@KimberlyShursen on Having a Huge Support Group & Sharing Her Work #AmWriting #SelfPub #Authors

How did you develop your writing? By simply reading, listening, and taking in everything that a successful writer/person shares. I am a student of those who have accomplished what they’d hoped to achieve.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Everyday stories from everyday people.

Do you find it hard to share your work?  I am very careful about who I share my writing with. They have to be someone I trust who I know doesn’t want to re-write my work in their words, but offer suggestions if they feel something either needs to be clarified, or needs more explanation.

Is your family supportive? Do your friends support you? Yes. I am extremely lucky in that I have a huge support group. Many of my supporters I didn’t know until they read my book(s.)

Do you plan to publish more books?  The stories I have in my head will go to the grave with me; there simply isn’t enough time.

 What other jobs have you had in your life? I graduated from college with a BA in education, but most of my careers have been in marketing. From real estate agent, to property manager, to the director of marketing for a post-acute, long-term care center; corporate life was never my forte. I achieve much more when I’m left alone. Don’t we all?

If you could study any subject at university what would you pick? Law. When I wrote HUSH was when I realized how much I had always wanted to be a lawyer. However, I would never want to be a lawyer because of money, but to fight for the poverty stricken; the elderly; the children who have no one to represent them. I can’t imagine not using a law degree for the good of society. What University would I pick? Any that would take me.

Tell us about your family? I am a widow, so my handsome, bright sons are the cornerstone of my life. After my husband passed from cancer was when I moved from Minneapolis to the Midwest to take care of my aging mother.

How do you write – lap top, pen, paper, in bed, at a desk? Everywhere. It depends on my mood. In the winter months when it’s below zero, I bring the computer into my bedroom. If it’s 75-80 degrees outside, you might find me with my laptop on my deck.

Where do you get support from? Do you have friends in the industry? I have a ton of friends in the industry. Many I interviewed when I was first started my website. My friends live all over the world; Italy, Germany, the UK. I don’t ever want to lose even one of them.

Is there anyone you’d like to acknowledge and thank for their support? Katie French, who is an excellent author, and I have been beta readers for each other’s books for three years. My books are enhanced by Katie’s input. We are brutally honest with each other, and that’s what we both want.

Soon after Ann Ferguson and Ben Grable marry, and Ben unseals his adoption papers, their perfect life together is torn apart, sending the couple to opposite sides of the courtroom.

Representing Ann, lawyer Michael J. McConaughey (Mac) feels this is the case that could have far-reaching, judicial effects -- the one he's been waiting for.

Opposing counsel knows this high profile case happens just once in a lifetime.

And when the silent protest known as HUSH sweeps the nation, making international news, the CEO of one of the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world plots to derail the trial that could cost his company billions.

Critically acclaimed literary thriller HUSH not only questions one of the most controversial laws that has divided the nation for over four decades, but captures a story of the far-reaching ties of family that surpasses time and distance.

*** Hush does not have political or religious content. The story is built around the emotions and thoughts of two people who differ in their beliefs.

 EDITORIAL REVIEW: "Suspenseful and well-researched, this action-packed legal thriller will take readers on a journey through the trials and tribulations of one of the most controversial subjects in society today."

Katie French author of "The Breeders," "The Believer's," and "Eyes Ever To The Sky."

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Thriller

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with Kimberly Shursen through Facebook and Twitter

Website http://www.kimberlyshursen.com/

LICHGATES (Grimoire Saga) - Book 1 by S.M. Boyce @TheSMBoyce #AmReading #Excerpt #Fantasy

The woman’s grip tightened. “Braeden Drakonin, listen closely to me. I am not fond of your father. Had you not defied him in his own court, we would have left you. But mark me, yakona. If you betray our trust, death will become a mercy before I am done with you.”

“I get that a lot. But yes, I understand.”

She released him. Her blade disappeared in a puff of purple smoke. She grimaced at him as if she smelled something foul, but snapped her fingers. His shackles fell to the ground.

He grabbed his wrists and sank to the mossy grass in relief, too exhausted to thank her or to wonder how she’d done it. The black pools of his wounds knit themselves together, but the process was slow. They congealed and bubbled, the poison resisting his body as it mended itself. His half-healed jaw grafted, but the internal sting of broken veins persisted. Muscles wove themselves back together.

Bones popped as they finally slid back into place. The poison continued to circulate as his body tried to heal around it, and it would be hours before no scars remained. Even then, the internal tremors would continue.

