Why I'm (probably) not going to read "Go Set A Watchman"

Recently, a "new" book, Go Set A Watchman by Harper Lee, was released. If her name sounds familiar, it's because she's the acclaimed (read: Pulitzer Prize-winning) author of the fantastic classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird. It's one of the few books we were forced to read by English teachers that we didn't completely hate, partially because there was an equally enjoyable movie to watch when we were finished. 

Harper Lee has the odd distinction of also being the Baha Men of authors--a veritable one-hit wonder in the world of books. If I had a choice, I'd much rather have produced TKAM than "Who Let the Dogs Out?". 

So, Lee coming out with a second novel--did I mention she's only published one of note? No? Well, TKAM was it until recently--is a big freaking deal.

And, as of right now, I have no plans to read it.

Will I change my mind? Probably at some point, but let me explain why I feel this way.

While reports vary slightly, according to many sources, GSAW was a rough first draft of TKAM, recovered recently (2014?) by Lee's lawyer in a safe deposit box and brought to the attention of Lee's agent, who obviously passed it on to the publisher HarperCollins. And I'm not sure this is a good thing. 


My biggest issue: If it were me and someone came across early drafts of my work (very possible--I have drafts upon drafts in various stages of completion on my computer), I'd be smacking my forehead repeatedly into a table (or rolling around in my grave) if they saw the light of day.  My early drafts (affectionately and appropriately called "shitty first drafts") are not meant to be released--that's the idea.  And I think that's what gets me the most about this--that GSAW was meant to be what became TKAM, and was not meant to be released on its own.

Then, more disconcerting, there have been many reports that Lee has been in declining health in recent years (she was born in 1926), and she has said publicly over and over that she had no intention of writing another novel (or at least publishing one).  I know I'm not the first to question how much input she had about the publication of GSAW, and that makes author-me wince. How true any of this is...no idea. Just commenting on stuff I've read in the media.

Secondly--and this is author-me talking again--would an author really--really--want an early draft of a novel released? In one of the online posts I read (scroll down to 2015: Go Set A Watchman for what I'm talking about), the books were said to have been part of a planned trilogy--Mockingbird first, a shorter book in between as a bridge, then Watchman last. This is likely to be speculation, though, so I took this with a grain of salt. But if GSAW is (was?) an early draft of TKAM, how much was changed? It wasn't published at the time it was written, probably for a variety of reasons, but those will likely stay between Lee and her editor. A bit of this post on Wikipedia mentions that TKAM was birthed from the draft because the most compelling parts of the draft of GSAW were the flashbacks of young Jean Louise (Scout)--score one for a solid editor! But I wonder, was the draft (manuscript?) of GSAW released as-is, or was it heavily edited to make a more compelling story? Did Lee have input into that?  If it was just released more or less as-is, what was the goal?

Did Lee have full creative control over the newly published novel? She certainly could have (and we're likely to not conclusively find out whether she did or not anyway).  And could GSAW have been crafted into something amazing and separate from the early manuscript that became TKAM? Absolutely--it already became TKAM through numerous edits.

But I won't be finding out right at this time.

Have you read Go Set A Watchman? If you did, what did you think? Thoughts on these issues?

xoxo Sarah

Stop by my Editing Tips board!

Last week I posted about putting a widget (side-note: I love that word!) for my Writing Tips Pinterest board.

I also figured, why stop there!

I've added a widget that links directly to my Editing Tips board as well (check under the Writing Tips one in the sidebar).  

It's posted below as well.  I hope you guys find it helpful!

Follow Sarah's board Editing Tips on Pinterest.


xoxo Sarah

Stop by my Writing Tips board!

Greetings! I hope you all are enjoying the summer. Remember, wear sunscreen and drink plenty of water.

Anyway...

Since you lovely readers seem to enjoy my writerly posts (especially the ones about editing tips), I wanted to make it easy for you to find the same inspiring things I do. Pinterest has been a lot of fun and very helpful for exactly that.

