Recently, I've had the privilege of reading another self-published author. Her name is Holly Christine. From what I can see, she does not get blocked. She came out with three titles in the past two years. Her titles include The Nine Lives of Clemenza, which is a journey of one soul through nine lives, Retail Ready, a chronicle of one hellish work week at a bank, and finally Tuesday Tells it Slant. It's a very interesting story involving journal entries of the main character. It brings a lot of realism to the character and, quite honestly, I felt a little guilty reading it at times because I felt that I was invading someone's privacy. It has it's laughs as well as its dramas and all are appropriately placed. There's one scene, one of my favorites where Tuesday, the main character, is having a really bad day with an alarm clock. I won't give too much away. I'll just let Holly Christine tell you about the book herself.
Take it away, Holly:
For as long as I can remember, I have loved to tell stories. I always amped up tales from school a bit. Okay, quite a bit. A student walked into my class when I was six with a broken arm and I had never seen anyone in such a state. My teacher simply stated that so and so broke his arm, but I needed to know how. Where did he go to get such a thing on his arm? The conversation would take place at home after I had crafted the story. A car hit him, because everyone knows that you can’t cross the road without an adult, and he got the cast in the hospital. It made perfect sense in my six-year-old head.
The writing process for me is exceedingly disheveled and alarming. I start with an idea. For Tuesday Tells it Slant that idea was a girl rewriting her history. I let the idea fester until the right narrative voice reveals itself and then I stock up on coffee and write until my fingers refuse to go back to the keyboard.
Some writers outline before. I outline in reverse. Once I get to a point where I know the story has to wrap up, I print (in all its complexity) and outline the plot, emotions and tensions that I have created up to that point. This helps with the ending and ensures that I don’t leave any loose threads dangling from the sweater that I just spent days/months creating.
With Tuesday Tells it Slant, I was dealing with the creation of old diary entries, which was a task in itself. I had to revert back to my own diaries that I had kept throughout my life to mimic the diary of an eight year old and show her growth both through narration and journaling. I learned a great deal about myself during this process. I was a bit of a gossip queen and incredibly boy crazy.
In all, TTiS is much more commercial than anything I have written and published so far and really speaks to my generation: changing careers, unsure of a path in life and technologically social. It’s available in paperback and for Kindle now at Amazon.
For those interested in writing, the best advice I can offer is to write. Write daily and join a local writers group. If you can’t find one, start your own! The library is a great place to meet like-minded people.
Thank you for the opportunity and happy writings!
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