He examined the shifter-woman. Her pale blond hair fell to her waist, where it rolled out in small curls. Patches of copper in her tan skin glistened in the sun. Her piercing blue eyes crinkled in an expression of annoyance.

“You two are drenowith. Muses,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I thought you were just myths.”

“As we prefer. I’m Adele, and this is Garrett.”

She gestured toward the other muse. He had rusty hair, the color of embers in a fire, but his skin was the same coppery shade as Adele’s.

Garrett released his grip on Kara’s shoulder. She ran to Braeden and knelt beside him.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said. “Thank you.”

Kara turned to Adele. “How did you undo his shackles? I thought only the person who put them on could take them off.”

“We are above yakona laws, young Vagabond.”

“Well, thank you for saving us, then.”

“The first Vagabond was our friend, to whom we owed a debt. It’s now paid. What is your name?”

“Kara. So you’re muses, huh? All the letter said about you is that you’re shape-shifters. Can you become anything?”

“Anything we imagine,” Garret said.

Braeden tried to avoid looking at the muse he’d been ordered to kill.

Kara shook her head. “This is insane. So, you knew the Vagabond and you obviously don’t age. Are you immortal?”

“Not immortal,” Adele corrected. “While we don’t grow old, we can die. Everything is mortal, even Earth.”

“The writing is flawless. The kingdoms and surrounding landscapes breathtaking. The Grimoire is a piece of imaginative genius that bedazzles from the moment Kara falls into the land of Ourea. – Nikki Jefford, author of the Spellbound Trilogy

Spring 2013 Rankings

#6 Kindle Store | #1 Science Fiction & Fantasy | #1 Epic Fantasy | #1 Sword & Sorcery | #1 Teens

Now an international Amazon bestseller. Fans of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and Eragon will enjoy this contemporary remix of the classic epic fantasy genre.

—————-

Kara Magari is about to discover a beautiful world full of terrifying things: Ourea.

Kara, a college student still reeling from her mother’s recent death, has no idea the hidden world of Ourea even exists until a freak storm traps her in a sunken library. With nothing to do, she opens an ancient book of magic called the Grimoire and unwittingly becomes its master, which means Kara now wields the cursed book’s untamed power. Discovered by Ourea’s royalty, she becomes an unwilling pawn in a generations-old conflict – a war intensified by her arrival. In this world of chilling creatures and betrayal, Kara shouldn’t trust anyone… but she’s being hunted and can’t survive on her own. She drops her guard when Braeden, a native soldier with a dark secret, vows to keep her safe. And though she doesn’t know it, her growing attraction to him may just be her undoing.

For twelve years, Braeden Drakonin has lived a lie. The Grimoire is his one chance at redemption, and it lands in his lap when Kara Magari comes into his life. Though he begins to care for this human girl, there is something he wants more. He wants the Grimoire.

Welcome to Ourea, where only the cunning survive.

—————-

Novels in the Grimoire Saga:

Lichgates (#1)

Treason (#2)

Heritage (#3) – Available Fall 2013

Illusion (#4) – Available Fall 2014

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre – Fantasy

Rating – PG13

More details about the author

 Connect with SM Boyce on Facebook & Twitter & Pinterest

Writing that Relies on Perception & More with PM Pillon @PMPillon #AmWriting #SciFi #Fantasy

Our writing relies on our perceptions, leading us down a bright or dark path if that’s how we see the world but and are infinite in variety. For instance in Dostoyevsky’s case appreciating and writing about appalling privation because he himself experienced it as a starving writer and Solzhenitsyn also as a state prisoner. Who can fail to be moved by the young man’s utter destitution in Crime And Punishment, or the Gulag convict fussing over his boots without which he would be a dead man walking?

However, there are also cases of a writer’s life being a stark contrast from her or his writing, such as Guy de Maupassant who wrote beautifully and auspiciously even as he lived a life of depression and ultimately wrote as his epitaph: “I have coveted everything and taken pleasure in nothing.” 

We are a sum of our parts and at the same time we are a continuum, experiencing myriad states of life most often without even realizing it, with all aspects such as memories morphing into differing levels of appreciation. We forget most events and remember only a fraction, and we sometimes wish the two would transpose and we could forget that pedestrian remark dad made and instead remember something he said about mom when she was ill. If every single memory is still somewhere in our brain, until and unless a method for total recall is discovered we are forced to play with the cards we’re dealt; trudging through life with limited recollections that we can mine for our writing. A week ago I had a dream that I recognized as being a basis for a entire book as my previous books have been, but within seconds I forgot it and it’s clearly gone for good.