Okay, I know I've posted about my being on Pinterest before, but I thought I'd get a bit more specific so you guys can find my (hopefully) helpful writing content on there without having to sift through my 40+ boards, which are mostly about food.

If you check out my right side-bar, I've added a widget just for my Writing Tips board. I've posted it below as well.  Happy pinning!


Follow Sarah's board Writing Tips on Pinterest.

xoxo Sarah

Interview Time with Patricia Leever

Hello, everyone! Today we have the lovely Patricia Leever with us, but you can call her Patty. ;-)

Hello, my dear! Tell everyone about yourself.  

Okay, let’s see, I’m the wife of one, the mom of four skin kids (who are all dang near grown) and the caretaker of one really old, smelly dog and one little black lunatic of a cat. I believe wearing your “weird” on your sleeve is what brings happiness so I fly my freak flag high and proud. I love zombies, science fiction and tacos. I haven’t seen my natural hair color in many, many moons and I’m quite alright with that. I laugh a LOT, mostly at myself because I also believe that laughter frees the mind and heals the soul.

And now I want tacos. Thanks for that, haha.

What are your favorite and least favorite parts about being a writer?

My favorite part is getting all the people running around in my head out of my head and onto the page so I don’t go completely bonkers. My least favorite part is trying to translate what they are saying inside my head into words that other people with understand. Does that make sense? I mean, I love writing, but if I could just plug my brain into my laptop and download all the crap in there it would be so much easier.

Oh, you have no idea how much I agree with you about all of that. We need to invent the brain-to-computer tool for writers ASAP.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to other writers?

Have a thick skin. Like seriously, rhinoceros skin. Not everyone is going to love your work and that’s okay, not everyone HAS to love it. Some people say that you shouldn’t look at reviews, especially the bad ones. I say look at the bad review and see if there is anything you can learn from it, but don’t take what they say personally.

Do you prefer silence or to have music on when you’re writing? What kind?

That really all depends on what I’m writing. If I’m writing something serious I like to have silence, which is hard in my house. But if I’m writing a fight scene I like to have some really rocking music. 2Cellos are my “go-to” for fight scenes, they rock but I don’t have the distraction of lyrics because sometimes I find the lyrics of a song can take me out of the scene. However, writing the third book in the Divinity series, I listened almost exclusively to the Black Veil Brides album, Wretched and Divine. I found their lyrics to really match the tone of what I was writing and it really spoke to me in a way that it almost felt like that album was written as a soundtrack for the book.

How’d you get the idea for Divinity (Divinity series, Book 1)? How about for the series as a whole?

I know it sounds certifiable, but it all started as voices in my head. Not voices in the literal sense, but that’s the best way to describe it. Evie, the main character in Divinity, started niggling at me, poking my brain and demanding to be heard. That’s how my ideas start. There are always ideas rolling around in my head about one character or another and then one of them gets really loud and I have to, for lack of a better term, let them out. Evie started as a short story, just a little chapter to get her out, sometimes that’s all it takes to purge the “voice” from my head. But she wasn’t having that, she wouldn’t stop poking and prodding until I gave her a book of her own.

Characters love to do that!

Will there be more books in the Divinity series? 

There is a second book, Entity, which is out now and I’m working on the third and final book, Fidelity. Oh wow, I don’t think I’ve ever shared the title of that one yet.

Yay! I'm honored you shared that! Super excited!

And what are you working on right now?

Right now I’m working on Fidelity. I’ve written the bulk of it but I was going about it in a completely different way that I had with the other two. I didn’t have a formal outline this time, I just sort of sat down and wrote what came to me. It was quite freeing actually.

What genres do you write in? What have your experiences been like?

I’ve written in both historical romance with Cat O’ Nine Tails and in the urban fantasy/paranormal romance/new adult with the Divinity Series. The big difference, at least for me, is that Cat O’ Nine Tails is written in third person narrative where as the Divinity Series is written in first person. It’s a different mindset to write in third person than in first person. Naturally, you have a broader spectrum in the third person because you have an overview of everything that’s happening and that can be a smoother writing experience. First person can be challenging because you are only looking through one set of eyes, if something is happening and that person isn’t seeing it, you can’t use it so that can be tough. I’m not going to lie, there were times, especially when writing the second and third books in the Divinity Series that I thought to myself, why oh why did I start writing this in first person?

