The summer’s not over yet and there are still events where you can see me and get my books.

This coming weekend, I’ll be at the Psychic and Paranormal Gathering at the Holiday Inn Southwest in Louisville, KY.

And then, coming Labor Day weekend, I’ll be in the “paranormal track” at Dragon*Con in Atlanta:

Or check out The Knight Agency’s website at: http://www.knightagency.net/dragoncon.html

Hope to see you!

Hugs,
Marley = )

Reporting in from the Ohio Paranormal Conference here in Dayton, OH.  I spoke this morning to a full room and had a great crowd asking about writing, the paranormal, and my travel adventures.

Last night, we investigated Mansfield Reformatory and got some very interesting evidence.  Most exciting was an EVP in a closet int he Warden’s quarters where his wife accidentally died from a gunshot wound.  As I say, “I’m going into the closet,” a woman’s voice says, “Hellllllllo there!”  Pretty cool.

Mansfield has been closed since 1972 and the last prisoner was transferred in 1990, but you can still get a very clear sense of what life must have been like for the inmates. Their cells were tiny (like work cubicles!) and the inside of the cell blocks resembled what a fifty-year sunken cruise ship might look like at the bottom of the sea.

Have you ever been to Mansfield? What did you think?

Long car rides are usually good for some people to catch up on a good book they’ve been wanting to read.  For me, it’s catching up on writing a good book I’ve been wanting to write.

For the past two days, I’ve writing almost 14,000 words of my Secret Writing Project and I just love it.  I love the story, the setting, the situation, and the characters, which is good.  If I don’t love the story, how do I expect an editor or readers to love it.

People ask me “how do you write,” and the answer is very simple:  I just do it.

Let me repeat.  Just.  Do.  It.

If you have that story that’s been burning inside of you and your dream is to be a published author, it will never happy if you don’t write.  Get it out of your head and into the computer…or onto paper, if you’re old-fashioned.  LOL!  But write it.  You never know if it’s good or not if you don’t try.

So, I’ll go back to finishing the synopsis for the Secret Writing Project and then get it out to my agent.  Wish me luck…and hopefully you’ll be reading the book in the years to come!

Hugs,
Marley = )

Okay…since I’m traveling so much and writing so much, it’s hard to find the time to read everything I want to read.  When I do sit down, I want to be totally enveloped in the story, swept away, and not go to sleep until I finish.

My good friend, Heather Davis, did that to me with her book, THE CLEARING. 

A fellow writer at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Heather really knocked my socks off with the fresh, original, time-travel romance that had me crying at the end.  I’ve been telling everyone I know about this book! 

So, I asked Heather if she’d join me for an interview to talk about THE CLEARING.  Welcome my friend, Heather…

MARLEY:  Hey hon!  Thanks for being here.  As you know, I totally loved your book.  How did you come up with the idea/premise for THE CLEARING?

HEATHER:  I used to live in a small rural town in the North Cascades.  At the back of my neighbor’s field was a red barn, which I could see from my writing desk.  Some days the mist would get so thick on the field that the barn would disappear.  It got me wondering what was really on the other side of the mist… and Henry Briggs came walking out – a boy stuck in the endless summer of 1944.

MARLEY:  How did you research the book?

HEATHER:  I read some books on the WWII experience – the best of which was a book about army nurses.  I also checked out period films, including The Best Years of Our Lives, a film about returning WWII GIs.  In working on WWII, I checked in with military protocol with an expert in the writing community, and I also spent a lot of time talking to the elders in my family about their lives during the war.  It was fascinating to hear their stories of sacrifice and survival during those tough, emotional times.

MARLEY:  What do you think is the most distinctive element of your voice in your books?

HEATHER:  I think in The Clearing, I was learning more about writing in Third Person, with my telling of Henry’s story.  It was more about the poetry of description and the way he would have seen the world than about my own voice.  In both of my books so far, I like to think that I have a “storyteller’s” voice and that I want to wrap my readers into the world I am creating, whether it’s fantastical or realistic.

MARLEY:  What do you think is the most challenging part of writing? 

HEATHER:  A challenging part of writing is holding all the threads of the story in your mind and fighting through the “messy middle” — keeping the end in mind and trudging forward word by word.  My favorite part of writing is actually revising!  Drafting a new story is very hard, slow work for me.

 MARLEY:  What did you want to be when you “grew up”?  Was writing always part of the “dream?”

MARLEY:  Awww…you’re the best.  What’s your favorite places to visit?  Any upcoming trips?

HEATHER:  I did a lot of traveling in college and lately I’m getting into it again.  I love, love, love Hawaii.  I want to go back to Paris someday soon.  I have dreams of visiting the Greek Isles and also Italy.  I will go anywhere with great food.

HEATHER:  Hmm, I don’t think anything’s crazy in the name of researching books.  I’ve written to FBI experts, food scientists, studied rock climbing online, visited cemetaries — when you need information, you can find it in unusual places.

MARLEY:  In THE CLEARING, your character travels through a mist into the WWII era.  If you were to come upon a similar time traveling mist, where would you want to go?  What time period?  And why?

HEATHER:  I think I would choose the period between the wars – maybe Paris in the late 20s to early 1930s.  I would love to hang out with the literati at Shakespeare and Company in Paris – you know, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, etc…  I wouldn’t say anything, I’d just absorb.

I just got a package in the mail with my copy edits for the fifth book in my GHOST HUNTRESS series – THE DISCOVERY.

It’s always great getting feedback from my amazing editor and my copy editor. Both women know my characters almost better than I do and their suggestions always make the story stronger.

People have asked me about the process involved after you sell your book. It’s pretty straight forward, but here it is in a nutshell:

1. Turn the completed manuscript in to your editor.
2. Your editor will read the manuscript and more than likely offer suggestions on inconsistencies, things that aren’t clear, word usage that doesn’t sound like your characters, plot holes, etc.
3. Then you have a revision period where you can clean up and “fix” any problems the editor had overall.
4. After you turn the revisions back in (and depending if there are more revisions), the editor will then turn the manuscript over to the copy editor whose job it is to go over the story with a fine tooth comb for typos, grammatical errors, fact checking, and most of all punctuation and how it actually looks on the page. I am blessed to have had the same person copy edit all five of the GHOST HUNTRESS books and she is excellent at catching things.
5. Once the copy edits are in, the manuscript is then set into its print format and you will be sent a copy of the galley. The galley is the actual way the book will look when it’s printed out. You need to carefully review the galley for any mistakes as this is the last time you’ll be able to change things.
6. Then, you wait for the ARCs to show up! The ARC is an Advanced Reader Copy that goes out to reviewers, librarians, the media, etc., to drum up support for the book.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to email me!

Hugs,
Marley = )