If we’re writing about a man whose girl friend has left him or vice versa, it helps to have some memories under our belt about amorous relationships. Writing blind about events with which we have no experience can still work if we have learned about them from observation or stories we heard from others, but it’s more problematic because more care must be taken to attain plausibility.

And ultimately our writing style will likely be the decider, such as the case of William Faulkner who gave up trying to mimic or emulate others and just wrote in his own consciousness stream and prose based on his experiences that eventually earned him universal praise and a Nobel Prize for Literature.

His celestial companion was waiting for him

Precariously climbing a sea-side cliff near Big Sur, ten-year-old Joey Blake was as yet unaware that near his grasp was an object, so odd, mysterious and alien to earth that it would change his life forever and the lives of countless others in the next few astonishing days. Reaching up as far as he could for a handhold it was just there; it had subconsciously lured him, occupied his mind, and made him find it. It was like he was meant to see and discover this object of unimaginable power … the power to change reality.

Time travel and more

This young adult series of sci-fi fantasy novels begins with The Reality Master and continues through four other exciting and amazing stories about time travel and mysterious alien devices. Joey and the reader will face dangerous shadowy criminal organizations, agents of the NSA, bizarre travelers from other times and even renegade California bikers and scar-faced walking dead.

- Vol 1 The Reality Master
- Vol 2 Threat To The World
- Vol 3 Travel Beyond
- Vol 4 Missions Through Time
- Vol 5 The Return Home

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Science fiction, Fantasy, Young adult

Rating – G

More details about the author

Connect with PM Pillon on Facebook & Twitter

What You Didn't Know About @TheKariNichols #AmReading #Fantasy #Historical

 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Kari Nichols

My name is Kari Nichols, and here are ten think about me that you probably didn’t know!

1. I’m a massive sports fan. Even though I spend the majority of my time reading, writing, taking photos, and creating art, I absolutely love sports. Whether it’s NFL, NBA, NHL, or the Olympics, I’m a huge fan. My favorite sports to watch are NFL and NBA. And I’m actually in a fantasy football league with my husband every fall!
2. I was homeschooled for ten years. From first grade all the way through tenth grade, I was a homeschooler. Now, I wasn’t the kind of homeschooler that has zero social interactions and can’t function in society. My parents were very proactive about getting us involved in lots of activities. We were a part of a co-op, an athletic league, and various groups to make sure we were exposed to all kinds of social interactions.
3. I’ve traveled to sixteen countries. Traveling is one of my passions, and I have a list of about two hundred places I desperately want to visit over the course of my life. My favorite countries so far are Italy, France, Ireland, Swaziland and Thailand. Hopefully I’ll be able to add more countries to my list soon!
4. I’m obsessed with lists. It’s a little over-the-top at times. I’m so addicted to crossing things off my to-do list that sometimes, at the end of the day, I’ll make a list of all the things I’ve done that day just so I can cross them off. Yeah. Obsessed.
5. I can read a good book six or eight times. I don’t know what to tell you, but if I really enjoy the book, I’ll read it over and over again until I’m sick of it. I think I’ve read Catch-22 four times, and it never gets old. I’m currently reading the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead for the fifth time. It’s just that good.
6. I grew up in the South and have worked very hard to get rid of my southern accent. You can still hear it when I say certain words, but I try my hardest to speak without an accent. I love to imitate other accents (and was recently told by a man from London that my British accent was better than his best friend’s!). But in everyday life, I try to keep the accents to a minimum.
7. I’m a professional wedding photographer. My husband and I opened Cottonwood Studios in 2007 and have photographed over one hundred fifty weddings since.
8. I’m the youngest of three sisters. This means I grew up with an actual mother and two sisters who also acted like mothers. We’re all great friends now, but let’s just say I had authority issues for a large part of my life. It’s a wonder that I work for myself now …
9. I love love love scavenger hunts. The greatest gifts I’ve ever received were gifts I had to find using clues. I don’t know why, but adore them.
10. I have two tattoos. I have a tattoo of orchids on my right shoulder blade and one of swallows flying on my right collar bone. And I have plans for many, many more.

“We stand united, Family of Immortals. Plagued by life. Cursed by the hand of God …”

Rogue was born into an immortal family whose wealth is marked by a trail of blood. But when he meets the unnervingly familiar assistant of his next target, an unexpected rush of emotions begins to unravel his carefully laid plans.