What was your favorite scene to write?

I absolutely love, love, LOVE writing a fight scene! There is something so cathartic about vanquishing a bad guy or just beating the crap out of them.

What scene gave you the most trouble?

Oh goodness, I think that would be one a scene in Entity, near the end that I can’t talk about because, you know, spoilers and stuff. I will say that I struggled like crazy trying to get that part out and I have no idea why, I just couldn’t get into the right mindset for it, not matter what I did. Then one night, I had taken my son to school across town and on the way home a song came on the radio and the scene came to me in a flood of emotion and imagery that I couldn’t get home fast enough to get it down. The emotion was so strong that I can’t even listen to that song anymore without bursting into tears like a weirdo.

That's awesome, though! Sometimes the best stuff comes out of the blue like that.

Where can we find you on the interwebs?

You can find me on the Facebooks in two places:

Author page: https://www.facebook.com/PatriciaLeever

Personal page: https://www.facebook.com/patty.leever

I’m on the Instagrams: https://instagram.com/pattyleever/

The Tweets: https://twitter.com/Patricia_Leever

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5051193.Patricia_Leever

And my website: http://patricialeever.com/

Where can we find your books?

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Patricia-Leever/e/B00AR0V0V6/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1433873277&sr=8-1

Simon and Schuster: http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Patricia-Leever/508720756

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/patricia-leever

Interview Time with Laurel Wanrow

Today we have one of my fellow Maryland Romance Writers, Laurel Wanrow! Her debut novel, The Unraveling, is out now!

Hi, Laurel! Congrats on your book birthday! Tell everyone about yourself.

I’ve always loved nature. Since my dad was a naturalist working for the National Park Service, I had lots of early exposure to outdoor recreation through volunteering at the parks, so that’s what I went into to. I met my husband in an astronomy club. He’s a geologist, so we share the same love of the outdoors. I worked at a variety of parks until well after I had kids. When they were small, I wrote a story about a kid avoiding poison ivy at summer camp, but put it aside when our basement flooded. I pulled it out while homeschooling my youngest, finished it and went on to write a novel, then several more… Clearly, I love writing. *Grins* We are still very much an outdoor family: hiking, camping, fossil hunting, gardening…

What are your favorite and least favorite parts about being a writer?

I love creating the worlds and figuring out my characters’ lives and problems, and of course the magic. The magic is really my favorite. For least favorite…things that take me away from writing, like the paperwork and scheduling.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to other writers?

Persevere. Early in my writing journey I heard Jo Ann Ferguson give a keynote speech during a Beau Monde mini-conference in San Francisco. Her quote from Galaxy Quest really has motivated me: ‘Never give up. Never surrender.’

That is a great quote. When you're writing, do you prefer silence or to have music on?

I’m a silence person, but my husband loves public radio with classical music. It is so much a part of our household, I often forget it’s on until the hourly newsbreaks.

How’d you get the idea for The Unraveling?

A dream, but also I’d recently read Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan series and Cassandra Clare’s The Infernal Devices series. So while working out what that girl in the dream was doing on a farm, I knew I had to make her story a steampunk. Because I’d not read any steampunk stories with rural settings, I could make all the ideas for the machinery my own!

Awesome! Steampunk fascinates me--you must have to have a good imagination to write it. And will The Unraveling be part of a series?

The Unraveling is actually part of a serialized novel—the complete story is called The Luminated Threads. It’s told in three parts, following the same characters, a proper city artist and the shapeshifter she comes to love, and the agricultural magnate who is determined to recruit them into his plans.

So there's lots more to look forward to! Yay! What are you working on right now?

Look at this gorgeous cover!

