time to pound out the third book in the James Pruett Mystery series, Honor Land. In my estimation it is going to be the best of the three!

 
2. How does your work differ from others’ in the same genre?

I believe the difference between my Mystery/Thrillers and many others is the depth and the realism of the characters. While readers of course want story lines and plot twists that take them away from the normality of life, I believe they want to relate to the characters on the page. Without characters the reader cannot care about, a story is just an anecdote; when it involves characters with which the reader relates—men and women who live and breathe and are three-dimensional—a story becomes a world that devours the reader, keeping him or her in its grip until the very end.

3. Why do you write what you write?

The stories I write live inside me. Some of them have been there since childhood; others reveal themselves when they are ready. Either way, they need to be written. Of course, the ghostwriting project is different. That process is a bit more unfamiliar. It is more research-driven. There is also more pressure because we are telling someone else’s story, and we want to produce a book where the quality and the details of her life live up to her expectations.

 
4. How does your writing process work?

My process is actually very simple: when the story builds to a point where it needs to get out, I write. It’s cathartic and it also provides for the best writing because in my opinion, no story can be forced, or “written before its time”. The upside to the process is that the writing flows.

Of the three authors I asked to continue on with this blog, only two agreed. The third said she was too busy. I have to say I was a bit disappointed in her answer. She hadn’t published anything when I first met her and her blogging was minimal. Now she is published and blogs quite frequently, actually. The funny thing is, some people react differently to “success”.

Nick Stephenson, however, is a busy, bestselling author who writes a blog every writer should be reading: Nick Stephenson: Author’s Life. Stephenson does a ton of research regarding the business end of the writer’s world. We’ve all found how many other aspects there are to becoming a successful writer, and Nick’s blog is a continual (free) publication on the path from unknown writer to successful author. Here is Nick’s relevant contact information:

Nick Email

Nick Facebook

Nick Twitter

Nick Webpage

Gail Gentry is still working on her first novel, but I have been reading her blog and working with her and her writing for several years. Her blog (ChickletsLit), like Nick’s, is a cornucopia of excellent advice on writing, interviews with successful independent writers, and indispensable suggestions one great reads, other must-read blogs, and an overall resource that every Indie writer should be reading.

Contact Info:

Gail email

Gail Facebook

Gail Twitter

Gail Webpage