Lissie lives a mundane life filled with work … and little else. She hasn’t taken a risk since she moved to New York City after college—seven years ago. But when the mysterious Matthew McCloud walks through the door of her office, she finds herself diving head-first into a whirlwind romance she never saw coming.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Urban Fantasy, Contemporary Romance, Historical Romance

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with Kari Nichols on Facebook & Twitter

Website http://karinichols.com/

Five Rules for Beginning Writers with Kate Bracy #WriteTip #AmWriting #WomensFic

Five Rules for Beginning Writers

If you are serious about writing – or anything else – you will at some point be asked to meet ridiculously ambitious deadlines. Here are five helpful rules that can keep you sane, yet productive, in the face of intimidating time targets.

Be honest. Tell the truth to yourself and your editor about what you can and cannot do. This is a gift to everyone. Let’s say your agent asks for the last five chapters by the end of the summer, and you are getting married in August. Do your marriage a favor and say, “I’m planning a wedding. I can get them to you by the end of September, but not by Labor Day.” Presumably, your agent will then tell you why that date was so important, and you can decide whether to cancel the wedding or the chapters. But making promises that you know you can’t keep is never good, and you’ll get a reputation for standing people up – either at the presses or at the altar.

Next, anticipate. Walk a project back and figure out exactly how much you have to write every day/week/etc. in order to meet the deadline. If you are writing a chapter for a medical text, and it is due in four months, figure out a writing schedule that gets you in well under the wire and then stick to it. I did this sort of math/planning for a book on Menopause that I wrote, and it saved my life. I was able to meet some pretty brutal deadlines writing only on my weekends. (I don’t recommend a demanding timeline that steals all your weekends, but it can be done.) Even if you’re the sort of person who thrives on the pressure of a deadline, let the little deadlines pressure you. That way, when you are in the home stretch, you will only procrastinate on the last few pages instead of the whole darn chapter – which results in much better writing and no ulcer.

Third, communicate. Stay in touch with your editor, agent or whoever is requesting the work. It keeps you on track, and helps reassure them and set the expectations as things go along. Building your relationship with them and establishing your reliability is based on trust. Keep them in the loop.

Fourth, admit what is impossible. If a writing assignment is too much for you, don’t take it. You will have many chances to write and to create work that you can be proud of. If something sounds like a big break, but you know it’s impossible, don’t put yourself – or your reputation – at risk by promising more than you can deliver. I quit a gig writing as a guide for About.com. I couldn’t meet their deadlines and do the writing I wanted, so I let it go – even though it paid pretty well. I hope someone else is rocking that assignment, but if I had kept doing that I wouldn’t have been able to write my novel. When you are in it for the long run, don’t make short-run crazy-making decisions.

Finally, quality matters most. If you know you can improve a piece exponentially by having it another couple of days, talk to your editor. Even if you have to send the lesser version in, ask for an extension if you know you want it to be better and can do it. Your text and your byline will be “out there” and available for a long time. Others will be looking at it to judge your credibility and maybe to hire you/sign you for other things. Make sure it is your best work. Chances are, your editor wants that, too.

Once in a while, you may mis-guess how long a project will take. But some careful attention to deadlines – well in advance – will save your sanity and their bottom line. Don’t be too hard on yourself – you may overshoot now and then.

But mostly you won’t.

Winner of four independent publishing awards, including the IndieReader Discovery Award in Women's Fiction, this debut novel hits the mark for smart, discerning readers.

There's nothing about her life that doesn't need a little work, so Melanie Davis thinks of herself as a "fixer-upper." Her history with men leaves her gun shy; her teenaged daughter can't string two civil words together; her best friend Donna just found out she has a life-threatening illness. When Donna also reveals a decades-old secret that still haunts her, Melanie makes it her mission to solve the mystery and reunite Donna with a precious link to her past - before it's too late. 

Along the way Melanie discovers with startling clarity the pricelessness of love and friendship. With a finely-tuned emotional compass, Kate Bracy carries us through a trial-by-illness as funny as it is touching. Her narrator, Melanie, comes to realize the enduring power of love - between men and women, between mothers and daughters, between friends. Through her vivid, endearing characters Bracy creates a small-town world in northern New York where old loves rekindle, friendships prevail, and secret wounds are finally healed. This debut novel will leave you with an awakened heart and a strong urge to send postcards to all the people you love.