I’m finalizing the edits for The Twisting, Volume Two of The Luminated Threads. It releases this fall. For a short break at the start of June, I took a Master Plotting class taught by Cherry Adair and spent a weekend working on the outline of two stories in a futuristic duet…also with shapeshifters. J

What genres do you write in? What have your experiences been like? If you write in multiple genres, how is the experience different from one to another?

I write fantasy, but it never seems to be pure fantasy, the kind with a hero on a quest, running into elves, or trolls, rescuing a princess… My settings have that thread of magic, but also one of reality. I’ve used contemporary settings, some futuristic and this set of novels takes place in the past. Since my worlds aren’t completely made up, I always end up researching something. Luckily, I do love learning new things.

The Unraveling started out in a made-up land, but I so wanted the atmosphere to be the Victorian period. It came out English enough a plotting partner said it confused her it wasn’t the UK. With the help of a British friend, I selected Derby. I wrote happily away, looking up historical dress and food and transportation and…let’s be honest: I had to research a lot. The final things to trip me up were simple exclamations! Here’s one: Shoot. Sounds like something a lady might say instead of a real curse, right? Not until 1934. On the flip side, the expression bloody hell is very English and from the correct time period, yet it was considered a terribly extreme expression. So I used it once.

What was your favorite scene to write?

Ah, I don’t want to spoil anything, but this is a fun question! Annmar, the heroine, arrives at her last train station and runs into a bit of trouble with the stationmaster. She’s used to handling difficult clients and remains polite, yet she’s come all this way and doesn’t want to miss her connection. After a drawn-out series of questions that are getting her no closer to having a ticket in hand, it finally becomes clear the elderly man wants to ask a favor of her, a visiting artist, and she has to offer her services.

What scene gave you the most trouble?

Ohmygosh—the first scene! Always the first scene. I must write it a dozen times. I do write it almost first, and that seems to be my problem: I want to tell so many things, too many details, too many new terms. For The Unraveling, I originally had Annmar winding her way through Derby, including waiting for a steam trolley to pass. Then the mechanical feature became a walking carriage that she stops to draw. Finally, I just got her to the steam factory…and new readers complained there wasn’t enough setting. I believe the final-final opening scene has a good mix of setting, machines and Annmar’s dilemma.

Where can we find you on the interwebs?

Website: https://laurelwanrow.wordpress.com/

 (Also gets there with just www.laurelwanrow.com  )

To be notified of new releases sign up for Laurel's Newsletter

 (actual link is: http://eepurl.com/17xRH  )

Twitter:  @laurelwanrow : https://twitter.com/laurelwanrow

Author Facebook Page: Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/laurelwanrowauthor

Goodreads: Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/laurelwanrow

Pinterest: Pinterest  : https://www.pinterest.com/laurelwanrow/

Amazon Author central: https://www.amazon.com/author/laurelwanrow

Where can we find your books?

The Unraveling will be on sale for .99 through June 30^th, at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00XGY8QIK

And the trade paperback, 360 pages, is available at Createspace (link still needed but definitely should have in a week!)

 Laurel Wanrow loves misty mornings, the smell of freshly dug earth, petting long-haired guinea pigs and staring at the stars. She sees magic in nature and loves to photograph it.

Before kids, she studied and worked as a naturalist—someone who leads wildflower and other nature walks. During a stint of homeschooling, she turned her writing skills to fiction to share her love of the land, magical characters and fantastical settings.

When not living in her fantasy worlds, Laurel camps, hunts fossils and argues with her husband and two new adult kids over whose turn it is to clean house. Though they live on the East Coast, a cherished family cabin in the Colorado Rockies holds Laurel’s heart.

Visit her online at www.laurelwanrow.com.

Thank you so much for stopping by, Laurel! 

xoxo Sarah

Interview Time with Killian McRae

Hey, everyone! I had the privilege of interviewing another great author--today we have Killian McRae!  

Enjoy!

Hello, my dear! We've known each other for a few years now, but please tell these lovely readers about yourself.

5’6”. Scorpio. I’m that eclectic/artsy/poetry-loving girl you knew in high school. 
:-) Now I write books.

What are your favorite and least favorite parts about being a writer?

It’s the same thing on both sides: inspiration. It’s such a feast-or-famine creature. Either your well is completely dry and everything seems impossible, or your well runneth over and you start having to make personal hygiene-choices in lieu of finding time to write them down.

I can completely identify with that--it's very all or nothing, and when it's "all", the yoga pants go on for days at a time. 

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to other writers?

Forgive yourself. You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to piss some people off. You’re going to have become a ninja in the art of no. Like the pursuit of any dream, you’re going to have to pay your dues and you’re going to have to make tough choices and sacrifices to feed your art. There will be guilt, both coming from outside sources, and from within. If this is something you’re dedicated to doing, learn to forgive where you fail to please everyone and, most importantly, where you fail to please yourself.

That's great advice! So many people beat themselves up over failures, but failure in anything is inevitable and always passes.  

When you're writing, do you prefer silence or to have music on? What kind?

I prefer to have on music, but if there’s singing involved, it has to be in a language I can’t understand. Otherwise my concentration gets syphons away by the lyrics. I have different genre preferences based on what genre I’m writing. Contemporary romance = jazz. Science Fiction or fantasy = new age or world music (Yasmin Levy is a favorite the last few years). Historical=baroque.  

You're very much setting the mood in your stories with your music--that makes sense!

A Love by any Measure's gorgeous
new cover!

I love reading historical fiction and thoroughly enjoyed A Love by Any Measure. How difficult was it to write in order to capture Ireland and the feel for the time period?

Dialog was the most challenging. I reread some fiction of that period (Tennant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte; A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens) to remind myself of the rhythms of speech in those times. Capturing Ireland, which I’ve been told by natives, was a fluke. I had never been there when I wrote ALBAM, and still haven’t been (other than the Dublin airport for about two hours). I’m lucky that I grew up in an area that was settled by many Irish immigrants, partially because its topography and climate is similar. When I was writing of Ireland, I was thinking of home.

How’d you get the idea for your Pure Souls series?

Honestly, it all exploded into being from that very first line: A witch, a priest and a demigod walk into a bar. I had aspects of Marc in my head for some time. A wiccan catholic priest who fights against demons with magic and is a smart ass to boot? Who wouldn’t want to write about that?

Very true! And will there be more coming along for the Pure Souls series…inquiring minds want to know! 

There are at least two more installments coming in the series, but I don’t know in what order. It depends how much writing I get done this summer. :-) One will be out for Christmas, though. It’s actually a prequel novella about Jerry and Riona’s relationship the first time around, when Jerry was sent by Lucifer to be a spy and Riona had no idea of her destiny to be a Pure Soul. The other book, The Devil You Know, will finish off the series, and is more focused on Marc.

Sweet! I know the readers will be excited. What are you working on right now?

Time hasn’t changed me. I’m still a gal that likes to have a few projects up and running at once. I’m mostly finished now with The Guardian, which is a sequel to my first book ever, 12.21.12: The Vessel. I’m also working on the Jerry-Riona novella and another project I’m not yet ready to discuss in public, but fans of the Pure Souls will probably like it.

You write in a few different genres. What have your experiences been like writing in such a variety?  How is the experience different from one to another?

I’ve always had an eclectic personality, and this shakes out in my writing too. I’m naturally a smart ass, and I really get to draw on that when writing books like those in the Pure Souls series. But I’m also a huge fan of history and speculation, so when I approach historicals and SFF, my voice becomes much more serious. Romance is the hardest for me, as I’m not a big believer in love, but still long for it, in a stupid, womany way.

What was your favorite scene to write in any of your books?

The Thanksgiving scene in Once You Go Demon, because it was just so rife with humor. Half the people at the table were drunk, half of the people at the table had a deep dark secret ready to be exposed, and it was just a ticking time bomb of awkwardness and revelations with a comedic twist.

Those kinds of scenes are always fun to write! On the other hand, what scene gave you the most trouble?

Snapped included several scenes that left me emotionally drained, but I guess that’s to be expected in a book where the hero and heroine both were sexually abused as minors.