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre - Women's Fiction

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with Kate Bracy through Facebook

Website http://www.katebracy.com/

Craig Staufenberg on Lowering Your Expectations as a Writer @YouMakeArtDumb #WriteTip #AmWriting

10 Tips for Becoming a Better Writer
 

Become a better person. Writing is truth serum. All your biases come out. All your good points and your bad points. You can’t always see your personal warts in your own writing, but other people are likely to. Sometimes clearly—they’ll know exactly what’s messed up about your perspective on the world. Other times your readers just feel like something’s off without being able to put their finger on it. But in both cases, unless they share your exact biases, your readers will see any ugliness in your heart that you’ve spilled out on the page. So try and work on being fair and kind to people within your own heart before you start opening it up.

Live a better life. Your inspirations, your reference points, and your obsessions all have to come from your lived, direct experience. Or, second best, the lived, direct experiences of someone you know personally. Otherwise you’re drawing from some other writer’s interpretations. And that’s a photocopy of a photocopy, at best.

Lower your expectations. It’ll make you happier in general. It’ll also make you happier about your work. It’s hard to like your book if you expect it to sell 100,000 copies and it sells 100. When you set high expectations you’re giving your book more work to do. Suddenly your book needs to make you a lot of money, and get you a lot of awards and prestige, and attract amazing partners of your preferred sex, and all that external nonsense. And all that baggage you’ve attached to the book will change your writing. You’ll write a different book if it needs to pay your rent than if you’re just writing from your heart. Your book only has one goal, and that’s to connect with your heart. That’s the only expectation you should set. That it’ll connect.

Learn some of the technical aspects of writing. Not necessary, but it helps. Your writing just needs to communicate clearly. If it already does, than you’re golden. If not, then brush up a little bit on how to write effectively. You may have a few “bad habits” that bog you down. But don’t clean up your writing too much—you want to keep your voice.

Write a lot. Now, the definition of “a lot” varies from person to person. Some people are such natural communicators they can write well without a lot of practice. Some people are just so interesting, or have such a gripping story to tell, that their book could be scrawled illegibly on cocktail napkins and you’d be glued to your seat reading it. But for the rest of us, writing lots will give you a good sense of your voice, and your thoughts. Most importantly, it will keep you from feeling scared about writing. In my early freelance days I wrote 10,000-20,000 words a day. It wasn’t great writing, but I put it down day after day. And I haven’t been scared of writing since then.


Share your writing with other people. Friends can be helpful. Especially friends who are successful enough creative pros that they won’t feel threatened by you and your work. In that vein I don’t recommend sharing with friends who wanted to be writers, or who sort of fancy themselves writers but don’t really make anything. Those people will have a hard time getting over their internal bullshit to help you out. And any feedback they offer will come from a theoretical place that is totally unhelpful. You’ll get your best feedback from absolute strangers. I hire strangers off Task Rabbit to read my books and give me honest feedback. It’s an indispensible part of my process.

Listen to what they say. If a lot of people say the same thing about your book, then they’re right. Especially if those people have no contact with each other or each other’s opinions. Public reviewers are often influenced by each other. And people who read reviews often parrot the language or tone of the reviews they read. But strangers in isolation give feedback from a genuine place. Listen to them. They won’t always offer helpful suggestions on how to fix your work. But they can tell you where it hurts.

Solve your personal problems outside of work. This is another way of saying what I explained in number two. But it’s important enough to drive home. Writing isn’t going to fix your life problems. Don’t burden your writing with the need to solve your problems. And writing isn’t therapy. When you write from your heart, you will naturally go through emotional experiences that can be challenging, and you may even find clarity and peace with some aspects of your life. But there’s a big difference between writing honestly from your heart, and treating your manuscript like a therapist’s couch.

Don’t try and model yourself on anyone else, especially on any other writer. This one relates to number two up there. You live a better life so you have real, direct experiences to pull from. Otherwise you’re pulling from other writers. But there are two other warnings in here. First, don’t try and replicate another writer’s process and expect it to work for you. Feel free to grab elements as you tinker with your own process, but copying Kafka’s writing process won’t make you write like Kafka. Second, if you hold writers up to a pedestal you’ll never become one. “Becoming a writer” will always be this lofty dream out of reach. Even worse, when you worship authors you never get to clearly evaluate if you even want to actually become one in the first place. You might not. I’m still on the fence. 

Relax. You’re not fighting a war here.

When you die, your spirit wakes in the north, in the City of the Dead. There, you wander the cold until one of your living loved ones finds you, says "Goodbye," and Sends you to the next world. 

After her parents die, 12-year-old Sophie refuses to release their spirits. Instead, she resolves to travel to the City of the Dead to bring her mother and father’s spirits back home with her. 

Taking the long pilgrimage north with her gruff & distant grandmother—by train, by foot, by boat; over ruined mountains and plains and oceans—Sophie struggles to return what death stole from her. Yet the journey offers her many hard, unexpected lessons—what to hold on to, when to let go, and who she must truly bring back to life.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Middle Grade

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with Craig Staufenberg through Facebook and Twitter

Website http://craigstaufenberg.com/

Pendelton Wallace on Books He Loved When He Was Growing Up #AmWriting #AmReading #Thriller

What writing are you most proud of?

I think that I am growing and improving as a writer with everything I write. I think that Hacker for Hire is my best work yet, but I’m the most proud of Blue Water & Me, Tall Tales of Adventures With My Father.

Blue Water is a tribute to my father and it may not be as polished as my later works, but it will probably always be my favorite.

What are you most proud of in your personal life? 

My daughters. They have grown into fine young women. They are strong, brave and independent, just like their mother.

What books did you love growing up? 

Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Mars series, Tarzan of the Apes. Much of my writing today is influenced by his style.

I also loved Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

Who is your favorite author? 

Larry McMurtry. He is fantastic. I think Gus McRae is the greatest single character in American Literature. I envy Larrty’s  ability and only wish I could write like him.

What book genre of books do you adore? 

My favorites are thrillers. However, I love good historical fiction as well. The Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brien and the Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell are my favorites.

What book should everybody read at least once? 

Lonesome Dove. It’s my absolute favorite.

Is there any book you really don’t enjoy? 

I hate to be a wet blanket and I don’t want to disparage any other authors, but I really didn’t enjoy Fifty Shades of Grey. The story just didn’t interest me. I couldn’t understand why she would willingly submit herself to such abuse.

What do you hope your obituary will say about you? 

That’s tough. How about that he entertained a lot of people? That he influenced a lot of peoples’ lives.

Location and life experiences can really influence writing, tell us where you grew up and 

where you now live? 

I was born on San Juan Island in Washington State, just a few hundred yards from the Canadian border. I spent a few years in Southern California, then we moved to Oregon. I grew up in the Eugene/Springfield area of the Willamette Valley.

I moved to Seattle when I was 27. I now live on my boat. We are currently in La Paz, Mexico, but will be returning to San Diego shortly. Where will we go after that? Maybe Panama. Maybe the US Virgin Islands. Perhaps the Florida Keys. I really don’t know yet.

How did you develop your writing? 

By making every mistake in the book. I knew instinctively that I was a literary genius. I sat down and started writing. When I had finished my masterpiece, I hired a good editor, just on the off-chance that I missed something.

She tore me to pieces. Actually, she tore my book to pieces. After I nursed my wounds and got over the sting, I cut more than a hundred pages from my manuscript and started over. Her second pass through the manuscript was a much more pleasant process.

I also joined a writers group. It took me several tries to find the right group, but eventually I ended up with a group of writers who were better than me. By working with them every other week, I gradually improved my writing.

Where do you get your inspiration from? 

The headlines. Read the newspaper. I could never make up stories as bizarre as I see in the news every day.

If Clive Cussler had written Ugly Betty, it would be Hacker for Hire. 

Hacker for Hire, a suspense novel about corporate greed and industrial espionage, is the second book in a series about Latino computer security analyst Ted Higuera and his best friend, para-legal Chris Hardwick. 

The goofy, off-beat Ted Higuera, son of Mexican immigrants, grew up in East LA. An unlikely football scholarship brought him to Seattle. 

Chris, Ted’s college roommate, grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. His father is the head of one of Seattle’s most prestigious law firms. 

Ted’s first job out of college leads him into the world of organized crime where he faces a brutal beating. After being rescued by beautiful private investigator Catrina Flaherty, Ted decides to go to work for her. 

Catrina is hired by a large computer corporation to find a leak in their corporate boardroom when the previous consultant is found floating in Elliot Bay. 

Ted discovers that Chris’s firm has been retained by their prime suspect. Now he and Chris are working opposite sides of the same case. 

Ted and Catrina are led deep into Seattle’s Hi-Tech world as they stalk the killer. But the killer is also hunting them. Can Ted find the killer before the killer finds him? 

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Mystery, Thriller

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with Pendelton Wallace on Facebook

Website www.pennwallace.com