That must have been very difficult to channel.

Where can we find you on the interwebs? 

 I’m mainly found at my website, but I’m also pretty active on Facebook (www.facebook.com/AuthorKillianMcRae), Twitter (www.twitter.com/killianmcrae), and Instagram (www.instragram.com/killianmcrae). I don’t use Goodreads too much as an author, but I do use it as a reader. You can find my reader profile here: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4389465.Killian_McRae. If you’re into audiobooks, check out my audiobooks review podcast, Audific: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/audific-audiobook-reviews/id989659360?mt=2.

Where can we find your books? 

The availability of my titles varies across sites, but you can find me on:

Amazon           www.tinyurl.com/KillianOnAmazon

BN                  www.tinyurl.com/KillianOnBN

iBookstore       www.tinyurl.com/KillianOnApple

Smashwords    www.tinyurl.com/KillianOnSmashwords

Yay! Thank you for letting me interview you, Killian! 

xoxo Sarah

Awesome Writing in Media, Pt.6: Mad Max: Fury Road

No, I haven't lost my mind, and I haven't been abducted by pod people. A Tomatometer score of freaking 98% fresh can't be wrong. Just trust me on this.

So, full disclosure, I haven't seen any of the previous Mad Max films. I've heard that they're good; hubs has seen them and enjoyed them, but I never had the chance to. Nothing against the movies--it's one of those things where the occasion to watch one never really came up (or there was something else I'd rather watch on). But I love a good action movie as my lucky husband can attest, though, to be fair, I'm game to watch pretty much anything. It's him who doesn't want to watch Sharknado...

The previews for Mad Max: Fury Road all looked as good as any summer popcorn blockbuster could--explosions, ridiculous vehicles, vibrant settings, lots of intense staring. Hubs and I agreed that it was one of the ones we'd see this summer (besides any Marvel outputs) that was an absolute must to view on the big screen.

Sorry, Pitch Perfect 2...you'll have to wait for Netflix.

Hey, stop throwing fruit--I loved Pitch Perfect (the first one), but you really can't argue that it's a must-see for a giant screen. It comes across as good on our television as in the theater. I'll see the second one, don't worry...keep your shorts on.

Anyway, a quick scan of the Internet with the husband's help caught me up on the Mad Max mythology, though it must be said (by me here, and by many others on the web) that you don't need to know much at all, if anything, about the previous movies and the timeline. Fury Road stands on its own, no Googling required, and isn't hard to follow.

In my effort to keep the majority of the posts under the Awesome Writing in Media tag spoiler-free, I do want to concentrate on why I chose this movie to appear in the series.

The writing (Fury Road was directed, produced, and co-written by the creator of the whole damn thing, George Miller), is a prime example of what editors (and writers) always tell you is best: showing, not telling. The dialogue is minimal--there are grunts and noises and spoken words, but actual conversations between characters is rare. Instead, we're treated to a talented group of expressive actors (and let's not forget the stunt people) showing us what is going on.

And show they do.

We don't hear Charlize Theron's Imperator Furiosa telling us that she's devastated about a new piece of information she's learned (sorry, I did promise no spoilers); instead we see her fall to her knees, face and body racked with emotion.

We don't hear Imperator Furiosa say what she intends to do, or why she's gone off track with her war rig; instead the reason is told to the audience through exposition.

We don't hear the reason Mad Max is, well, mad; instead we see the horrifying images that haunt him through violent, detailed flashes.

Mad Max: Fury Road is the best example I've seen in a long time of minimalism, at least in actual dialogue and writing. Now, that's not to say that there's no plot; that couldn't be further from the truth. The plot is heavy and driving, very like one of the intimidating vehicles seen on screen. The whole thing is a spectacle, and one of the most satisfying movies I've watched in a while.

It's a testament to George Miller's skill and vision that this movie (which, from what I understand, had quite a few bumps along the way to getting made) is as amazing as it is.

Have you seen Mad Max: Fury Road? What did you think?

xoxo Sarah